Nom-Able

I’ve never played coy about the fact that I’m a chubby girl. I have a rather unhealthy love of all things fatty, sweet, and salty — the three worst things things you can crave according to David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite Dr. Kessler spent plenty of time dumpster diving at his local Chili’s after hours in order to get the prized nutrition labels off the boxes of food sent to the restaurant. (You didn’t really think the “chefs” at your local family chain restaurants actually cooked, did you?) Turns out, we eat too much because everything we buy — that is, that we don’t make ourselves — is loaded with crap. For example, the Southwest Egg Rolls that I love to death? Those bad boys contain 910 calories, 57 grams of fat and 1,960 milligrams of sodium per serving. YUM!

Of course, the thinking for me has always been that the good stuff tastes like crap, so let’s just be fat and happy instead of skinny and miserable. This is a food tradition passed down to me by both sides of my family, but especially my father’s. See, my mother’s entire family struggles with weight issues because their father instilled in his three girls the idea that all of life’s problems can be solved with a big bowl of coffee ice cream, potato chips, or beer — just not at the same time, of course. That would be gross. My father’s family, however, is comprised of rather thin Southern women and rather heavy gentlemen from both sides of the Mason Dixon line. My paternal grandmother, as I remember her, was probably anorexic; her relationship to food was emotional, but in the “the way to a person’s heart is through their stomach” sort of way. She had this rather Southern habit of cooking every meal as if an army would pop by at any moment, and the troops must be fed — there were always leftovers that she’d whip into something at the next meal, though she never seemed to actually eat. In memory, she sits at the head of the table, encouraging my rather hefty father, bloated mother, and my young, ballooning self to eat more, dishing out more to us, but never to herself.

Did I mention she was Southern?

Because of my late grandmother, who I loved dearly, I have very fond memories of running around on an open farm in western Pennsylvania, and of food that was only properly cooked when it was smothered in sausage gravy or deep fried to a crisp brown. Biscuits were made with buttermilk and lard, and of course there was always dessert, which you always ate if you finished your meal. And you always finished your meal, because the country-fried steak and fried potatoes and greens were so damned good.

So I learned that skinny women cook fattening food, which tastes delicious.

And, it is assumed by both sides of my family, that the converse is therefore true: health food sucks.

Of course, if you go through this blog, you’ll find that I don’t particularly subscribe to the notion that all health food is evil. I do a lot of vegan cooking so that I can cook food that is at least sustainable, if not healthy. I’ve played with dishes from The South Beach Diet series of cookbooks and found some that are not just palatable, but down right delicious. Because I’m a heavier girl, and because I know it, I try to eat healthy, get some exercise in, and otherwise work on bringing down the weight that years of sweet potato pies and green beans fried up in pork fat with bacon have padded on.

So, I started taking Alli.

If you weren’t aware, Alli! is an FDA-approved weight loss drug that works as a fat-blocker, preventing your body from absorbing fat. You have to limit yourself to 15-17g of fat per meal, because that’s all Alli will allow you to absorb normally. What happens if you eat more fat than your body is prevented from absorbing? Well kids, that’s why Alli has the lovely and colorful nickname (with me, at least) of “The Shit Yourself Drug”.

But let’s not get too technical on that, shall we? We are all about the food here.

So yes, the food on the Alli plan. Where to begin?

I’ll begin, I suppose, by saying that I was skeptical of the food in the The alli Cookbook, but decided to give it a whirl anyway, just to see how bad healthy eating under 15 grams of fat per meal could be. First, I tried the Hoisin-Sauce Chicken, which was actually rather good, since it was low-fat and all. It was sweet without being too sweet, and just savory enough to feel filling. I checked out the mac & cheese recipe too — all of the ingredients from my classic mac and cheese were there, but in smaller portions, and all low-fat or fat-free.

Feeling a bit more brave, I decided to grab a bunch of recipes and just start cooking.

Damn if the second one I tried after the Hoisin Chicken success didn’t suck ass.

I’m not even going to bother with a recipe. Essentially, you take 12 fresh mushrooms and slice them. Put those in a bowl with two fresh, thin-sliced stalks of celery. Toss with about a 1/4 c. of cheese and 1 c. of chicken broth. Pour that over 4 oz. of pasta in a baking dish, put raw chicken on top, and pop into the oven for 30 minutes.

Now, this sounded really freakin’ bland to me, so I decided to up the ante and salt and pepper my chicken first (crazy, I know!) I even added a bit of onion powder to the chicken broth, just to spice it up. It was still bland, dry, and just everything that I always knew diet food is. So I ended up smothering that sucker with a LOT of Chinese hot sauce (hey, it’s fat free and 4 calories per tablespoon!) and washing down the entire nightmare with a bottle of Pepsi Throwback.

Because, you know, that’s High Fructose Corn Syrup free, so it’s healthy, right?