Low Fat Heart Healthy Dinner Number ONE!!!

Tonights dinner was the first of my experimental dinners.  

      I read an article a number of years ago that I certainly wish I still had now.  The point of the article was that people who have a tendency to be over weight need a great deal more flavor in their food than thin people need to feel good about what they are eating.  At the time, I thought that was a crock and the people around me salted their food with out tasting it and put extra sauces and things of that nature on the food that I had cooked them to be mean.  (Can't lie, I still think that personally) But now I also realize that this IS a true statement. 

     Apparantly the food that I have cooked all these years that I liked.. MANY people in my family thought was bland and tasteless. 

     Now that my husband has actually HAD a heart attack, I can get away with saying this is the food you HAVE to eat if you want to live. 

     However, I am trying extremely hard to understand what his head is going through.  When he had the stint placed 4 years ago and then had a minor scare 2 years ago, I let him get away with not changing any thing becuase his brain reacted to any change in his food as being punished.  This time, I have had to come to the realization that he is only going to change what he is going to change and I cant make him do ANYTHING as far as his health goes.  His focus is ,understandably, solely on himself at the moment and again I am seeing signs of my changing food on him as being a punishment. 

     This time,, however, I am reading all the research I can get my hands on to combat just giving up and letting him do what ever he chooses.  I am doing this for the sake of my boys, as well, who already have high cholesterol and other heart related issues at WAY too young of ages.  If I cant counter some of this now, I will out live my boys too. 

     So, in the research that I have read so far, I am finding that some scientiests are making a link between salt in food and the same receptors that are in play when some one is an opium addict.  Interesting,  I have read that to keep someone on a good heart healthy diet you need to use over the top spices and things like Lemon juice, to get the attention of their taste buds and the reward receptors in their brains. 

     Dont get me wrong out of this deal I would like to loose about 20 lb myself which would put me back to my weight before I had my 4th child.  I am doing what I am doing for my whole family, including me as I am not the perfect person either.  

     I have also read more research about the flavorful issue and have honestly come to the conclusion that the researchers on that subject ARE right.  I can stop eating and feel full with considerably less "flavor" and amount than many of the people I have observed around me who are obese.  I am not criticizing them in any way, I am stating a research fact of my own.  I do not feel the need to end a meal with anything sweet for desert, if I start craving sweets (and sometimes a candy bar or cookie IS just what the situation is called for) I get a glass of water and drink that before I get the candy.  Usually that takes the place of what ever my brain was thinking about.  I, however, see different behaviors in people I watch around me who are heavier than the charts say they should be.  I also see how some of these behaviors have crept in to my own eating habits.

     I do not LIKE my food to be very spicy and so to compromise over the issues my husband is having with his cholesterol and heart issues, I am working on finding new recipes that have a blend of strong flavors in them. 

TONIGHT I began my quest in ernest, with a recipe I found on line from a Low Fat Lifestyle website.  Pasta Putenesca   It was a meatless meal, 303 calories per serving, I do have to say, my whole family ate more than one serving each but at least the 7 g of fat per serving was better than what we normally have been eating.  We also had fresh spinach, with vinegar on it, and yellow squash, zucchini and onion, sliced and lightly sauteed in about 2 table spoons of olive oil.  We also ate some french bread sliced and lightly buttered along with it.  My boys ate at least 2 helpings of it as well as my husband whos main comment was, and this has NO meat in it at all.. Interesting.  I am going to try to do Meatless Mondays each week and yes I know this is not Monday, but Meatless Random Day of the Week is just too wordy.  I want to start carrying my camera to take pictures of our plated meals but I just feel a little wierd about it all. 

If anyone comes across my blog and wants to share any recipes with me as well that use low fat meats I would appreciate it.  ALLL of the choices out there for sample days worth of meals that I have found on low fat, or heart healthy, or low sodium ALL EVERY SINGLE ONE that I have found have fish for the evening meal.  I live in the desert and know that fish is good for me but every day??? That is just too much.