Is a healthy meal boring and bland?

Many of the people I discuss with ask me how I don’t get bored by having removed so many of the food choices from my diet. And my answer is that this diet has not limited me in any way, is delicious and is actually opening new paths to my tastebuds. Let’s see why.

First thing is first. What have I removed from my diet? Basically most carbs and starches. The reasons for doing so I will explain in my next post, but I am not eating bread, pasta, cereals, biscuits, etc. How can this diet not limit you, I hear you ask.

Excessive sugar and tastebuds

Even though I am generalising, I think you would agree with me, that most food you can find on a super-market shelf is over-refined and over-processed. You even find these days glycose-syrop in every ham package! Glycose syrop is the cheapest form of sugar you can find and is intended to make the products taste sweeter. This has led to our tastebuds to relate to something as tasty only when it is sweet. Excessively sweet I may add. By removing refined carbs and sweets my taste has been reset back to the norm, to the point that having a normal milky chocolate is way too sweet and can’t stand it (I usually have a 99% chocolate bar). And now I can finally understand the taste of the ingredients I am using, and preparing meals is a lot more fun and far more tasty. Would you ever think that the addition of a leek or a carrot could make all the difference to your soup or omelette? I would also not change the celery root mash for anything in the world! Reason is that most vegetables have enough natural sugar which are released when cooked that by adding them to any of your recipes will result in some very creative and tasty meals!

Intermittent fasting and meal satisfaction

By practising intermittent fasting on a daily basis you will significantly reduce the number of meals you are having on a given day. This results in less dependence from food, less need to prepare 3 meals a day and another 3 snacks. Less frequency leads to less need for huge variety and having to over-think constantly what you should prepare to eat!! And the 1-2 meals you will have in the day, will be a festivity of joy and taste. Important is to enjoy your meal together with your friends and family. Meals have been for the duration of human kind a social activity, so make a habit to eat together with your family at a least a few times a week.

Homeostasis

Homeostasis is the state of the body and mind where you are getting comfortable with a particular stimulus and it becoming your default state. If your baseline for feeling pleased about food is to eat every day bread and pasta and sweets then you need to be eating more of those things to feel satisfied. On the other hand, you could be equaliy satisfied with healthier but slightly blander meals. The feelings are the same but different in terms of the final outcome. You’re not over-indulging on empty calories or teaching yourself to like only very rich foods. Hence obesity and metabolic diseases have become such an epidemic in modern societies. The point of-course isn’t that all pleasure and comfort should be avoided. Life should be enjoyed but we need to understand that the feeling of joy and happiness depends on our subjective homeostasis. Which means you can be as happy as you are right now by just eating for example meals with single raw fruits or vegetables (many nutritionists advocate eating only one type of food in each meal). The key is to detach yourself from the thing that you’re addicted to – and for that to happen you have to reduce your exposure to the stimulus. In this direction, intermittent fasting can help a lot and make healthy food taste amazing and you will become happier with less.

Let’s try out a recipe then.

Rib-eye stake, zucchini pasta and home made basil pesto sauce

Every recipe i will be posting is meant to be easy and can be prepared fast unless stated otherwise. This one you can prepare in under 20 minutes.

Ingredients

• Irish grass-fed Rib-eye stake
• 1 zucchini
• 25gr basil, 15gr parsley, 10gr parmesan, 10gr pine nuts, 50 ml Olive oil, 1/2 lemon juice
• 1 onion, 1 garlic clove, Butter
• Salt & Pepper

Recipe Prep

• Leave the beef to come to room temperature 2-3 hours.
• Slice the zucchini with a piller and cut is long stripes. Width is not important!
• Finely slice the onion and garlic.

Recipe

• Roast the pine nuts for 1-2 minutes and then blend all your ingredients for the basil pesto. Set aside.
• Cook onion, garlic with butter for a couple of minutes in low heat. Then add the zucchini and a couple of tablespoons of the pesto.Cover and let to soften for 3-4 minutes (No more as you want it to be a bit chrunchy)
• In the meanwhile, heat-up a a second pan. Once nice and hot put the stake. No need to put anything on it at this point.
• Let the stake cook from each side around 4 minutes. Total cooking time should be below 10 minutes. Set the stake aside to rest for 5 minutes. Add salt/pepper/butter to taste.

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

• A healthy “keto” can be easy and delicious.
• Clean-up your tastebuds and nutrition by doing intermmittent fasting and removing refined sugars and carbs.
• Cook and enjoy your meals with your friends and family.

• Try out the recipe, comment if you liked it and let us know if you have any special requests
• Subscribe to ketontrack newsletter to receive new recipes every Tuesday.

Suggested reading

• https://ketontrack.com/introducing-intermittent-fasting/
• Siim Land, Metabolic Autophagy

Add to My Favorites