I was sitting in a waiting room this morning, perusing a smallish, paperback book, whose title now escapes me. It was a book about healthy eating and I'd heard about it before today. There were lots of cutsie, funny-but-true one-liners in it.....almost all I'd agree wholeheartedly with. Almost......
The author, whose name I cannot remember either, exhorts the reader to eat things that only come from "one leg", such as mushrooms and other vegetables. He also encourages people to eat fresh foods that have a 'crunch'. His 'leg' section recommends eating foods in this order: 'one' leg, two legs (i.e. poultry) and, lastly, four legs. Part of his 'stchick' is that people should eat more like our ancestors did and avoid processed foods, additives, and anything made with ingredients we cannot pronounce or spell.
I would take issue with his recommendation to rarely eat, or avoid altogether, foods that came from four legs. Did not ancient, prehistoric man more than likely eat the meat from animals he killed or found dead but the meat was still warm? As an employee of the state road commission, my dad lived by that rule. If the roadkill was warm, he brought it home to my mother who dutifully cooked it and we ate it. There isn't much I have not eaten. Maybe armadillo and fire ants?
Seriously, living things have been walking around on four legs for thousands of years and homo sapiens have been eating this meat for just as long. I can sort of understand eating less red meat, or avoiding it completely, depending on one's cholesterol condition, but if a person's metabolism can accommodate 'meat', there is plenty of healthful food from four-legged creatures that humans can consume. That lean pork chop that my SO so skillfully grilled last night is an excellent example. So I only get to eat meat once every four-to-six weeks.
Be sure to count the legs from which your food source cometh. Just one caveat:
I'd avoid food from three-legged creatures as well as those with five or more legs.
In an effort to be informative, cookies and chocolate do not count.
Ancora imparo
