Whether you are 15 or 81, a woman these days needs to focus on eating good food. Most of the stuff that people eat today is not good for them, and you can see the results: the ugliest and unhealthiest people ever.
The quality of your food matters more than the quantity. “Dieting” through calorie restriction doesn’t work well, and is no fun. If you eat good food, and get regular exercise, your body will tend to naturally maintain itself in a slim condition.
About all that a young woman needs to do to Be a Babe is to eat good food, exercise regularly, and pay a little attention to beautification. Your body type doesn’t really matter that much. Fortunately, this is about the least competitive environment for young women in all of US history. Easily 30%-40% of all women under age 30 end up Fugly, mostly due to their own carelessness rather than any inherent disadvantage.
Later, one of a wife and mother’s primary duties will be to prepare good food for her family.
Mostly, this “good food” means food prepared “from scratch,” or from single ingredients. Don’t buy things in the supermarket with a list of ingredients. You can make a few minor exceptions, mostly for condiments like ketchup and mustard, but even then, look for products that might be organic or have no funny things in their ingredients. Visit the produce section, the meat section, pick up some laundry detergent, and you are done. All those other aisles of packaged foods are not for you.
Although I would caution against using food with any kinds of ingredients, I would especially caution against “natural ingredients.” What is this? It can be anything, as long as it comes from a natural source. For example, if you make MSG in a chemical factory, but use soybeans as a starting point, you can call it “natural ingredients.” Also, even the ingredients that seem relatively harmless, would be better if you used better-quality alternatives. For example, a salad dressing that contains canola oil is not going to be as good for you as one that you made at home with organic olive oil.
Focus on fruits and vegetables. If you like, you can have meat, or perhaps, if that is not your style, then you can go in more of a vegan direction. There is a lot of focus on meat-heavy diets these days, but actually, Americans eat twice as much meat today as they did in 1900, and it is still going up. You could cut your meat intake in half, and it would still be a lot of meat. The main advantage of a meat-heavy diet is not that meat is so good for you, but it is better than processed foods made from GMO corn and soy, white sugar, seed oils, and stuff with weird additives. Meat is a single-ingredient food.
I would de-emphasize the “white foods,” including refined grains (white flour), sugar (white sugar), and vegetable oils, and things made from them (doughnuts). People ate chocolate cake in the past, and ice cream, but they didn’t eat it all the time, like people do today.
Around here, we look for bulk foods of high quality. We get organic rice or various sorts of organic beans, mostly in 25lb bags. Other bulky foundation foods include potatoes, onions, squash, beets and turnips. You can buy a 50lb bag of potatoes for $18.
Although we are not strictly no-wheat around here, we stay away from modern wheat. Unfortunately, although wheat has been a core element of the European diet since antiquity, common wheat underwent a change around 1980 that seems to have rendered it slightly toxic. I consider regular wheat a “GMO” food although this is not quite strictly true. This includes organic wheat. Instead, look for pre-1960 forms of wheat, or even pre-1700 forms. This includes: einkorn, emmer, and spelt. Einkorn is the original grain domesticated in Mesopotamia about 10,000 years ago. By the age of the Romans and Egyptians, the common form of wheat was Emmer. You can buy organic einkorn and emmer flour today, and make bread from it if you like. It is much heavier and crumblier than wheat bread — somewhat like cornbread — but it is satisfying nevertheless if you want something like “bread.” I think this is better than “gluten-free flour” alternatives. They work especially well for uses where you don’t need something so fluffy, like a cupcake. Try einkorn pasta (which you can purchase readymade, try vitacost.com), or pancakes made from emmer flour. Or, you can just skip the wheat. Asians didn’t use it.
Canning is a good way to prepare instant foods for later. It is not hard to put pasta sauces or soups into 1 qt. Mason jars. Put together 16 quarts of chili or minestrone soup on Saturday, and can it into jars. Then, whenever you want something quick, just open a jar and reheat it. Since you made it yourself, it will be much better quality than almost anything you can buy in a store.
Fruit is a nice instant food. You don’t have to cook it. You can just eat it. However, fruit often needs to be ripened. This is somewhat strange to some people. What, I can’t just eat it? Just set it aside somewhere to ripen. But, don’t forget it. Keep an eye on it, so you can eat it at its peak. A watermelon or pineapple makes a nice lunch. Just some watermelon or pineapple. That’s all.
Fruit is seasonal, so eat a lot of what’s in season. If it’s not in season, skip it until it is. Watermelon is a summer fruit. Cherries are available in early summer. Citrus is winter fruit. Apples ripen in the autumn. Tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples are available year-round, but they are best in winter since that is when there are no summer fruits available. There are also Southern Hemisphere seasons. There’s a burst of fresh grapes from Chile that arrives in US supermarkets around February. Anyway, if it’s cheap, it’s probably in season. If it’s expensive, then forget it — not only does it cost more, but it won’t taste as good because it is not in season. If you are buying fresh strawberries or peaches in March, where do you think those came from? Instead, you might be better off with frozen strawberries and peaches, in March.
While you can just eat fruit or meat, without much preparation, most vegetables are not very good by themselves. Remember steamed broccoli, or steamed green beans? Not so good just by itself, right? Most Americans are rather retarded about this. Vegetables need combination, and preparation and spices.
Green salads should be part of your diet almost every day. Make your own salad dressings.
I do not recommend any vegetarian “imitation foods” including soy burgers or vegan ice cream made from rice. But, since these are all processed foods, if you are sticking to single-ingredient foods, then you won’t be using this anyway.
If you eat meat, look for better quality meats.
The process of learning how to cook delicious food from single-ingredient sources can be a lot of fun. When you get the hang of it, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Just eat organic oatmeal for breakfast, instead of Lucky Charms. What’s so hard about that? If you’re busy, open a jar of homemade soup that you made six months ago. If you are too lazy even for that, then eat some fresh dates and walnuts, washed down with some apple juice.
Along the way, you will be much healthier, and look much better. Also, if you are feeding a family, it can be much cheaper. Even if you pay extra for organic ingredients, it is still pretty cheap if you buy in bulk and cook yourself.
Cornerstone 