the view from Dad’s kitchen

Alice Waters

I hope that everyone knows and admires Alice Waters like I do for her contributions to healthy eating. But in case you’re not clued up, let me enlighten you.

Way back in 1974, my future brother-in-law—a undergrad at Cal Berkeley—took me to Chez Panisse for lunch. It had been open about three years at that point, but I knew or cared nothing about healthy eating then and don’t remember that Alice Waters’ name ever came up. All I knew was that I had the best salad I’d ever tasted. Now, for me, growing up in suburban Chicago, I only knew that a “California burger” meant it had lettuce and tomato on it. How pathetic was that? Little did I know that in lunching at Chez Panisse, I was eating at what will go down in history as one of the great restaurants.

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Doing Keto Defined

This is the simple definition. Keto is an eating hack. By this, I mean it’s something you do to finesse weight loss. It’s not a program you sign up for or pay a subscription fee to. It’s not just another diet that somebody else thought up to take your money. It’s not something you suffer through in order to lose a few pounds that you have it on past experience will show up again later.

Keto is shorthand for choosing ketosis-encouraging food to eat and other food to avoid eating. It’s totally under your control and like I said, it’s an eating hack or body hack. You make choices and your body responds because it has to. No options.

We’ve lost a lot of pounds doing Keto over the past 5+ years and think we understand the mechanics of cooking and eating Keto pretty well. Here, I take a closer look at how eating Keto works to help you create your own approach to Keto.

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The National Eating Disorder

DadsRecipeBox got its start when I decided to pass along family-favorite recipes so the kids could make those same dishes in their own kitchens some day. I also shared home-cooking tips I’d learned since stepping up my cooking activity what with The Queen building her home-based business.

About that time, I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and I suddenly had a larger mission. We were in the throes of a “national eating disorder” perpetuated by systemic issues around how we get our food, from the farm all the way to the table. Our family-favorite dishes might be hurting us and our families. I needed to write about this.

From that time until now, DadsRecipeBox has shared info and ideas around three interests: family-favorite recipes, cooking tips from one home cook to another, and the larger world of the food system and its impact on our lives.

Now that a day-job is no longer a distraction, I am diving in to DadsRecipeBox with renewed purpose. I will publish 2-3 posts per week exploring three themes: recipes, home cooking, the food system. I will also produce a book provisionally called Dad Versus the Food System and other, more typical cook books emphasizing healthy cooking and eating. This scratches my publishing itch (see TouchwoodPress.com) while taking up Michael Pollan’s challenge to examine and act on our national eating disorder.

Hope you can join us for the ride.

Keto re-re-boot

a person catching a pack of keto bread on air

Yes, we are deep into a Keto diet for the third time. It’s working again, and we have new insights to share. Why did we stray? The pandemic and other priorities like bread-baking, dessert experiments, and new restaurant explorations got us off-track. Sound familiar?

But here we are back on Keto and doing very well, thank you. I’m already ten pounds into a thirty-pounds-by-Thanksgiving goal!

A lot has changed in Keto-land since our last campaign back in 2019. Mostly, there are many new Keto-friendly food products available at major and minor grocery stores and online. Many restaurants have Keto options or at least don’t look strangely at you when you explain you’re on a low-carb diet. We’ll review some of the best here.

We still really like DietDoctor.com for all the basic Keto scoop and a ton of recipes and meal plans. But there are many other sources for Keto recipes and ingredients. And on the food front, much is happening that Keto-istas will find interesting and useful.

We feel like Keto, under strict control, will be our lifestyle and not just another diet from here on.

Think we’re just kidding ourselves? Well, stick around through the Holidays and find out!

Cheers, Dad

Food and our health

For some, food is a means to instant gratification and not much more. But food on a personal level is mostly about health. Garbage in, garbage our, as they say.

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Press reset

agriculture countryside crop cropland

“Suddenly, saving our planet is within reach.”

— David Attenborough

We have just watched the brand new David Attenborough “witness statement” documentary on Netflix—his review and analysis of a life spent observing nature over 70+ years. We are greatly moved by his conclusions and recommendations, which add so much to our understanding of how we should be doing food.

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Army grub

I have been trying to think of even one meal or dish I had in any Army mess hall that I would call memorable. Can’t do it. You know, make a connection—here on Veteran’s Day—between my Army service and my efforts here at DRB. It’s just not happening.

However, that won’t stop me from remembering and honoring all the vets I served with and all the others I didn’t. What you did is much appreciated this day and every day.

My mom used to bake cakes to take to the USO during WWII. My uncle died in Belgium in January ’45. I had it easy, spending my three years with the Old Guard at Ft. Myer, VA.

I was an Army photographer, so I never got behind the counter in a mess hall—except—for the five consecutive 14-hour days I spent on K.P. while in A.I.T. This was so we would not have to pull K.P again during our training. And we didn’t. But those five days taught more then I wanted to know about peeling potatoes and cleaning ovens—with the best steel wool and lemon juice the Army had to offer.

So, whether your service was in a jungle or desert, or behind a stove or camera, or just waiting patiently at home, you are honored today. Take a moment and think about what a great military and military tradition we have.

The food revolution at scale

Any kind of new business, venture, cause, or movement eventually asks, “How do operate our solution at scale?” In other words, When new orders increase by a factor of 10, then 100, then 1,000, etc., how do we maintain our delivery promise, our ability to look and feel like we did when we were small and fresh?

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Keto reboot

Lose 50; gain 15; lose 20; g-o-o-o-a-l!

For me personally, the very best thing about Keto has been acquiring the knowledge and skill to actually manage my weight. Here’s what I mean.

For 30 years or so, since I started being concerned about my weight, I tried this diet and that diet with varying results. Lose 30; gain it back; lose 20; gain it back…etc. Sound familiar? I realize now that the main reason I gained it back was that the diet got boring, or most often, it left me too hungry, too many times. I slipped into the “oh, what can be wrong with just one donut” loop. One donut once a month became two donuts twice a week, then “Oops, how did I manage to gain back all that weight?”

On Keto, however, since fat is filling and Keto recipes are everywhere involving just about everything, except sugar and grains, I don’t suffer the same sense of loss that other diets inevitably bring on. Just one guy’s experience.

But back to management. What I mean is that for the first time, Keto gives me a sense of being in control and under control. Have a carby weekend? Back to Keto on Monday and back to my pre-carby weight. Without the sense of suffering.

Now, over time, bad habits die hard. So, I did gain back 15 pounds over a year, compromising my Keto-ness too often. But now we’re all-in again and enjoying some Keto recipes we haven’t tried before. Down a pound-and-a -half in three days! Watch this space.

Keto forever?

Unlike the other weight-loss programs we’ve tried over the years, “Keto” should be considered a fundamental change in how we choose to eat…forever. Eating Keto is a new way to eat for people who don’t want to be fat anymore, like me. A Keto diet is also, based on my experience, a way to gain other health benefits: reduced inflammation and associated body aches and pains, better cholesterol readings, and lower blood pressure. I’m not saying that changing the way I eat has been easy. And I’ve decided it’s not required that I eat fewer than 20, or 30 or 50 net carbs per day forever. Just that I mostly eat Keto and manage my cravings so that my total food intake is much less than before. After all, for anyone who wants to lose weight, the starting point is eating less.

Here’s one view on why Keto is natural, healthy and safe for a lifetime:

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