The New American Diet Cookbook is our celebration of the new cuisine that is beginning to sweep the Western world. It is the product of extensive testing by people who love to cook and eat good food. We believe we have some of the best cooks in the world on our staff at Oregon Health Sciences University, and they come from all over the world - Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas. Every recipe in this book is new -- and every recipe has been carefully analyzed for its nutrient content and must meet strict nutritional standards and even stricter taste tests. The New American Diet Cookbook emphasizes vegetables, grains, beans, fruits, and fish, but also includes some chicken dishes. Calroically, this cuisine is 'light'. As the baby boomers begin to enter their fifties, surveys show they want to eat lighter fare; this is partly due to our growing health consciousness and partly because of our changing metabolism. As we age, we need to eat less to avoid obesity. Thus, it becomes even more important that the foods we eat provide all the nourishment we need. Whether you're a child, a teenager, a boomer, an in-betweener, or a senior, our recipes are packed with optimal nutrition.
In the typical U.S. diet, over 60 percent of the calories come from fat, sugar and alcohol and have a little nutrition other than calories. Duirng much of this last century, we have had to rely on about 35 percent of our calories to provide the wide range of bitamins, minterals and other important nutrients. In the New American Diet eating style, almost 70 percent of the calories come from foods that are packed full of nutrients that science suggests are associated with optimal health throughout life.
By selecting and trying a wide variety of dishes from this cookbook, some of the recipes will become part of your everyday eating style. This will move you toward the following nutritonal goals, which decades of research have shown can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by as much as 40 percent and help protect you and your family from heart disease (atherosclerosis), stroke, various cancers, high blood pressure, obesity, and other degenerative processes such as osteoporosis.
