Ivy Larson is watching a visitor thumb through the recipes in the Whole Foods Diet Cookbook, the new collection of healthy recipes written by the Palm Beach Gardens fitness and nutrition expert and her bariatric surgeon husband, Andy.
She watches the reader pause on the names of such delicious-sounding dishes as Chili-Spiked Oven Baked Onion Rings and Slow Cooker Summer Citrus
Salmon, and stare at equally delicious-looking photos of the food, and waits for an observation.
“This looks like …,” the visitor begins.
“Real food!” Larson says, beaming. “I know! I want people to know that healthy food doesn’t have to look like (it’s made from) fringe elements. It looks like real food.”
And that’s the point of the recently released Whole Foods, a recipe and guidebook through the philosophy that food is healthier “in its most natural state,” she says, before man, manufacturing and chemical processing have their way with it.
The Larsons, who have previously written the nutrition books The Gold Coast Cure and The Gold Coast Cure’s Fitter, Firmer, Faster Program, want people to understand that they can make healthy, delicious and nutritionally sound choices.
“It focuses on maximizing nutrition,” Ivy Larson says of dishes such as peppers stuffed with meatless tempeh that “still taste meaty. It’s a nutritionally sound diet. And it doesn’t require desperate measures.”
And there are no points or calculations involved, she says — “It’s about making your food count nutritionally instead of counting your food. That’s not a reasonable way to eat.”
The seeds of the Larsons’ whole foods philosophy, which includes whole grains and focuses on foods high in antioxidants and essential fats, started in 1998, when the two were just old friends — “He was my eighth-grade math tutor,” she says.
Ivy was a 22-year-old University of Miami student who had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — “Before my diagnosis, I had bladder issues, and I couldn’t go to the bathroom. I was a 22-year-old with a catheter,” she says.
Her neurosurgeon suggested either drugs or something called the Swank Diet for MS.
The diet, introduced in 1948 by Dr. Roy L. Swank, is low in saturated fat, and had “a lot of great things in it, but was outdated,” Ivy says, explaining, for instance, that when it was written, the concept of unhealthy trans fats or healthy fats like omega-3s hadn’t been popularized, and Americans hadn’t yet begun to rely on so many processed foods.
Ironically, Ivy, 33, a certified health fitness specialist, said she “had no concept of nutrition. I figured it doesn’t matter what you eat. You exercise so you can eat more,” she says. “That was in the days of fat-free foods that had no nutrition. I would eat Lucky Charms because they were fat-free.”
What she found was that many degenerative diseases, such as MS, are worsened by inflammation, which certain foods can cause — “Not all fats are created equal,” she says, a discovery that made her step away from the sugary, over processed foods. So she called Andy, who had finished medical school at University of Pennsylvania, and asked him to do some research for her.
“At the time, (the low-carb) Atkins Diet existed, and a lot of people were keeping their fat intake as low as possible, but weren’t attempting to differentiate between the good fat and the bad,” says Andy, now a surgeon at JFK Medical Center. “When I was researching, I saw the connection. I looked at the Mediterranean diet (which is low in saturated fat but high in monounsaturated fats, such as olive oil). People who ate that way had a 70 percent decreased rate of heart attack than (those who follow) the standard American diet.”
The Whole Foods Diet includes parts of those plans, focusing on healthy fats and whole grains such as quinoa, which might not be as familiar to some readers.
The Larsons also explain that all supposed health foods aren’t necessarily so, and that so-called “all natural” food “could be sugar-laden. And just because it’s organic, doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”
There are some no-nos: enriched flour, MSG, high-fructose corn syrup and sodium nitrates. But it’s not about deprivation. There are desserts included in the cookbook — “I still have a sweet tooth,” Ivy says, adding that she has a glass of red wine every night “because there isn’t any reason from a health standpoint not to.”
She considers herself a “flexitarian,” limiting her consumption of meat and paying attention to its health and origins when she does — “If the animal (you’re eating) was not fed healthy food, the meat’s not going to be healthy,” Ivy says.
Some of the yummiest recipes have healthy components that on their own might scare the uninitiated but turn out to be delicious, like “a lasagna spiked with wheat germ,” she says.
The Larsons say that weight loss is only a side benefit to the Whole Foods Diet. Natural foods tend to be more filling because things like fiber fill you up and leave you less hungry.
The Larsons also want people to know that the recipes in the book are not financially prohibitive.
Their way of eating is so good, they say, their 8-year-old son, Blake, is into it — “He eats more vegetables than most kids,” Andy says.
Ivy no longer has MS symptoms and acknowledges that it’s “never really cured,” but is convinced that her diet has kept those symptoms at bay. And eating healthy means that more than just the food is good-looking.
“People always tell me ‘You look so young!’ ” Andy says. “I say ‘It’s just the way I eat.’ ”
Individual baked omelet soufflés with leeks and mushrooms.
Individual baked omelet soufflés with leeks and mushrooms
Serves: 4
Extra-virgin olive oil cooking spray
1 stalk leeks, washed and sliced into 1-inch rounds
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 ounces gourmet mushroom blend (such as shiitake, crimini, baby bella, oyster, etc.)
Unrefined sea salt, to taste
White pepper, to taste
1⁄2 cup frozen petite peas
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
6 cage-free organic omega-3 eggs
1⁄2 cup crumbled low-fat feta cheese, divided
Preheat oven to 375º. Spray 4 (1-cup) jumbo muffin cups with cooking spray.
Working in small batches, place the sliced leek rounds into a food processor and pulse to shred. Set the shredded leeks aside.
Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet to medium-high. When oil is hot, add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the shredded leeks and sauté for 2-3 minutes, or just until soft. Add the mushrooms and sauté for 2 minutes, or just until wilted. Season the leeks and mushrooms with salt and pepper to taste. Add the peas and cook for 1 minute. Gently stir in the basil. Remove the skillet from the heat.
Place the eggs, 1⁄4 cup of the feta cheese, plus salt and pepper to taste in a blender; mix on high for 30 seconds. Divide the leek-mushroom mixture into the centers of the 4 prepared jumbo muffin cups. Carefully pour the egg mixture on top of the vegetables, dividing the mixture evenly among the cups. Bake for 15 minutes.
Remove the omelet soufflés from the oven and divide the remaining 1⁄4 cup feta cheese onto the top of each soufflé. Return the soufflés to the oven and bake for an additional 5-8 minutes. The omelet soufflés will be puffy and slightly brown when done. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes and serve warm.
Slow-cooker Mexican-style vegetarian stuffed peppers.
Slow-cooker Mexican-style vegetarian stuffed peppers
Serves: 4
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1⁄2 onion, finely chopped
1 (8-ounce) package tempeh, crumbled
Unrefined sea salt, to taste
1 teaspoon paprika
2 pinches cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
11⁄2 cups good-quality, all-natural prepared marinara sauce
1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles
1⁄4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 (14.5-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
4 red bell peppers, tops removed and seeded
1⁄2 cup shredded, low-fat organic cheddar cheese
Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet to medium-high; add garlic and onion, and sauté until onion is just tender, about 3-4 minutes. Add the tempeh and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Season onion and tempeh with salt to taste. Mix in the paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin and corn kernels.
In a small bowl, whisk together the marinara sauce and green chiles. Pour the marinara green chile mixture into the skillet with the tempeh; mix well to combine. Stir in the cilantro and black beans.
Stuff the peppers with the tempeh mixture. Arrange the peppers in a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Cover and cook the peppers on high for 2 hours or on low for 4 hours. Remove the lid and top the peppers with the shredded cheese, replace the cover and cook on high for 15 to 20 additional minutes. Allow peppers to cool 10-15 minutes before serving. Serve warm.
