The Fit or Fat: What is the Food System?

Food Scale

The Fit-or-Fat System

Americans eat too much fat! Most people are surprised to learn that about 45 percent of the calories in their diet comes from fat. Even "health food" enthusiasts unknowingly eat an excess of high-fat foods. Fat contains few vitamins but lots of calories, making us nutrient-poor but calorie-rich.

In The Fit-or-Fat Target Diet foods are graded on a target, with low-fat foods at the center. As foods get progressively fattier, they are placed in rings farther from the bull's-eye.

If you glance at the simplified version of the Target shown here, you may be shocked to find some of your favorite foods in the high-fat peripheral rings. You may also be surprised to learn that beef and peanuts have equally high fat levels, and beans and fish have equally low fat levels.

One gram of fat yields 9 calories, while 1 gram of carbohydrate yields only 4 calories. This fact should make it obvious that the fat in foods is what dramatically raises the calorie level, not the carbohydrate. Fats are fattening! Fat in the diet, coupled with a lack of exercise, is the principal cause of obesity, and obesity is our number one health problem. The single most overwhelmingly important dietary change people should make is to decrease their fat consumption. Some fat in the diet is recommended — in fact, essential — but we need to decrease our overall fat intake. The recipes in this book, in addition to being low in fat, follow all the other rules of good nutrition.

Low-fat, high-fiber cooking conjures up images of bland, unimaginative meals that are hard to swallow. When you try our recipes, you will be delighted! They are savory and totally satisfying, even to the most skeptical. You'll find low-fat cooking fun and challenging because it's hard to make food tasty without using butter and sugar.

Remember, everything in life is a compromise, and cooking is no exception. If you take all the sugar, fat, and salt out of foods, people won't eat them. Low fat doesn't mean no fat. People ask, "Don't we have to have some fat in the diet?" Of course we do. Glance at the recipes in this book, and you'll see that most have a little fat. We haven't cut out the fat, we've just reduced it.

So you will find some fat, sugar, and salt in most of our recipes, although in amounts lower than those in most cookbooks. Since the amount of fat is particularly critical, we show the^fat content per serving for each recipe. We might have shown the grams of fat per serving, but used the term fats instead, to be in harmony with our background book The Fit-or-Fat Target Diet. By this system, 1 "fat" equals 5 grams or 45 calories. Look at the first recipe, for example, and you will see that one serving of Bailey's Bouillabaisse contains 130 calories and 1/10 "fat." Since each "fat" contains 45 calories, the 1/10 fat contributes 4^1/2 calories to the serving; that is, 4^1/2 of the 130 calories (about 3 percent) come from fat.

Although we didn't highlight sugar and salt content in the same manner as we did the fat, we have cut down on these ingredients, also. Readers of Fit or Fat? and The Fit-or-Fat Tar get Diet know we feel that fit people's bodies can handle sugar and salt much better than fat people's. But even if you're not fit you need not be concerned about our occasional use of ingredients that contain sugar, such as ketchup, or the modest amount of salt and bouillon cubes in the recipes. The quantities we suggest are below those recommended by the American Heart Association and are certainly safe for the average individual.

We offer good home-style cooking with easy to follow directions. The recipes are simple and do not require unusual ingredients or trips to specialty stores. By following these recipes, even a novice can put together tasty, satisfying dishes.

Learn to Modify Recipes!

Many of the recipes in this book aren't "new" — they are simply modifications of older ones that call for too much fat or sugar. Don't feel that you have to throw away your old cookbooks or give up your favorite recipes. Learn to change them. It's not difficult. In many cases, we have included the original ingredients of recipes so you can see how we have changed them. Such modifications are so simple that making them will become second nature to you.

We urge you to make only small changes initially. Use low-fat milk instead of whole, substitute yogurt for sour cream, reduce the fats in recipes by a third. You'll be surprised at how little difference these small changes make in flavor. Pretty soon you won't depend on our cookbook because you'll be busy creating and experimenting with recipes all your own!

RECOMMENDED DAILY CALORIES AND FAT INTAKE

We believe that everybody should have his or her percentage of body fat tested. We have written articles, newsletters, and even a book imploring people to have this test done. It is the only way to know for sure just how much fat your body has accumulated and the only rational way to decide how many calories you should eat. Nonetheless, we recognize that some readers haven't had their fat tested yet (hint, hint), and we have included a table, "Recommended Daily Calories and Fats," from which you can approximate your caloric needs. The easiest way to lower calories yet enjoy food is to restrict fat.

In this book we refer to the number of fats in a food: 1 fat equals 5 grams of fat equals 45 calories.

We expect most readers to fall into Category 2. Even if you are a Category 1 person, it is wise to stick to the low-fat recommendations of Category 2, knowing that you're allowed to "cheat" now and then. A Category 3 diet is very stringent and difficult to stick with. If you're quite obese or have had a heart attack, you must use this category. Category 3 is so strictly limiting that we have included a week's menus for you, to lessen the burden of getting started on it.

A few recipes in our book contain more fat than we normally recommend. These are for Category 1 people who exercise frequently. Their bodies burn fat well, so they can "afford" the extra fats.

Recommended Daily Calories Intake