Making the Change

Remember many years ago, when Dr. and Mary McDougall talked about their very first "book" that they made up in 1979 to give their early patients? It was hand typed and bound with those little loose-leaf binder clips.

Every now and then I roam the Internet used book sites hoping to see someone trying to sell theirs. I was even on Ebay this morning looking.

Then suddenly a message appeared in my email in-box at 9:01 - The McDougalls have scanned this little book into digital form and it's now available for free as a PDF download on their website!

Of course I immediately downloaded it!

Oh, it's so cute! OK, maybe not "cute", but I'm so happy to finally get my hands on this. I haven't read through the whole 252 pages yet, obviously, but I did flip through it. Definitely hand-typed, and there are even hand written page numbers and the occasional notes in the margins or between paragraphs.

Of course, the food plan is basically the exact same thing Dr. McDougall teaches today. Just like he did in the Health Supporting Cookbooks, The McDougall Plan, and other early books, the foods are broken down into categories I to IV based on what they're composed of and whether they're health-supporting or not, very similar to the current stoplight differentiation of the more recent  The Color Picture Book.

Glancing through the recipes, there are a lot of old tried-and-true ones that I still make to this day, like the enchilada sauce or the Easy Curried Pea Soup. There are many others I never saw before that look interesting, like a gravy called Whole Wheat Sauce or the variations of refried beans.

I'm going to have fun with this!

Thanks, Dr. and Mary McDougall!