Day 18 – Lists

Did you know that a recent study led by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that if doctors follow a simple surgical checklist, deaths fell by a staggering 40 per cent!

To me these results are startling and I thought that the medical establishment would have had this figured out by now. But the systems are sometimes too complex or too simplified to take the obvious into account. These questions are not difficult ones: Does the patient have a known allergy? Do we have enough blood on hand? What side of the brain are we drilling into?

When reading an article on this I thought about lists for things we do every day, especially things that can be dangerous in the short term like driving your car or in the long term like buying and cooking food.

I feel overwhelmed at the choices we sometimes face as we buy foods but a list of things to look for would be great. I have mentioned Michael Pollen before and I think his list is a good starting place:

1. Eat food. Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food
2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims.

3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.
5. Pay more, eat less.
6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are.
8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden.
9. Eat like an omnivore.

These are broad statements but you can break them down even further and give specific simple questions to ask yourself before you buy or eat a food.

What about you - anything that would help you buy food or eat better? Let me know.

I think I’m back into eating – had a hard time finishing my dinner the other night but with a new outlook on what I can eat as long as its natural and fits into the guidelines, I’m golden. I love the chives and cilantro to taste in my meat dishes. I love the spicy hot spices and have been experimenting with coriander as a milder flavor. Dill is great on salmon, meats and vegetables while I enjoy the sweet taste of fennel on vegetables too.

I know some of my concoctions are not that great but I haven’t thrown anything out yet, I just go ahead and eat it, remembering emphatically not to try that again.

See you tomorrow.