You'd be inclined to head for the nearest exit...and you'd be heading right for my little restaurant, JO's Kitchen Cafe--the home of filling, satisfying, man-pleasing food that's already received the seal of approval from truckers, factory workers, traveling salesmen, and growing teenage boys.
But if DeWitt, Iowa, isn't on your itinerary anytime soon, don't despair. For Cooking Healthy with a Man in Mind, I've collected more than two hundred of my best-loved Healthy Exchanges recipes, dishes I've served to men of all ages and backgrounds and even had tested by hundreds of visitors at a taste-testing buffet a few months ago. In addition, every one of them has received my husband, cliff's, unqualified approval, and if my "truck-drivin' man" (who now trucks me around instead) agrees that these common-folk healthy recipes are not only tummy filling but deliver real taste satisfaction, you can be sure they'll appeal to men everywhere!
He Needs to Eat Healthy-But Believes No "Good-for-You" Recipe Taste Good
If, as the proverbs says, the way to man's heart is through his stomach, I think the best way to get a man to eat healthy is to serve him food that looks and tastes like the dishes he loves. If you set a good-sized slab of a delicious-looking, spicy, meaty casserole or dish of great coleslaw in front of him, and he smacks his lips after every bite, he's going to pay attention when you tell him, afterward, that he's just devoured something that's not only good, but good for him.
When I started creating Healthy Exchanges recipes six years ago. I began with the idea that the dishes I prepared had to appeal to my "truck-drivin' man," Cliff. But, unlike all those times I tried to serve the family traditional "low-cal" dishes my husband considered "diet slop" and rejected. I invented healthy versions of recipes we all loved--Mexican and Italian specialties, biscuits and gravy, luscious pies--and won over their hearts and tummies.
My very first dish is still one of Cliff's favorites, and one that men often mention when they tell me which of my recipes they like best. Mexicalli Pie is made with ground beef (the leanest you can buy), chunky salsa, reduced-fat cheese, and even topped with a few ounces of Fritos, but it looks and tastes like the real thing while delivering much less fat than a traditional Mexican dish. It's impossible to eat a big slice of this tangy, satisfying entree and not feel like you've eaten real food. In fact, those crunchy bis on top make it taste like a real splurge.
I remember Cliff's reaction when I served it to him for the first time. He finished his serving and told me, "Boy, this is good." I told him then that it was healthy, and he said, "I don't care. It taste great. Can I have some more, please?" So I went to the kitchen and got him another piece. I realized that as long as I fixed that kind of food, I'd have his cooperation--and the help I needed to succeed.
Just last week a woman (who had no idea it was my first recipe) told me that Mexicalli Pie is her husband's favorite. And mothers have told me that it took only one serving for their teenage sons to become converts to The Healthy Exchanges Way. I feel blessed that the very first recipe I created was such a man-pleasing one because it gave me the courage and the inspiration to go forward with more.
Most men tell me that "diet" is the four-letter word they fear the most. Sometimes, they complain, just because she's trying to diet, he's stuck with tasteless casseroles, meatless mystery meals, midget-sized portions, and frustrated taste buds! Or maybe she's doing it for his own good--he's just had a mild heart attack, or his cholesterol level is too high, or he's been diagnosed with diabetes. "We're going to eat healthy from no on," she announces. "We could both lose a few pounds."
I always say that it's not enough for a recipe to be healthy. It also has to taste and look good. Otherwise, men won't eat it. Your kids wont' eat it. And eventually even the most dedicated dieter will feel so deprived she'll give up.
When I finally made the connection between food and feelings, I used what I learned to make over family favorites so they were delicious as well as nutritious. Because the meals I served were tasty and satisfying enough for my entire family to enjoy, all of us benefited from the change to healthy eating. I lost 130 pounds (and have kept it off for over six years), Cliff has lost about 30 pounds just coming along for the ride, and my kids and grandsons have developed an appetite for healthy cooking--as long as the dishes are prepared The Healthy Exchanges Way.
When I started creating Healthy Exchanges recipes six years ago. I began with the idea that the dishes I prepared had to appeal to my "truck-drivin' man," Cliff. But, unlike all those times I tried to serve the family traditional "low-cal" dishes my husband considered "diet slop" and rejected. I invented healthy versions of recipes we all loved--Mexican and Italian specialties, biscuits and gravy, luscious pies--and won over their hearts and tummies.
My very first dish is still one of Cliff's favorites, and one that men often mention when they tell me which of my recipes they like best. Mexicalli Pie is made with ground beef (the leanest you can buy), chunky salsa, reduced-fat cheese, and even topped with a few ounces of Fritos, but it looks and tastes like the real thing while delivering much less fat than a traditional Mexican dish. It's impossible to eat a big slice of this tangy, satisfying entree and not feel like you've eaten real food. In fact, those crunchy bis on top make it taste like a real splurge.
I remember Cliff's reaction when I served it to him for the first time. He finished his serving and told me, "Boy, this is good." I told him then that it was healthy, and he said, "I don't care. It taste great. Can I have some more, please?" So I went to the kitchen and got him another piece. I realized that as long as I fixed that kind of food, I'd have his cooperation--and the help I needed to succeed.
Just last week a woman (who had no idea it was my first recipe) told me that Mexicalli Pie is her husband's favorite. And mothers have told me that it took only one serving for their teenage sons to become converts to The Healthy Exchanges Way. I feel blessed that the very first recipe I created was such a man-pleasing one because it gave me the courage and the inspiration to go forward with more.
Most men tell me that "diet" is the four-letter word they fear the most. Sometimes, they complain, just because she's trying to diet, he's stuck with tasteless casseroles, meatless mystery meals, midget-sized portions, and frustrated taste buds! Or maybe she's doing it for his own good--he's just had a mild heart attack, or his cholesterol level is too high, or he's been diagnosed with diabetes. "We're going to eat healthy from no on," she announces. "We could both lose a few pounds."
I always say that it's not enough for a recipe to be healthy. It also has to taste and look good. Otherwise, men won't eat it. Your kids wont' eat it. And eventually even the most dedicated dieter will feel so deprived she'll give up.
When I finally made the connection between food and feelings, I used what I learned to make over family favorites so they were delicious as well as nutritious. Because the meals I served were tasty and satisfying enough for my entire family to enjoy, all of us benefited from the change to healthy eating. I lost 130 pounds (and have kept it off for over six years), Cliff has lost about 30 pounds just coming along for the ride, and my kids and grandsons have developed an appetite for healthy cooking--as long as the dishes are prepared The Healthy Exchanges Way.
What Makes Healthy Food Appeal to Men?
Any woman who's ever cooked for a man knows the kinds of things men like: potatoes and gravy, big pieces of meat (not just fish or chicken), and dessert at every meal. But getting a man to eat healthy isn't about getting a man to change--we all know how difficult it can be to change anything about a man!--but instead changing the way you prepare the foods he likes to eat.
I've had some people tell me, "Oh, he never notices what he's eating, as long as he's filled up when he leaves the table." If you've ever wondered about that, let me share some of my own unscientific research into whether men care whether what they're eating is good for them, or not.
If there ever was a manly profession, it'd have to be long-haul trucking. Well, one afternoon not long after I began creating healthy recipes. I was giving Cliff, my own long-haul trucker, his Sunday lunch. I'd made a Banana Split Pie and gave him a piece to try for the first time. He took one bite, then put his fork down and said, "Wow! You'd better get up to teh store quick before they close and buy what you need so you can make me one of these to take to my dispatcher. She'll never believe that it's healthy!" He licked his plate clean, then added, "You know, if you ever open a restaurant, people are going to come for your desserts alone!" (And he was right!)
After that, I used to send all kinds of leftovers with him in the refrigerator he carried in his truck. Once the word got out that he was taking my desserts and salads along, other truckers would call him on his CB and want to know where the nearest mile marker was, so they could meet up with him and share some of that precious cargo!
Okay, you may say, but Cliff doesn't really count, because he already knew he was getting a healthy dessert. Well, here's the other:
A few months later, I was talking on the radio in Des Moines, Iowa, telling my story and describing how to make that same Banana Split Pie. I also told how to order my cookbook and newsletter. Well, listening to the interview that day was a man driving his tractor doing spring field work. He had nothing to write with, so he stopped the tractor and scribbled the address in the dush on the fender. When he went in for lunch, he asked his wife to send for my book and newsletter.
She wrote to me that afternoon to order them, saying, "I didn't hear the program, but you must have been one heck of a talker to get my husband interested in healthy recipes in the middle of the cornfield." I met her at a cooking demo recently, and she told me that her husband loves my recipes as much today as he did when he first heard about Banana Split Pie.
Why is Banana Split Pie so irresistible to men? Maybe it's the combination of flavors that triggers the taste buds of the typical male. Just hearing me talk about the pie's ingredients--the coolness of the pineapple, the "filling-ness" of the banana and strawberries, plus a tiny bit of chocolate, and a couple of maraschino cherries chopped up on top--seems to get their attention.
A salesman who heard me talking about that pie actually pulled over to the side of the road and wrote the recipe down. He was one of those guys who eats in every greasy spoon along the interstate. When he got home that night, he gave the recipe to his wife and asked her to fix the pie. (How often do you hear of men stopping their cars to write down a recipe? There must be something magical about that pie!)
His wife wasn't used to hearing a request like this from her husband, but she mixed up the pie and served it that night. He must of thought it was a winner, because two days later, when he was in eastern Iowa, he drove thirty miles out of his way to meet me and get a copy of my cookbook. He couldn't say enough about how much he enjoyed that pie!
If a Man Eats Healthy, the Kids Will Follow
If you can please the man of the house with a healthy recipe, more often than not it will please the rest of the family, too. I believe that kids typically get their eating habits from their fathers. Because Dad is a bit of a mystery figure, often sharing a family meal only at night, the children pay attention to what he does, what he says--and what he eats. If you can win his approval for a healthy recipe, the kids will share his enthusiasm.
What does it take to satisfy a man at the table? Often, it's the taste of dishes his mother used to make, or the kind of substantial family favorites that both look hearty and please the tastebuds. When I create recipes with a man in mind, I know I've got a winner when I serve potatoes and gravy (not the old-fashioned kind, of course, but my healthy version is so delicious, men can't tell the difference!), or when I plunk a slab of meaty casserole onto the plate. It doesn't look like diet food, it doesn't taste like diet food, and as the factory workers who've been eating lunch from my Health Wagon Catering Bus have told me, they don't care if it's healthy as long as it tastes good.
What's Different about
Cooking Healthy with a Man in Mind?
As usual, let me begin my "research" with Cliff. Bake in 1991, he led a pretty normal lifestyle for a long-haul trucker--home about one day a week and on the road the other six. He thought French fries were the only potatoes worth ordering, and that all food should be served in huge quantities and really fast, just the way the truck stops did.
In fact, here's the way he puts it: Cliff wants Real Food served Real Fast in Real Quantities with a Real Smile--the way he got it from the Truck Stop Waitresses!
When I started serving him my Healthy Exchanges recipes, his life changed forever. He liked them so much, he told his friends he'd never eaten so well in all the years we'd been married. When he asked if he could take healthy leftovers along in his portable fridge, I felt as if I'd won a kind of victory--and when he began to lose weight without trying, he became my greatest supporter.
(He's also always welcome in my test kitchen--but I wish I could persuade him to help with the dishes!)
Now that I've talked to and received letters from men from all over the country, I know that Cliff is pretty typical. With the exception of the few foods he really doesn't like (and that other men may like), he's a reliable median of what it takes to please a man when it comes to cooking.
These days when men meet me, they usually say, "Boy, if I've got to eat healthy, I'm so glad that my wife found your recipes. And your pies are out of this world!" In fact, men seem to really relate to me. This is exceedingly unusual in the diet/healthy food business. Maybe it's because I tend to remind them of their wives, mothers, daughters, or sisters that they're immediately drawn to me.
Most of all, they see me as a friend who wants them to eat well, instead of a threatening diet cop who does plate patrol or a seductive female who's all false promises about what eating healthy really means.
When Cliff and I were traveling through Texas recently, we met a couple who summed it up perfectly. The woman, who'd been trying to cook for her diabetic husband, told me that, once she found Healthy Exchanges, her kitchen "was no longer a disaster area." The man said simply, "Your food looks and tastes like you put the lovin' back in."
What Will the Food Be Like?
I'm sure you remember reading about the government's suggestions for a Food Pyramid, with certain recommended numbers of servings of fruits, vegetables, breads, proteins, and fats to be consumed each day. Well, I like to say that a man's "Food Pyramid" just isn't the same as the government's. Men need meat. They need chocolate. They need bananas. They need corn. Most of all, they need dessert. (If you're looking for the quickest superhighway to get what you want from a man, make sure you serve him from the dessert fast lane!)
Men will get what they need and what they want from Healthy Exchanges. My Men's Healthy Food Pyramid may win more votes than anything cooked up in Washington! But they'll get it in a healthy, enjoyable way. Don't expect to find in this book the dozens of grilled and broiled fish and chicken recipes that are at the heart of almost every healthy cookbook. That kind of food might have been all right when you were looking for a quick fix or crash diet, but it's just not a way to eat and live well for a lifetime.
Why "Cooking Healthy with a Man in Mind"?
When I was trying to decide what to call this cookbook, I did some grassroots research, talking to all the men I met at bookstores and cooking demos, media appearances and transplant support groups. I told them I was thinking of calling it Cooking Healthy with a Man in Mind. Well, to a man their eyes let up, they smiled, and they said, "It's about time." Then they added, I can't wait to get my hands on the book--and on the food!"
I sure do like knowing that my recipes make their mouths water.
Is Cooking Healthy with a Man in Mind for You?
Because Healthy Exchanges, the old days of preparing separate meal for family dieter are over for good. The cardiac patient and diabetic dont' have to be outcasts from the family dinner table any longer. Healthy Exchanges recipes provide what every table needs--a way for everyone to eat healthy without sacrificing flavor. The portions are realistic, not diet sized, the dishes resemble family favorites in appearance and taste, and they're prepared quickly from easy-to-find ingredients.
