Real Food Has Curves: How to Get off Processed Food, Lose Weight, and Love What You Eat by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

This book was very well-researched and went beyond just the basic "eat more veggies" and "high fructose corn syrup is bad" platitudes. Yes, those things are said in here, but there's much more to it.

Somehow Americans have lost their way when it comes to the food we put in our bodies. We've prioritized speed and convenience over nutrition and pleasure. Not only that, but we've fooled ourselves into thinking those convenience items taste good, when they really have very little complexity and are just pumped full of preservatives, salt, or sweeteners. To quote the book, we excessively eat these things "not [because] we love food too much. It's [because] we love food too little."

But this generalization is backed up with experience and research. The very first chapter talks about creating a "bolus" in our mouths when we eat. A bolus is simply the wad of chewed up food in our mouths right before we swallow. Food corporations have figured out how to develop food that creates a bolus quickly and effortlessly. The reason for this is:

1) to get us sated before we realized the flavors in our food were absurdly elementary

2) to get us full with minimal effort

3) to get us in and out of a restaurant's door as quickly as possible.

The sub heading under this list is titled "The Chewless Society." It goes on to talk about how our jaws have devolved from our lack of chewing. But the research indicates that "people who chew more eat less. Chewing means more time at the table. And people who spend more time at the table tend to consume fewer calories than those who don't."

This book gives you a step-by-step process of how to rid yourself of those processed food and actually enjoy eating. The real food recipes that are included in this book are not rabbit food. One of the first recipes to introduce us to REAL food is a home-made chocolate pudding. The authors of this book ask you to try the fake stuff out of the box and then compare it to the real stuff. Along with chocolate pudding, some of the other mouth-watering recipes included are: walnut-date scones, the perfect salad (that includes BACON and a poached egg), red pepper hummus, cheese toasts with pears, minestrone burgers, spaghetti with sausage, carrots, and frisee, and many more!

So do yourself a favor: if you find your meals more often coming out of a box, a jar, a can, or the freezer rather than the produce, meat, or dairy section, then it's time to read this book.



Real Food Has Curves: How to Get Off Processed Food, Lose Weight, and Love What You Eat by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough
First Published: May 2010
Pages: 256
Audience: Adult
Genre: Nonfiction