Maybe We Should Think About Eating More, Not Less

We spend an awful lot of time talking about what we shouldn't eat. Too much sugar. Too much fat. Too many carbohydrates. Too many calories. Too much processed food. And when weight becomes part of the conversation, the message often gets reduced to two words: eat less.

There is certainly something to be said for being aware of how much we eat. But at The Grounded Kitchen, we've been thinking about another way of looking at the question. What if, instead of starting with what we should take away, we started with what we could add?

More vegetables. More fruit. More beans and lentils. More nuts and seeds. More whole grains. More meals made from ingredients we recognize. It's a fairly simple idea, but perhaps that's part of what appeals to us about it.

A different way of looking at the plate

One of the ideas behind Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live is that some foods provide considerably more nutrition for the energy they contain than others. His approach places a particularly strong emphasis on vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts and seeds. You don't have to follow Eat to Live as a diet to find something useful in that idea.

If we're going to eat every day—and hopefully enjoy doing it—it seems reasonable that we should make room for foods that actually nourish us. This isn't a new idea, either. Canada's dietary guidance encourages us to eat vegetables and fruit, whole grains and a variety of protein foods, with an emphasis on plant-based protein foods such as beans, lentils, nuts and seeds.

What interests us is what happens when that advice moves from a government food guide or a book about nutrition into an actual kitchen. Because eating well isn't really about knowing that vegetables are good for us. It's about wanting to eat them.

Vegetables shouldn't be an obligation

There is a certain way we sometimes talk about vegetables that makes them sound like homework. "Eat your vegetables." As though the reward comes after we've finished them. We think there is a better approach. Learn how to make vegetables taste good.

Roast carrots until their edges caramelize. Put garlic and olive oil on broccoli. Roast squash with herbs. Turn tomatoes into a sauce. Add greens to a soup. Take whatever is sitting in the refrigerator and see what happens when you put a little heat, seasoning and imagination behind it.

A vegetable doesn't have to be steamed into submission and placed beside a piece of chicken because we're trying to be healthy. It can be the thing we're actually looking forward to eating.

That's one of the reasons we like recipes such as our Crispy Chickpea & Cucumber Salad with Lemon-Tahini Dressing. It doesn't feel like someone took a "healthy salad" and removed everything enjoyable. The chickpeas provide substance and texture, the vegetables bring freshness, and the tahini dressing gives the whole thing some richness. It's a meal first. The fact that it happens to contain several foods we'd like to eat more often is almost beside the point.

Fruit is food, not a guilty pleasure

Fruit has somehow become complicated too. We hear about sugar and immediately start looking at an apple suspiciously. But an apple isn't a candy bar.

Whole fruit comes with water, fibre and a variety of nutrients and naturally occurring plant compounds. It can be breakfast, a snack, part of lunch or simply something sweet after dinner. We don't need to turn every apple into a nutritional argument. An apple is a pretty good thing to eat.

The same goes for berries, peaches, pears, plums, oranges and whatever happens to be in season. Frozen fruit has a place in the kitchen too, particularly when fresh isn't available.

Our Peanut Butter Banana Toast with Yogurt is a good example of how uncomplicated this can be. There is nothing particularly revolutionary about bananas, peanut butter, toast and yogurt. But put them together and you have a breakfast that combines familiar foods in a way that is satisfying enough to feel like a meal rather than an exercise in dietary restraint. Sometimes healthy eating really can be that simple.

What about nuts and seeds?

This is where things get a little more interesting. Nuts and seeds are relatively energy-dense foods, so we're not suggesting that they're something to eat without limits. But being calorie-dense doesn't make a food a bad food.

Walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax and chia all bring useful things to the table. They can contribute fats, protein, fibre and a variety of minerals and other nutrients. A few walnuts can make oatmeal more satisfying. Pumpkin seeds can give a simple soup some texture. Toasted seeds can turn a salad into something more interesting. A little nut butter can make an apple considerably more appealing.

And this is where cooking comes into the picture. One of our favourite examples is something as simple as learning how to toast nuts and seeds properly. It's a small kitchen skill, but it changes the way you use them. A little heat brings out flavour and gives them a wonderful crunch, making them ingredients you actually want to reach for.

The point isn't that nuts are a weight-loss food. They aren't. The point is that a food can be relatively high in calories and still be a worthwhile part of a healthy way of eating.

Perhaps we don't need to divide food into things we're "allowed" to eat and things we're supposed to feel guilty about eating. Perhaps we just need to learn how different foods fit together.

And don't forget beans

If there is one group of foods that deserves more attention in our kitchens, we'd put beans and lentils pretty high on the list. They're inexpensive, versatile and easy to keep in the pantry. They can be used in soups and stews, salads, curries, tacos, grain bowls and countless other meals. They also bring plant protein and fibre to the table.

And you don't have to become vegetarian to eat more of them. You can simply make chili with beans. Add chickpeas to a salad. Put lentils in a soup. Add white beans to pasta. Make a pot of beans and find ways to use them during the week.

The Three Sisters—corn, beans and squash—is an especially interesting example of how naturally these ideas can come together. Long before "plant-based eating" became a modern dietary label, people were growing, cooking and eating combinations of plants because that was simply part of how food and communities worked. There is something appealing about that perspective. We don't always need to invent a new way of eating. Sometimes we can learn from the old ones.

So where does weight fit into all of this?

This is where we'd be careful about making promises. Eating more vegetables doesn't automatically make someone lose weight. Neither does eating an apple instead of a cookie guarantee anything about what the scale will say next week. Weight is complicated, and there is no single food that solves it.

But there is something worth considering. Imagine that vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds begin taking up more of the space on our plates. Something else has to take up less space. Maybe it's the highly processed snack we weren't particularly hungry for. Maybe it's the enormous serving of refined starch. Maybe it's the second helping we didn't really need.

That's different from simply telling ourselves to eat less. We're changing what fills the plate. And perhaps, more importantly, we're changing what fills us.

This isn't a magic formula for weight loss. It's simply a way of thinking about food that may make a healthier pattern of eating easier to maintain. Instead of constantly asking, "How much am I allowed to eat?" perhaps we can occasionally ask, "What would make this meal more nourishing and satisfying?" That's a question we can actually do something with.

A healthy lifestyle doesn't have to feel like a diet

This may be the part we like most. We don't think healthy eating should require us to become perfect. People eat birthday cake. People have pizza. People go to restaurants. People have Christmas dinner. People occasionally eat something simply because it tastes wonderful. That's part of life.

The question is what happens most of the time. If most of our meals are built around recognizable foods—vegetables, fruit, beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts, seeds and other foods we enjoy—then perhaps we don't need to spend quite so much time worrying about the occasional indulgence. The goal isn't perfection. It's the pattern.

And there is another part of this that sometimes gets lost when healthy eating becomes a discussion about nutrients and calories. Food is supposed to be enjoyed. Cooking can be a skill. A meal can be an opportunity to slow down. A recipe can connect us with another culture or another generation. A vegetable from the garden can make its way onto the dinner table. A pot of soup can feed a family for several days. That's part of health too.

Maybe the better question is "What can I add?"

At The Grounded Kitchen, we like the idea that healthy living doesn't have to begin with a list of things we're no longer allowed to eat. Maybe it can begin with a shopping list.

Buy some apples. Pick up some carrots. Put a bag of lentils in the pantry. Keep some frozen berries in the freezer. Buy the vegetables that are actually in season. Keep a few nuts and seeds around for cooking. Then cook something good.

Not because we're on a diet. Not because we're trying to be perfect. Just because food is one of the simplest ways we have to take care of ourselves. And perhaps, over time, eating more of the good stuff naturally leaves a little less room for the things we don't need quite so often. That's a philosophy we can live with.

Put the idea into practice

If this way of thinking about food appeals to you, the best place to explore it is probably the kitchen.

Our Crispy Chickpea & Cucumber Salad with Lemon-Tahini Dressing is a good place to start. It brings vegetables, chickpeas, herbs and tahini together in a meal that is fresh, substantial and full of texture.

For breakfast, our Peanut Butter Banana Toast with Yogurt takes a few familiar ingredients and turns them into something considerably more satisfying than a quick piece of toast grabbed on the way out the door.

If you're looking for a simple kitchen skill, How to Toast Nuts & Seeds is one of those little techniques that can change the way you use ingredients you may already have in the pantry. Once you start toasting them, you may find yourself looking for excuses to add them to salads, soups, oatmeal and roasted vegetables.

And if you want to explore the bigger idea of putting plants at the centre of food and culture, our Three Sisters feature—corn, beans and squash—is a natural place to continue. In fact, our full Discovery Page series provides a place to start to learn more about how our ancestors and different cultures interacted with food.

Much of our Members' Kitchen content provides additional recipes an resources as well.  This information provides another way of putting the philosophy into practice: not by following a prescribed diet, but by cooking good food and making nourishing ingredients part of everyday meals.

Because ultimately, that's what we're interested in at The Grounded Kitchen. Not a perfect diet. Not a set of rules. Just better food, better cooking and a little more thought about what we put on the table.