WEIGHT LOSS TIPS FROM DR. JOHN AND MARY McDOUGALL

Yes, another webinar about the Mary's Mini diet, and another set of guideline updates.

 

Who's Minding the Store?

A few days ago, this post appeared on the official McDougall message boards:

Post by JeffN » Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:38 pm
This was written in response to a few questions on the Mary’s Mini program and some comments that were made in a Mary’s Mini social media group.

“Allow me to clarify a few things.

The Mary Mini Facebook Group is an independent group and has nothing to do with Dr. McDougall Health & Medical Center. No staff oversee this group and we do not approve of everything they say and do not endorse it.

Mary’s Mini is not about weight loss. Mary’s Mini is a simplified way of eating to reset your taste buds and get back to eating the McDougall diet. This is great for people who have “fallen off the wagon” and want to come back to the McDougall diet. Mary’s Mini helps with weight loss because it is a simple diet that promotes eating monotonously.

If weight loss is something someone is seeking, they should follow the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss program. We have a forum on our website to help people achieve their goals and is moderated by McDougall staff and people who have been approved by us to lead as moderators.

In regards to fruit, Dr. McDougall stated long ago that if you want to lose weight you may want to limit your fruit consumption to two servings per day because some people have an tendency to overindulge in fruit. That being said, fruit is very low in calorie density, and we believe that eating fruit is a great way to still achieve your weight loss goals; however, if you find yourself eating copious amounts of fruit every day and are not seeing the results you want, that is an indicator that you may want to slow down on your fruit consumption.

This is an excerpt from one of our newsletters written by Dr. McDougall:

"While root vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes provide well-rounded nutrition—grains and beans lack sufficient vitamins A and C to be eaten alone; therefore add some fruit and/or green and yellow vegetables to make your grain and bean meals complete."

The goal of the McDougall Program is simple: to achieve optimal health through eating a starch-based diet with fruits and vegetables with no added oils or animal products. Weight loss is a side-effect of eating this way.

I hope this answers your question.

Best of Health,
Tiffany Hobson
Operations Manager

Hmm, the writing in this message that supposedly comes from Tiffany reads exactly in the type of language Jeff Novick uses in his program proclamations. And lately Jeff has really been pushing the fruit and said a few times fruit is encouraged because of its low caloric density. I had written out along reply to this, saved it as a draft, but when I went back to finish and post it, it was gone. Many people have complained over the years of things mysteriously vanishing from the draft folder, but stupid me didn't think to save it elsewhere. Now I have to start all over again but I'll post it here, instead, because for sure anything I post will be removed by a certain moderator, and I don't mean Jim.

Mary’s Mini is not about weight loss.

Um, yes it is. Doctor McDougall said so in the Mary's Mini webinar:


Listen at the 7:26 point: "...if you want to lose weight quickly..."

In regards to fruit, Dr. McDougall stated long ago that if you want to lose weight you may want to limit your fruit consumption to two servings per day because some people have an tendency to overindulge in fruit. That being said, fruit is very low in calorie density, and we believe that eating fruit is a great way to still achieve your weight loss goals. . .

Well, while fruit is allowed on the Maximum Weight Loss version of the McDougall Starch Solution program, he explicitly states that NO fruit is allowed on the Mary's Mini:



And in a more recent interview, Dr. McDougall again stressed to limit fruit because it's so tasty people tend to overeat it. Unfortunately, he's done so many interviews in recent weeks I can't find the exact one he said this right now. If I do wind up rewatching the one he said it I'll add the clip here.

So who is changing the guidelines? Is it Tiffany? Jeff? Certainly not Dr. McDougall!


Another instance - just yesterday an email and Facebook post appeared of a newsletter article from 2004: How to Prevent and Treat Degenerative (Osteo) Arthritis that recommended things like glucosamine. I commented that this was an old article, that he had written another one in 2010 saying glucosamine was useless, that he changed his mind about it. Less than 5 minutes after I wrote that another post/email appeared: Important Update on Glucosamine and Arthritis, linking to the 2010 newsletter article I referred to.

So, again I ask: Who's minding the store? Who is sending out all these emails and guidelines?

AJ Interviews Mary McDougall

And Doctor McDougall sticks around and tosses his own 2 cents into the conversation frequently. :)

I Blame Target!

I've mentioned here before that our son is working at the local Target store. He was even there early on Thanksgiving for 7 hours - in and out before the store's 5pm opening time. Because the light rail train he takes was on holiday schedule and didn't start until 2 hours after he was scheduled to be in, we woke up at 4am to drive him in. Because the trains only run one an hour on holidays we also drove in later on to pick him up and bring him home. Anyone who saw the Macy's parade that morning knows how cold and windy the weather was - we were so close to NYC you can see the Holland Tunnel exit from the Target parking lot. While we waited for him to get out we watched some buses pull into the lot and discharge a few bands and all their instruments - it seems Target gave them permission to park their cars in the lot while they were appearing in the parade and the buses took them back and forth to the city. At least the sight of all those happy faces kept us warm while the car shook in the cold wind!

So when Friday came and we volunteered to pick him up at work again, we made the decision to NOT wait in the cold car but to go inside and see how crazy the place was for Black Friday. Our son warned us months ago that if we ever go into the store and see him we're to totally ignore him, because he was going to ignore us. He was just as bad in kindergarten all those years ago! I think all kids are like that, no matter what their age. Anyway, we're roaming around the Home section, and turned to walk the other way when we saw our son approaching the area, as we'd been instructed to do. Imagine my surprise when he walked right up to us to tell us the Power XL Air Fryer, 7.5 quart, is on sale for half price as a 1 hour Doorbuster special, to go over and grab one before they're all gone (He put out over 100 and the pile was already down to under 20). He said not to worry about getting the employee discount - they were already told they can't use it on Doorbusters. He said he heard great things about this, to get it, NOW, he'll explain why later. 

Alright already! So we did. Good thing he insisted we grab it immediately - by the time we got to the display there were only 5 left. We paid for the fryer and headed out to the car, because now he had only 5 minutes until punch out.

When he came out we asked what that was all about, and he said he wants to start eating less pasta and more potatoes, and the gals at work were saying how great air fryers are for doing that. He knew I wasn't crazy about getting one, but at that price he couldn't pass it up.

Later that afternoon I moved my Instant Pot and my husband helped me unpack the air fryer. As soon as we opened the box it hit us - that weird chemical plastic smell! Oh, it's vile! It got worse after we unpacked it and took the plastic bags off! The instruction booklet seemed to know all about the odor and said the first thing to be done was washing all the pieces inside and out in hot soapy water, then do a few minutes of pre-heat to burn off the oils used as protection on the cooking surfaces.

So now we had a hot vile smell permeating the kitchen.

When the pieces cooled I washed the pan again in hot soapy water and did the pre-heat again. No change. (sigh) I turned on the kitchen ceiling fan, hoping it would at least dissipate the smell. Now the whole apartment smelled vile. When it turned off I pulled the plug, hoping the smell would go away by the time we woke up on Saturday.

Saturday morning we did our usual shopping trip, came home and put groceries away, and the kid went into his room and hubby went out for a walk. Now it's Potato Time! During one of the pre-heats on Friday I emptied out the junk, er, kitchen utensil, drawer and found what I was searching for - the French fry crinkle cutter! This is one of the few things I rescued from my parents kitchen after my mom died and my dad was packing up to move down the Jersey Shore area. He and my younger brother were never going to use it, and my dad was tossing out more than he packed, especially kitchen things. It's over 50 years old and as sharp as the day my mom bought it.

I already had a few white potatoes already cooked up in the refrigerator, leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, so off I went, slicing them all into crinkle cut fry shape.

I wanted to keep the inside of the air fryer as clean as I could so grabbed a hunk of parchment paper and cut it to size. I know the ones on Amazon made for this purpose all have holes, so I cut a few of them in the paper. OK, this will do until I order some. Since nobody sells them in oval shapes to fit this pan I'm stuck with 10 inch circles. That'll have to do. Before dumping the potatoes into the fryer pan I first seasoned them up with onion powder and garlic powder and shake, shake, shake. All set! Into the air fryer with the pan! I know Chef AJ starts all her air fryer recipes with 400º and 20 minutes, but to be safe I set my air fryer time for only 15 minutes and set a kitchen timer for 7 so I can shake them up mid-cooking. The final result:

My son and husband declared them "Perfect!" but I thought they were too crunchy. I'm the one who prefers my fries thin cut and limp. We all had some dunked in ketchup and my son said he'll probably make some later in the weekend for lunch or even dinner. He said he may wait until that smell was gone. It was as bad Saturday as it was Friday.

Since I needed to use the Instant Pot for dinner, the fryer got moved until the next morning, when I switched it with the Instant Pot so I could make up a batch of air fried Brussels sprouts. Again I grabed the parchment paper but don't bother with the holes. Instead of dumping the bag of sprouts and getting all those tiny leftover leaves, I grabbed the whole sprouts by the handful and put them, still frozen, into the pan. When I oven roast them, I do them at 400º. Sometimes I stop at 60, but prefer them cooked for 90 minutes. To air fry, once again I set it at 400º but for 10 minutes, then did a shake, then set it for another 10 minutes.

Beautiful! But a little too dry, drier than after 90 minutes in the oven. Next time I'll do 15 minutes.

Sunday I cooked up a load of russet potatoes in the Instant pot and have a bunch in the refrigerator to make more fries later for lunch. I'll probably cut them into slices, like fat Ruffles, this time. That is, if there are any left after my son makes his pile of spuds for his lunch. Good thing I bought an extra bag of potatoes at the store Saturday.

Now let's see how long it takes for my joints to start aching from all these potatoes. I know I can do 2 potatoes twice a week and be okay. If I do make some up for lunch for myself it'll be the first time in a year or so I had potatoes 2 days in a row. Keep your fingers crossed!

Noon, same day.

I thought I uploaded this earlier. Oops. At least now I can add this. My son said he was ready to learn how to use the fryer. I sat at the table and just said - "Plug it in." He looked at it and realized there was nothing to learn - just the time and temp for whatever he was going to cook. I told him how I did yesterday's spuds and he was satisfied. He then dismissed me, grabbed the baggie of pre-cooked russets from the fridge, sliced up 4 of them, sprinkled a bit of onion and garlic powders and a decent amount of salt, saw I already had a fresh parchment paper in the basket and dumped the spuds in, and within 20 minutes was already in his room eating his lunch. He already asked me to make sure I always have cooked potatoes in the refrigerator, that he may even make these (minus the onions and garlic) in the mornings before work as breakfast and toss any leftovers in a container to bring to work for lunch.

Yep, he's been bitten by the potato bug. Wait until I make the first batch of BBQ chickpeas or onion rings! 

And as long as the cutting board was still out and the fryer hot, I cut up a batch for my own lunch. As long as I don't over-cook them like yesterday, I think I'm going to enjoy this appliance. I'm glad I held out so long and didn't grab a small one 2 years ago when everyone else jumped on the air fryer band wagon. This made better fries than I could have in the oven or my old convection toaster oven. This one is a good size. Even if I did buy a Breville I would have had to buy the second tray to make enough potatoes for a meal for 2 or more.

Oops, again. I thought I uploaded this the other day. I guess between all the appointments we had earlier this week I just forgot.

Since I wrote the above, I've made air fried potatoes every day for lunch except yesterday, both Russets and Yukon Golds. I had some leftover soup from the night before to eat, and also thought I might be eating too many potatoes and felt I should take the day off. The expected increase in joint pain never happened, to my surprise. My son has also been making himself fries every evening. And this morning I woke up and noticed some potatoes missing from the refrigerator - I guess he made another batch of fries for his breakfast while we were sleeping. The guy wakes up close to 2am and leaves the house before 5 every day so he had plenty of time. Beats grabbing a snack from the vending machines at work when he gets there.

Right now I have some peeled Russets in the Instant Pot and plan to make the potato patties shown in this video. I took 4 cooked Russets and mashed them with a generous sprinkling of Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb spice mix and made a total of 9 potato patties. They're in the air fryer right now @ 400º and my timer is set for 15 minutes.



I don't like things as crunchy as she does, so after I flip I'll only cook them another 3 minutes or so. The final result:

2 front, one flip side (after 3 minutes)

Oh, and I hopped on the scale this morning, just for shits and giggles, as Austin Powers says. I'm down 2 pounds since Monday! This is the first time I've lost weight eating as much as I want without being in the throes of bronchitis or the flu. Holy f-ing s***! Now I really hope I'm over my sensitivity to spuds and can continue eating as many as I want!

Even if I do start getting all those joint pains again from eating so many potatoes, I still say this was a great purchase based solely on the fact that my son is now eating less junk food and more healthy ones. He'll probably fry up some of those potato patties when he gets in as a snack before dinner today. Maybe I can interest him in bringing potato patty sandwiches for lunch instead of the peanut butter ones he's bringing in now. A mom can dream, right?

What A Great Son I Have

Hubby and I came home from our weekly grocery shopping trip and I found this on the kitchen table:

While we were gone our son made himself some oven fries, and he said he knew I would love the batch he made so did this for me just before he came down to carry the bags upstairs. He made them a bit salty for my taste, but it's the thought that counts. He knows I love my spuds as much as I love him!

I bought that ketchup during that trip and added it for the photo. It's from a company called True Made Foods, and I see Amazon also sells it in jars:

The ingredients are:

and it tastes pretty darn good!

Amazon also has one with no added sugar, so I may order some of that when this bottle is done.

Potato Toppings

 Farmer Fred's Suggestions

Here is an oldie but goodie list from the old Vegsource McDougall Board (Links to both pages are over there, on the right side of this blog  >>>>> )  I keep in my cardfile program:

This list was compiled from Jan Tz’s November 20, 2001 posting, as well as the additions of others that same date and recent January 24, 2002 postings. Quite the list! 
1) brown gravy 
2) onion gravy 
3) mushroom gravy 
4) onion-mushroom gravy (good grief) 
5) garlic-mushroom gravy 
6) ketchup 
7) BBQ sauce 
8) BBQ onions 
9) chili 
10) creamed corn (thanks, Sandie!) 
11) spicy beans of all sorts 
12) sweet and sour sauce 
13) chickpea gravy 
14) taco sauce 
15) mix the innards of a baked spud with pureed squash 
16) mash spudz with cooked carrots 
17) posole gravy 
18) chili gravy 
19) tofu sour creme 
20) spaghetti sauce 

These are additional suggestions that were not part of Jan’s list: 
21) anchovie-free Worcestershire sauce 
22) A-1 steak sauce 
23) steamed broccoli and cheez sauce 
24) cream-style corn 
25) fatfree gravies 
26) salsa 
27) steamed veggies 
28) veg bakon bits 
29) thick soups (split pea is yummy) 
30) Pot Roastless Potato--put steamed carrots and onions inside a baked potato and smother with vegetarian gravy 
31) Black Bean Beauties (bbq onions w/pureed black beans 
32) Martha Stewart Garlic Roasted Potatoes 
33) mushroom stroganoff 
34) Bragg's 
35) balsamic vinegar 
36) lentil sloppy joe 
37) stir fry with sweet and sour sauce 
38) coleslaw 
39) fresh butternut squash with fresh pepper and vegan "butter". 
40) Salad Potato--not quite the same as Potato Salad...I dice (really small) cucumber and tomato and let it sit in Seasoned Rice Vinegar while the potato is cooking--then add it along with a few sliced black olives (I'm like that kid in the commercial who finally finds his true family when he sees them with olives on all their fingers...)--salt and pepper. This is good because it's got the hot/cold thing going on--and the seasoned rice vinegar is sweet/salty. Yum! 
I like this on taters and brown rice - try succotash (limas, corn, tomatoes) and maybe a little of the juice.

Star McDougaller Esther and Her Nutritional Journey

A few months ago, Dr. McDougall posted about his new Star McDougaller, Esther Loveridge, how she lost over 100 pounds while in her 70's.

Prior to that, she was interviewed on a cruise, where she also told her story:



And even before that, she started her own Facebook community called Esther's Nutritional Journey. I like this site - she sticks to 100% McDougall and takes no nonsense from others, is very supportive of all who write, and she even posts a Word of the Day and explains how it works in living a healthy McDougall lifestyle.

She also has a YouTube site, although there isn't much there at this time.

Her most recent accomplishment occurred last week when she was interviewed for Corinne Nijjer's podcast, When Life Gives You Lemons, Go Vegan! Esther's episode, podcast number 54, is titled "How A 73 Year Old Avoided Having Both Knees Replaced." I just downloaded it, and as soon as my iPad recharges I'll give it a listen.

She's now down 114 pounds from her highest weight. And at age 73, too. That a girl, Esther! 

Me and My Potato Song

This was recently shared on the 100% Pure McDougall Facebook community.



While catchy, I still prefer this one.

Are We REALLY Following the (MWLP) Guidelines?

On the McDougall forums over the weekend, Amanda wrote this beautiful post about whether or not she was really following the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program guidelines. In it she goes line by line, commenting on whether she did or not. It was mentioned again in another post in a thread called Stuck for Months.

I admit I'm lax in some of these areas. Like Amanda, no meat, dairy, oils are a given, but I do have flour products by way of brown rice pasta every week, and I continue to add raisins to my morning oats most mornings. I blame Jeff Novick for the pasta because he compares it to unrefined complex carbohydrates in his caloric density chart and talks. What was that Dr. McDougall keeps saying about hearing good news about bad habits? Oh, and sun-dried tomatoes (botanically a fruit) to my grits and Mary's Bean Stew. But my meals always hit the "at least a third to half" as vegetables guideline, so I'm doing something right.

Here's the part Amanda quoted from the MWLP Guidelines thread:

Program outlined in the MWL book, page 60. 
1. Eliminate All Animal Foods
2. Eliminate All Oils
3. Eliminate All High Fat Plant Foods: Nuts, Nut Butters, Seeds, Seed Butters, Avocados, Coconut, & Olives.
4. Eliminate All Flour Products
5. Eat Whole Grains and Potatoes
6. Eat Legumes
7. Make Green & Yellow Vegetables One-Half to One-Third of your meal
8. Eat Uncooked Foods
9. Restrict Fresh Fruit to No More Than Two Servings a Day, and Avoid Dried Fruit, Fruit Puree, and Fruit Juice
10. Use Simple Sugar Sparingly

There's way more in that guidelines message, like exercise and links to newsletter articles explaining MWLP, but you'll have to go there to read the rest. 

I know, I know. I really have to stop spending so much time on other food plans' Facebook community sites (like UWL, Engine 2, Potato Reset, even regular McDougall program/Starch Solution, and Ann & Jane Esselstyn YouTubes) and concentrate once again on McDougall Maximum Weight Loss ones only!

At least I now know which webinars to concentrate on in my rewatching of the McDougall webinars, as I mentioned in the last blog post.

More Spud News

From Daddy's Home comic strip of Saturday February 3, 2018:

Watch What Your Read - Post from Jeff Novick re: the McDougall on Social Media

The McDougall Message and Social Media

by JeffN » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:09 am

Due to the increasing amount of complaints we get about the information provided in and by the many McDougall related social media groups, we are reposting this message.

Besides this forum, the following social media pages are the only ones that are officially endorsed by The McDougall Program. They are monitored, managed and facilitated by Dr McDougall and his staff.

Twitter
John McDougall, MD
https://twitter.com/johnmcdougallmd

Facebook
John McDougall, MD,
https://www.facebook.com/DrJohnMcDougall

The McDougall 10-Day Program Alumni**
https://www.facebook.com/groups/332055200265040/

The McDougall 3-Day ASW Alumni**
https://www.facebook.com/groups/230013840455156/

The McDougall Travel Adventure Alumni**
https://www.facebook.com/groups/343993155693254/

**These groups require approval

We also maintain a closed FB Page for each of the private companies we work with and one for the graduates of The Starch Solution Course. These also require approval.

While we understand that there are many groups out there trying to share our message, we can not ensure that the message you will get there is accurate and inline with our program.

In Health
Jeff

Potatoes!!

If you love potatoes - and what McDougaller doesn't? - the you NEED to buy Jeanine Elder's newly release ebook, The Potato Reset.

Sure, she has a load of potato recipes on her YouTube channel, like:



or




or even




but the book has all those AND MORE!! French Toast potatoes? Yum! Over a dozen different sauces and dips? Salt-free spice mixtures to make? Almost everything here is even MWLP safe, too!

Really, everyone needs to get this e-book!

And you may as well grab it this holiday weekend while she's having a half-price Launch Weekend sale!! You can't beat it for the price of $12.50 if you want easy, low-cost, healthy potato recipes! Whether you love white, red, Gold, russets, or any of the varieties of sweet potatoes, this book is for you!

Oh, and she outlines her Potato Reset weight loss plan, too, an added bonus. :) You could already get the free 3-day version of that on her website, but the book goes into a little more detail. 

I'm sure a lot of you probably already spent over $60 to get Jill McKeever's Soy Curls books, so why not shell out just a little bit more money to get even healthier potato recipes.

Fundraiser for the McDougall Family

As you all probably know by now, Dr. and Mary McDougall and his two daughters' homes were all wiped out in the fires at Santa Rosa earlier this week. All John and Mary were left with were the clothes on their back, one phone and one computer. Even their cars are gone. No word on the cat - people keep asking.

They're currently staying with friends, far away from the fires, after being evacuated from the hotel they were first brought to.

There's been a lot of talk on-line about fundraisers for them all, and on Wednesday, some said one was already up on GoFundMe, but that one is NOT an official McDougall fundraiser.

Jeff Novick announced:

The response to help the McDougalls has been overwhelming. 

I have been in conversation with the McDougalls, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and many of the WFPB docs about setting up a go-fund me or something similar. We should know more later today or tomorrow the latest. 

As soon as we get it set up I will post the information and links here.
In Health

         Jeff


So, as of 6am EDT today, there was no official fundraiser set up. Keep watching the official McDougall forums for an announcement of one, not any of the unofficial McDougall Facebook communities.

30 Ways to Eat Sweet Potatoes

A little while back I wrote a post with a link to Jill McKeever's list in PDF format of 30 Ways to Eat Sweet Potatoes. I just discovered she also did a video and a whole write up of it back in 2014! Now how did I miss that?

Be prepared - Jill is up to her usual shenanigans as she reads off the list, using a different hat, costume or camera filter as she read off each one.

And as always, there are many more recommendations in the comments below the video on YouTube, so be sure to check those out, too.

The Advanced Study Weekend Replays

Sometimes it sucks living on the East Coast instead of the West. Here in my part of NJ we have Dr. Fuhrman about a 90 minute ride away, but you California people have Santa Rosa, with Dr. Goldhamer and, my WFBP hero, Dr. John McDougall.

Because there's no way my ears would ever let me take a plane ride (I get dizzy and have ear pain on elevators!), the only way I will ever see Dr. McDougall or his Advance Study Weekends is on-line. The first few years he aired them we were broke, and there was no way we could afford $150 splurge to watch videos, no matter how informative they were. I missed a lot of really great speakers because of that.

But once we did have enough money and could breathe a little, financially, my husband told me to go ahead and rent them, if I want. Now, I haven't seen all of them since 2011, but most. Luckily, Dr. McD sometimes puts a speaker or 2 on YouTube for free.

I was reluctant to order them this time around. Aside from Dr. and Mary McDougall, and of course, Dr Doug Lisle, I never heard of the other speakers, and one of them is supposed to be a low-carb guy who presented at the obesity conference that rescinded their invitation to Dr. McDougall last year. But my husband talked me into it, and Friday afternoon I signed up. When I handed my husband the receipt so he could file it, he handed it back to me, and said Happy Valentine's Day. I gave him a playful smack (Hey, after 39 years, he deserved it!), and filed it away myself, which I'm sure was his intention in the first place. We haven't exchanged Valentine's Day gifts in a few decades now. :)

Anyway, I usually record them and eventually burn them to DVDs so I always have them, since the streams are only available for 6 months, not forever. Right now our cable has been wonky and the Internet freezes frequently so I haven't been able to do any copying (It's already taken me more than an hour to get through this post!), but yesterday afternoon I did get to watch about half of Mary McDougall's first presentation on meal planning.

I had seen Mary do this presentation before on the old VHS to DVD series Total Health Solution for the 21st. Century, filmed back in the 1990's, if I got that right. She also did a meal planning segment on the McDougall's Medicine: Fighting the Big Fat Lies with Fad-Free Truths DVD set. You can see her spot from that one here on YouTube:



I only got through about 45 minutes before my Internet decided to conk out again, and I'll pick it up later this morning, but the 45 minutes I've already seen has been almost worth the price of the entire ASW viewing already! And anyone can download the meal planning/pantry stocking handouts from the ASW web page, too.

Remember, I've been doing this - eating the McDougall way - since 1992, and I can still use all the help I can get. Sometimes I make things too complicated (E2L, UWL, Esselstyn heart protocols, Engine 2 Seven Day, etc.).

Sometimes all you need is a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.

We all need Mary McDougall to remind us of that now and then.

Your Favorite Disney Princesses Reimagined as This Potato Will Leave You Hungry for More

Cinderella

Your Favorite Disney Princesses Reimagined as This Potato Will Leave You Hungry for More: Cheezburger.com - Crafted from the finest Internets.

Congrats, SpudFit!

You know you've got it made in America when SNL mocks you!

Peeled: The Potato Resurrection Trailer (Parody Horror Film)

I found this on YouTube and it's a really scary movie for us McDougallers. Well, if it were real, that is.

The Healthiest Diet on the Planet - Initial Personal Feedback

WARNING: These are my personal opinions after making a quick perusal of the book. These may not be my final opinions of it once I've actually read the thing.



Dr. McDougall's latest book reached my Kindle today, The Healthiest Diet on the Planet: Why the Foods You Love-Pizza, Pancakes, Potatoes, Pasta, and More-Are the Solution to Preventing Disease and Looking and Feeling Your Best. 

I didn't get much chance to look it over yet. I do know that he has said multiple times in the webinars that the bulk of the book is being taken from newsletter articles he's written over the past year or so and are still currently available for free on his website. Those chapters are titled: There are Lies, and Damn Lies, and The Healthiest Diet versus Fad Diets.

The next chapter is Red Light, Green Light: Dr. McDougall's Guide to What We Should and Shouldn't Eat, a.k.a. The McDougall Color Picture Book. Nothing new here - just a few paragraphs explaining how the "book" came about and the same exact photos as on the web.

Chapter 5 is the recipe section: Recipes for the Healthiest Diet on the Planet. Most of these are already in either other books or the recipe sections on the web site. Unfortunately, many of the recipes use things like miso (too salty for many people with heart or blood pressure conditions), tofu, cashews - more calorically dense recipes, similar to those in The Starch Solution that people complained about when that book came out. If you're on the Maximum Weight Loss Plan, very few of these recipes are for you. There are Pancakes and French Toast and breakfast burritos; a bunch of bowl meals and sauces, some that use tofu or peanut butter; soups containing tofu, even tahini; a (3 recipe) section devoted to tofu recipes; bean and pasta salads; a section titled Potato, Rice, Bean and Pasta Dishes, again with a few containing tofu and nuts; next comes the Burger, Wraps and Pizza chapter, followed by the Sauces (Yes, more nuts, tahini and tofu in here, too). The Desserts - agave, nuts, back to Wonderslim Cocoa and frozen apple juice concentrate again. Full color photographs of 19 of the recipes comes next.

After this comes the references, 10% of the book. Nobody can say Dr. McDougall slacks off on this! Another 10% for the index.  

Am I happy I bought this book? Well, I'm a completist, and if I didn't buy it now I would have in the future. Will I read it? I'll read until I recognize the article from a newsletter, then skip to the next. Will I make any of the recipes? Maybe one of the few new ones, but I'm trying to lose weight, not gain it, so the majority of the recipes aren't for me or my husband.

I'm happy Dr. McDougall got the offer he couldn't refuse and put this new book out, but, as he warned, there's really nothing new in it that isn't already on his web site, except for a handful of recipes. But if he wasn't offered a boatload of money to do this, unless I see something really extraordinary when I start to really read it, he should have stopped at The Starch Solution and just referred people to his web site's newsletter archives.

Another Oldie But Goodie - the Original Potato Toppings List

Posted to the McDougall Recipe board on VegSource, taken from Sandie's now-defunct Geocities site. There are variations of it on the official McDougall forums, too. Just do a search of the forums for "potato toppings list" and a number of posts will pop up.

The Nelson kids, circa 2005

From: Jan Tz
Subject: POTATO TOPPINGS LIST (from Sandie's page)
Date: December 8, 2004 at 3:39 pm PST

* brown gravy
* onion gravy
* mushroom gravy
* onion-mushroom gravy
* garlic-mushroom gravy
* ketchup
* BBQ sauce
* BBQ onions
* chili
* creamed corn
* sauerkraut
* stir fried veggies
* soy sauce
* spicy beans of all sorts
* sweet and sour sauce
* chickpea gravy
* taco sauce
* mix the innards of a baked spud with pureed squash
* mash spudz with cooked carrots
* posole gravy
* chili gravy
* tofu sour creme
* veg 'bakon' bits
* spaghetti sauce
* anchovie-free Worcestershire sauce
* A-1 steak sauce
* steamed broccoli and cheez sauce
* any fatfree gravies
* salsa
* steamed veggies
* thick soups (split pea is yummy)
* Pot Roastless Potato--steamed carrots & onions inside a baked potato, smothered with veg gravy
* Black Bean Beauties (bbq onions w/pureed black beans
* Martha Stewart Garlic Roasted Potatoes
* mushroom stroganoff
* Bragg's Liquid Aminos
* balsamic vinegar
* lentil sloppy joe
* stir fry with sweet and sour sauce
* coleslaw
* fresh butternut squash with fresh pepper and vegan "butter".
* mashed avocado on mashed potatoes with a little lemon, salt and pepper
* Salad Potato--not quite the same as "potato salad"...dice (really small) cucumber and tomato and let it sit in Seasoned Rice Vinegar while the potato is cooking--then add it along with a few sliced black olives-- salt and pepper. This is good because it's got the hot/cold thing going on--and the seasoned rice vinegar is sweet/salty.