I’m always amazed at the number of diets that forbid you from even touching a list of foods you may love, foods that might bring you joy—joy that might, in itself, increase your life expectancy as it increases your quality of life. Who knows?
Everyone and his brother writes a book about elimination of things from your diet. But Seamus Mullen, author of Seamus Mullen’s Hero Food: How Cooking with Delicious Things Can Make Us Feel Better took a look at his favorite ingredients and wondered how he could incorporate them into a healthy diet.
You’ll notice that the book isn’t so much about cutting out as it is adding in. Most of the diets I read about were elimination diets, which I find very exclusive. I wanted this book to be much more inclusive. Simply from a philosophical position, there is something inherently more positive about embracing rather than rejecting. This is not to say you include just any old thing. This book is about what works for me. It is not a prescription for dealing with inflammation (though I have managed to get off of some very hardcore drugs and be nearly pain-free through food and exercise!) If you find that gluten or corn or nightshades don’t work for you, by all means, avoid them. I happen to LOVE tomatoes. And corn. And eggplant. Initially I thought I was completely screwed. Then I changed the way I thought about these ingredients and I realized what I really loved about a tomato in August, the height of its season, was completely missing from a tomato I had any other time of year. I derive a lot of pleasure and joy from eating a tomato in peak season and I get nearly no joy or pleasure from eating an unripe, out of season tomato. The solution seemed pretty obvious to me: eat them in moderation, when they are best and make something of a ceremony out of it. Really celebrating that ingredient and the pleasure and joy I it gives me far outweighs the inflammatory impact it may or may not have on me. Frankly, I think a lot of the diet-related issues people suffer from have more to do with extended over-exposure to the wrong ingredients rather than the ingredients themselves. Of course I have no scientific proof to back this up, but that’s what my gut (pardon the pun) tells me. ~ Food Hero, Seamus Mullen
You should use the link and read the rest. It’s brilliant.
To purchase the book from a company that helps local bookshops and indy authors, see: