caloric density?

nutrition class was interesting. the weekend class was conducted by a husband and wife team, both chiropractic doctors by training. (www.rawfooddoctors.com)

class started well. i stayed awake! what i was most fascinated by was the concept of the caloric density of food. people are always counting calories of the food they consume when they are on a diet, and this concept of caloric density of food just throws the whole exercise of calorie counting out of the window! is that cool or what?

so when you apply the concept, a pound of vegetables has a caloric density of the range of 45-450. raw salad being 100, potato being 450. fresh fruits fall in the region of 100 - 400. with melon being 180 and banana being 400. then we have brown rice at 500 and croissant at 1861! that's the end of croissant for me! avocado which we always claim is fattening sits at 800 and fried eggs 900! quaker granola is 2100, bacon is 2270, oil of any kind 4000!!!! and the list goes on....

with such numbers, its really quite easy to plan out a healthy WEIGHT LOSS menu (yes i can see all the ladies are paying attention now, some more than others!)

dr. rick dina even touched on the strategy doing that, which seriously is a no-brainer when you get the idea. say you are planning to go out for a big meal with a bunch of friends. you pre-load by eating a huge bowl of raw salad at home and technically "ruin your dinner" so by the time you have your actual dinner, you will less hungry and eat less. start off with the low caloric density foods like vegetables and if you are still hungry then add the higher caloric dense food! simple...

so this was the first session of the day and it caught my attention. the rest of the sessions were more like a chemistry lesson for me. we were introduced to the various types of vitamins and minerals, B12 being highlighted as lacking in a raw food diet. then we had a whole session on blood sugar, insulin... the session on protein was interesting for me. i always associate protein with either meat or soy but having been through this class, i was amazed that one of the highest source of protein is from romaine lettuce! caesar salad here i come! then we had other interesting sessions on AGE and acrylamide, the biochemistry of heating your food (and why you should consider going raw!) i can just see michael's face if i announce the kitchen is going to close! what's a 15yr old going to tell his friends that he's going vegetarian?? i think its cool.

the sessions were simple and clearly delivered. i enjoyed it very much, except that we don't have the pleasure of having gourmet cuisine spread at lunch. it's quite an anticlimax from the whole of last week when we were spoilt for choice by the gastronomy put on the buffet spread!

end of a nice easy weekend session. next two week is THE main event. i had a glance at the schedule and it looks hectic. so much for my idea of a class cum vacation. i have not even touched a page of my 3 books which i brought to read! sigh... at least i made salad dressing last night!

karen, my coursemate taught me (thanks karen! it was yummy!) its really easy, blend one big red bell pepper till its fine, add about two handful of raw cashew nuts, half a lemon, half a teaspoon of himalayan sea salt, half a teaspoon of nutritional yeast (optional) blend it all fine in your vitamix and voila... a very very yummy dressing! really good, try it!

anyway got to go... class starts in an hour. really excited! cya!