Revolutionary Health Diet Advice

Today as I was eating my breakfast, apple and fresh ginger in goat yogurt, I turned on the television and found myself watching a morning "health" show.

A woman in her late forties asked a doctor how to improve the health and weight of her family. She said that they, her children and herself, were always tired. The first thing the doctor asked was what they ate for breakfast.

"Sweetened coffee and cake."

The doctor replied that all that sugar has to go. They need to have something fatty in the morning, like real cream or coconut cream in their coffee, a slice of avocado, nuts, etc. He told them that he, too, has been working hard to remove sugar from his diet. Natural fats are healthy, much healthier than all of the sugar most people eat, whether added to coffee or within all sorts of prepared foods.

The doctor also said that he keeps a supply of nuts with him for quick energizing snacks. This all jives with what I've been hearing for years and suits my conclusions about which sort of diet works best. Anyone who carefully reads the ingredients of all the low-fat reduced fat foods comparing them to the full-fat varieties will discover that the fat is replaced by sugars and salts. That makes the low-fat reduced fat foods extremely unhealthy, much worse for us than the natural fat originals.

What's your experience with this sort of eating?

Perfect Avocado

Avocados are rarely this perfect. OK, maybe I should say that it's rare to time the eating of an avocado when it's as perfect as this one. If you're a day early or a day late, it's either too hard or getting black and mushy. So, when I opened this avocado I was totally spellbound by the perfect, perfectly ripe and not a drop to be cut away.

It was so gorgeous that I "cheated" and had a slice, enjoying it even more than I would a piece of chocolate or slice of rich cheesecake. Cheesecake and chocolate are good comparisons, since calorie-wise they compete for sure. But an occasional piece of avocado in season is very healthy. And if one is vegetarian or vegan, then avocado in season is the perfect source of healthy fats, which help absorb nutrients . It doesn't have much protein, but it is great with lentils and sprouts combining into a delicious and healthy dish.

Gd willing you, too, will find the perfect avocado, and when you do, don't wait.

EAT IT!

Simple Avocado Salad

The other day, I grabbed an avocado to take with me for lunch. OK, that is a pretty dumb thing to do, since avocados are awfully messy. That's not a problem when you're home, since avocados make great face (and no doubt neck) cream. So, it's no surprise that I didn't have lunch when I was out. But the minute I got in I quickly assembled a nice colorful salad with the avocado, a tomato and a mushroom.

I love the colors. And I also like how it looks on the newspaper. I was getting tired of photographing food on the same tablecloths all the time. On black and white the colors of the tomato and avocado really stand out. Yes, that's how red and yummy the tomato was, and you can see that the avocado was also perfectly ripe and ready to be eaten.

This salad took me just a couple of minutes to prepare and not much more to eat it.

The SEASON!

There are all sorts of foods we eat here in Israel, which we had never even heard of when we lived in New York. Two of them were our "First Course" this Shabbat morning.

They both begin with "A," and neither is an "apple."

Artichoke dipped in avocado. Sorry, but there's no picture of my simple avocado salad.

Take a ripe avocado, and mash it with a bit of mayonnaise, chopped onion, some garlic and olive oil. Yes, that's it.

And the artichoke* is also very easy to make.

All you have to do, after soaking and rinsing to try to make sure nothing's lurking in the leaves/petals, is to boil (add peppercorns and lemon to the water) it until the leaves are easy to pull out.

How do you eat it? Well, pull out each leaf and dip the "fleshy part" in "something." That something can be olive oil, avocado salad, mayonnaise, t'china, whatever or nothing. When the leaves are gone, you'll have its "heart," plus the "hair." Pull out the hair and eat the heart, stuffed if you want.

*They are like giant asparagus.