If everything else fails, try God’s diet

Good grief, does God go on a diet, too? Believe it or not, there’s a God’s diet, according to Dr. Dorothy Gault-McNemee in her book, yes, God’s Diet (available at Goodwill Bookstore), and it’s a short and simple way to eat naturally, lose weight, and live a healthier life.

Fact is, a lot of people who are on it praise God’s diet. Listen:

Jose C. Perez: "I’ve lost 90 pounds in less than six months on God’s Diet."

Mary H. Marshall: "I have been on God’s Diet for 10 days and have lost nine pounds ... after having been stalled on the Atkins Diet for three months."

Doris M. Luljak: "I have been on this plan for over a month. It’s fantastic! I have lost 15 pounds in that time without effort. This is the ‘life plan’ for me. Thanks, Dr. Dorothy!"

Mary Gregg: "I’ve lost 27 pounds in six months, and my skin has improved so much."

The author knows whereof she speaks (or writes) because she’s waged her own bitter battle with the bulge. She relates: "Since I was 13 years old, I have bounced from one diet to another, spending far too much money on diet books and fad diets. I finally just gave up. The research was telling me that I was born with my fat genes and it really wasn’t my fault that I was overweight. I was finally fed up (no pun intended) and decided to eat whatever I wanted and forget about my weight."

To make a long story short, Dorothy says, "Then one day the front of the newspaper said that ‘XYZ’ was good for you while the folks on TV said that it was bad for you. All on the same day! That was when I threw up my arms and said, ‘If God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.’"

The good doctor prescribes: We need to go back to the basics, to 10,000-to-15,000-years-ago-type basics.

She explains: "If God made us and mae all of the animals, fruits, and vegetables, then that must be what we were intended to eat. Obviously, we’ve been around a pretty long time. So, I decided to disregard all of the information about low-fat diets and pasta being good for you. I decided that weighing food and counting calories, or fat, or carbohydrates or anything else just didn’t make sense. I didn’t need to add more work to my life."

Thus, Dorothy developed God’s Diet which she describes as "all natural" (anything that isn’t a manmade chemical or isn’t processed would be okay). Adam and Eve didn’t eat pasta with Alfredo sauce. They didn’t eat donuts or cake or ice cream. People back then didn’t die of heart attacks, clogged arteries, diabetes or obesity.

So what’s in God’ Diet?

Every fruit, every vegetable, every meat, fish and fowl that God made. Says Dorothy: "If you can’t pick it froma tree or vine, or pull it out of the ground or kill it, then you probably shouldn’t eat it."

So what shouldn’t you eat?

Dorothy whips up this can’t-have list: alcohol (including wine and beer), bagels, bread, cake, candy, catsup, cookies, corn syrup, cornstarch, crackers, flour, marshmallows, pasta, pie, pita bread, salad dressing (except for those on the swing list), sugar, sweet pickles, tortillas.

Dorothy adds a swing list (foods that are not okay but are not bad enough to never eat again) and this includes: artificial sweeteners, cheese, corn tortillas, cottage cheese, cream cheese, honey, blue cheese dressing, vinegar and oil dressing, popcorn, shreded wheat, soda pop (no more than one a day), sour cream (pure), tea and coffee (no more than two a day, and decaf would be better), yogurt (some).

Dorothy laments the fact that the American diet is all wrong. A report says that Americans eat more, exercise less. According to Dorothy, nutritional experts suggest that "we eat a few days like the Asians, a few days like the Mediterraneans and one day like Americans, because Asians and Mediterraneans aren’t dying of diabetes and high blood pressure and other obesity-induced illnesses as young as we Americans are dying."

Thank God for God’s Diet!

Now, let Dorothy give you some divine recipes that God may have prepared Himself:

Crab Salad

1/2 cup vinegar
4 packets Equal
2 stalks celery
1 green pepper
1/4 bunch parsley
1 cup sliced, fresh mushrooms
1 pound crabmeat (or whitefish)

First prepare the dressing by dissolving the Equal in the vinegar. then cut up and marinate the vegetables in the dresssing for approximately30 minutes.

Toss the crabmeat lightly with your hands (freshly washed, of course). Pour a small amount of dressing over the crabmeat and mix. Use only as much dressing as needed. Add the marinated vegetables and refrigerate.

Before serving, pour off any settled ressing. Makes 4-6 servings.

Chicken Casserole

1/2 cup chicken broth or milk
1 cup sour cream
3 cups diced cooked chicken
1 cup diced celery
1 can (8 ounces) mushrooms, drained
1 jar (2 ounces) pimentos, drained
1 can (8 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained
1/3 cup toasted almonds, sliced

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mix the broth with the sour cream, chicken and celery. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Lightly grease a casserole dish with vegetable oil. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish, sprinkle with the toasted almonds, and bake for 40 minutes.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Crock-Pot Meatloaf

Meatloaf:
1 to 2 pounds grond beef
1 to 2 eggs
1 to 2 handfuls of rolled oats
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients, using clean hands. Bake at 350 degrees for 1-1/2 hours or until done.

Make your favorite meatloaf recipe. Shape the meatloaf mixture into a roound loaf and then center it in the crock-pot. Place halved potatoes and carrots around the meatloaf. Make a gravy with one can of cream of mushroom soup and one can of milk and pour over the meatloaf and vegetables.

Cook in the crock-pot on high for 6 to 8 hours.

Makes 4-8 servings.