Dr. John & Mary McDougall
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Mary's Mini-McDougall Diet
Not a Lifestyle, But a "Diet"
John McDougall M.D.
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You can adjust to simple eating, just like your pets are happy eating the same meal every day. You don't worry if your dog and cat are enjoying their simple chow. They are hungry, the food satisfies them, and you know you are providing the best nutrition to keep them fit and long-lived.
Are Simple Diets Nutritious
Most animals thrive on simple diets--the koala bear lives on eucalyptus leaves, the panda bear on bamboo shoots, the horse on grass, etc. The truth is that nature has designed her foods complete and balanced for proper nutrition, long before they reach your dinner table. You cannot improve on this blueprint.
White potatoes are 10% protein with all of the essential amino acids provided in generous amounts. These tubers have 2.5 grams of dietary fiber per potato. That translates into 50 grams for an active man and 37 grams for an active woman. Potatoes are very high in vitamin C, B vitamins, potassium and other minerals. In animal experiments potatoes have been shown to have a particularly potent cholesterol-lowering effect.4 Feeding rats a potato-enriched diet for 3 weeks led to a 30% decrease in cholesterol and a 36% decrease in triglyceride levels.5
The potato even meets the needs of growing infants. Eleven Peruvian children, ages 8 months to 35 months, recovering from malnutrition, were fed diets where all of the protein and 75% of the calories came from potatoes.6,7 Their growth patterns were normal. (Soybean-cottonseed oils and pure simple sugars provided some of the extra calories--neither of these sources--oil or sugar--contains protein, vitamins, or minerals.)
People in New Guinea who live on diets consisting almost entirely of sweet potato tubers and leaves have cholesterol levels, on the average, of 108 mg/dl.8 Heart disease, obesity, inflammatory arthritis, colon cancer, and type-2 diabetes are unknown in these people on their sweet potato diet.
Practical Application of "Mary's Mini-McDougall Diet"
Which starches are your favorites? Potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, corn, beans, rice? Choose one or several to form the centerpiece of your diet. All of these can be found pre-cooked in packages in the frozen food section of your grocery. Check the ingredients to make sure they are free of added fats, oils or other harmful ingredients. The refrigerated section of the store will also have packages of fruits and vegetables for you to buy.*
*While root vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes provide well-rounded nutrition--grains and beans lack sufficient vitamins A and C to be eaten alone; therefore add some fruit and/or green and yellow vegetables to make your grain and bean meals complete.
Meal preparation is now a matter of thawing out these foods. You can place your warmed starch on the plate separate from the vegetables or mix them all altogether. You can add some additional flavor with your favorite spices; including salt and pepper (unless you have health restrictions that require you avoid these). Condiments, including low-fat salad dressings, salsa, ketchup, barbecue sauce and packaged soups (like those made by Dr. McDougall's Rightfoods) can be poured over the top.
Example Days* |
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White Potato |
Sweet Potato |
Squash |
Rice Mix |
Corn |
Breakfast |
Hash Browns |
Grated |
Baked |
with Fruit |
Tortillas |
Lunch |
Baked |
Roasted |
Baked Fries |
with Carrots |
Polenta |
Dinner |
Mashed |
Mashed |
Mashed |
with Greens |
Pureed |
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* To these basic cooked starches, add side dishes of green and yellow vegetables and a few fruits. Use seasoning.
** Instead of rice you can use other grains, like millet, barley, wheat berries, and quinoa.
Simple Eating-out Suggestions:
A baked potato or sweet potato (steakhouse)
A plate of beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and salsa (Mexican)
Steamed rice and vegetables (Chinese)
Steamed rice and green papaya salad (Thai)
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Easing the Learning Curve
High protein diets are popular in part because they are easy to learn and follow: Buy a burger anywhere--throw away the bun, scrape off the ketchup and you are now on a diet that gives immediate weight loss. The working mechanism for this diet is to make you sick by feeding you an unbalanced diet solely of fat and protein, causing fluid loss and appetite suppression. Over the long course this form of malnutrition causes your arteries to rot, your bones to be urinated into the toilet, your bowels to ache from plugged-up defecation, and your body to smell like the stock-yards you pass while driving down highway 5 (from San Francisco to Los Angeles).
The learning curve for the McDougall Program is steep: People must retrain their taste buds to enjoy unfamiliar foods, and they must also learn new ways to cook, shop, and socialize. There are additional struggles: healthy eating in restaurants often requires brutal confrontations with the wait-staff and detective-like skills are needed to locate McDougall-approved convenience items in the local grocery. Add to these burdens daily sabotage from well-meaning friends, family members, and their own doctor. But, the reward from overcoming these obstacles is their best opportunity to have a lifetime of great health. Mary's Mini-McDougall Diet is powerful tool to use for easing the learning curve.
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