Snowy patterns on my kitchen window on a blustery day
So, we had a terribly, blustery, wintery weekend. The kind where you stay indoors for a full 48 hours without even being tempted to crack a window just to breathe fresh air. I watched the snow blow and swirl all around my house from a wind so fierce it caused my Christmas wreath, which has overstayed it's welcome, to smack against the window on my front door.
This called for one of my favorite comfort foods...a thick hearty bowl of soup.
I pulled out my Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook and decided to try the Maui Black Bean Soup. This soup is full of clean ingredients that leave me feeling satisfied and good about what I have put inside my body. There is a great mix of vegetables and the beans add protein. Floating on the top is a little pile (I was going to say dash, but let's face it, it's a pile) of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
I did cheat and have a piece of bread and cheese, but it tasted so good. The Eat-Clean diet frowns on bread that contains white flour and since this was store-bought ciabatta bread it is a no-no in terms of being clean. I have cut out all refined white foods (flour, rice, sugar) in the last year, but I must admit that every once in a while I do still have a piece of ciabatta or focaccia with soup. This happened to be my once in a while.
Why no white flour, you ask? Well, white flour is a simple carbohydrate, which essentially breaks down easily and causes blood-sugar levels to go out of control. The Eat-Clean Principles, as stated in Tosca Reno's book, seek to keep those blood-sugar levels balanced. As Tosca talks about in her books, simple carbohydrates do the following:
- remove B vitamins from the body, which increase metabolism and therefore burn your food without it turning to fat
- break down the skeleton by upsetting the delicate calcium-phosphorus balance in bones and teeth
- cause enormous spikes in blood sugar levels, that our insulin must then try to adjust to, and when it cannot, the result is fat, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer
When I read this, I decided it was not worth it to eat these simple carbs. I'm done. Sugar, white flour, white rice...gone from my home. Cooking the Eat-Clean way has allowed me to replace those options with more healthy ones and that makes me feel great!
...but I am human, and sometimes I have ciabatta bread. How do the Italians seem to still be so healthy?