healthy

As I wandered around a bookstore waiting for a flight to Paris for work, I couldn’t believe my good fortune in discovering the biography of Julia Childs entitled, Dearie, by Bob Spitz. Julia Childs, one of the first celebrity chefs, has many fabulous and notable quotes. I include a few of them in my new book, Eat.Q. I mention Julia in the chapter about how to successfully navigate pleasure eating. For many of us, eating tasty, mouthwatering food is the hardest thing to do without ridiculously overeating (see chapter 5). From reading her biography, I learned something fascinating. Julia seemed to have a unique knack for eating mindfully.

If you read this book, beware! About p. 119, you may just start to salivate. All the talk about cheese soufflés, mushroom omelets, béchamel sauce, beef bourguignon (and so much more!) can make a person pretty hungry.

Here are 4 reflections on her biography from a kindred soul who also loves and appreciates eating exceptional food in a mindful way.

1) Cooking Can Be a Learned Skill—Thankfully! My clients often throw up their hands and say, “But I don’t know how to cook,” when we discuss the many ways in which cooking at home can help you to be a more mindful eater and manage your weight/health. Julia was a good example of the fact that you don’t have to be born with a whisk in your hand to be a good cook. She admits many times to being clueless in the kitchen prior to her marriage. For her, it was practice, practice, practice. She went to school to learn how to cook a long time before she ever taught anyone else. When she was trying to perfect a recipe, she would try it out many, many times. In fact, it took over a year and 284 pounds of flour to develop one bread recipe.

Julia Child’s Quote: “I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”

2) Food+Relationship Dynamic. I was enthralled and captivated by the romantic connection between Julia, her husband and food. Their love of food and her desire to connect with him around it was a passionate part of their relationship. Who hasn’t been there? We woo our partners with food. Think for a minute about the roll food plays in your own relationships. I discuss social eating and the sneaky impact of those around you on the way you eat in Eat.Q (chapter six).

Julie Child’s Quote: I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give.

3) The Turning Point Meal. I paused at p. 172. Although Julia doesn’t mention the words “mindful eating,” the description of her reaction to eating oysters in Paris for the first time was in lock step with the concept. Initially, when she arrived in Paris, she stuck to two familiar meals. Then, one night she ordered something new. The book said, “it was like somebody had shown her what it really meant to eat, not simply to fill her stomach with food, but—to eat, to savor each glorious mouthful with gusto.” It was a turning point meal that made her appreciate food in a new way. Maybe you can think of your own “turning point meal.” This would be a meal that made you savor the food, not just eat it.

Julia Child’s Quote: “Everything in moderation…including moderation.”

4) Just Eat Mindfully. There is lots of talk of food but thankfully no mention of weight obsession until p. 461 (yes, this is a long book—557 pages!). Around 1989, Julia indicated that the “food police” came out. She stated that suddenly, “butter, cream, veal, sugar, marrow, potatoes and fat,” became, “the seven dirty words you can’t say on television.” She wondered, “what happened to good old moderation.” (p. 461). This makes sense. Mindful eaters have learned how to gauge their eating, even of good food, without obsessing over calories or even hopping on a scale. It’s interesting to ponder why Julia began to notice a dramatic shift in the anxiety over the way we eat in the 1980’s.

Julia Child’s Quote: As we say in the American Institute of Wine and Food, small helpings, no seconds. A little bit of everything. No snacking. And have a good time.

Julia Childs seemed to be another example of the age old saying, “Do what you love and the rest will follow.” Her exact words were, “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”

As readers of Zest for Life know, rare is the recipe of mine that doesn’t start with a chopped onion sautéed in olive oil with some minced garlic. Once the onion is translucent I’ll add tomatoes, thyme and bay leaf, cook it another 15 minutes and there you have it: Spanish sofrito.

If, instead of tomatoes, you add finely chopped carrots and celery, you get soffritto (spelled with two f’s and two t’s), Italy’s answer to sofrito. In France this mixture—often cooked in butter, rather than olive oil—is called mirepoix, and it forms the backbone of all stews, soups, stocks and sauces. As you can see, sof(f)rit(t)o is as Mediterranean as it gets!

I have been using sofrito as my culinary starting point for as long as I can remember, partly because my mother and grandmother did so, and partly because I know that this mixture, lightly salted and patiently stirred over medium heat until fragrant and al dente, imparts marvelous flavors to dishes in the way that stock cubes, salt and pepper just can’t.

I didn’t realize, however, that sof(f)rito also has proven medicinal benefits. That is, until I read about a new study into the health-giving properties of this humble but tasty concoction.

In a study (1) published in the journal Food Chemistry, researchers at the University of Barcelona and the CIBERobn network in Spain identified at least 40 different polyphenols and carotenoids—compounds with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties—in sofrito by using a high-resolution mass spectrometry technique.

They found that the combination of tomato, olive oil, garlic and onion in sofrito increases the amount of bioactive compounds that help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. The bioactive compounds they found in sofrito included polyphenols, carotenoids and vitamin C. Various studies have shown that the intake of carotenoids such as lycopene lowers the risk of prostate cancer, and the consumption of foods rich in beta-carotene may help reduce the incidence of lung cancer.

Incidentally, the researchers recommended using virgin olive oil, rather than sunflower oil, to prepare sofrito; indeed, they found that recipes where olive oil made up 10% of the dish had particularly beneficial properties.

All this is music to my ears. Not only because it highlights that nutritional health does not require expensive supplements and rarefied “super-foods,” but can be found in simple but oh-so-flavorsome vegetable combinations rustled up in a simple skillet.

This study also echoes my favorite Mediterranean-diet mantra of “nutrient synergy,” i.e. that it is the combination of a wide range of seasonal vegetables that you can buy at any supermarket which supports our health. Nutrient synergies—where compounds in one food reinforce the beneficial effects of nutrients in another food—abound in multi-ingredient preparations such as sof(f)rito.

Tag: healthy

Eating Fabulous Food Without Going Overboard

So Simple, So Tasty, So Healthy: Sofrito