Everyone's a Dieter: The Low Cholesterol Diet Experience

It’s strange, but I’ve never considered myself a dieter.  It’s strange because at exactly the ripe old age of 2, I’ve been doing exactly that – dieting.  It started with the milk, egg, potato allergy.  My mom came pretty close to eliminating those things from my diet.  Then in high school out of some morbid combination of rebelling from my steak and potato/hunter gatherer family and simply being a teenage girl who wanted to wear midriffs (it was the 90’s, so give me a break!) I became a short lived not all that dedicated vegetarian.  In college I moved on to the necessary peanut butter and cracker diet, which really only meant that I wasn’t allergic to these ingredients and they were cheap so I ate A LOT of them.  Which brings me to today in my adult, working life where I’ve been on a number of self-inflicted diets ranging from the sugar-free diet to the yeast-free diet to even the grain-free diet and the worst of all the sugar-yeast-grain free diet.  

The optimal word here is “free” and yet I don’t feel free at all, but rather a slave to these diets.  But really we all have some kind of diet and so I’m pretty sure that makes us all dieters and we all have to eat so I guess we are all slaves to whatever diet we choose in some way or another whether it is in the kitchen, the drive through, or the five star restaurant.  We have to eat to survive.

Green onions from my flower pot garden

I’m sure you’re wondering where I’m going with this and wish I would post a picture of a hamburger or something. No hamburger today.  The husband recently discovered that he has high cholesterol and so we immediately embarked on a low cholesterol diet. We have been on this diet for about two months now.  We aren’t incredibly strict about it and do enjoy a nice trip to Sonic occasionally.  The husband has gotten a lot of inquiries about this low cholesterol diet he is on and so I thought I would share the secret with you all.  Are you ready for it, people?  The secret to the husband’s low cholesterol diet is (enter drum roll....) vegetables!  The secret is exactly what our mothers have always told us: eat your vegetables! The husband and I took on a conscious effort to reduce the meat that we eat and increase the vegetables.  The goal is not to lose weight, but to be healthier and balanced. We also have added whole grains into the mix too.  (I’m not sure if corn chips count as a whole grain, but I can’t live without them and so they stay in the “diet”.)

What kind of vegetables, you ask?  Experienced dietitians may disagree with me, but I say anything!

Zucchini Noodles with Lime Chicken

 I have even started growing my own onions!  Next year I hope to try basil and even zucchini.  While it is technically a fruit, zucchini is this diet’s best friend.  We have made a number of “pastas” from zucchini using the inspiring spiralizer.  Our latest recipe was Zucchini Noodles with Cilantro Lime Chicken.  Of course, I changed it up a bit because I don’t like cilantro so I omitted it and sprinkled a tiny amount dried parsley on the top of the complete dish.  I also only used about half of the cumin.  This left the dish tasting fresh, the sour bite of the lime juice dressing an invigorating surprise.  I also added fresh green onion from my flower-pot garden and slices of fresh tomatoes from my dad’s neighbor’s garden. 

It was relatively easy to make this healthy dish and the husband said he would eat it again.  Not a bad tasting meal for being part of a low-cholesterol diet.  Like all of you other dieters out there, we like (love?) food and we will be joining you all at  the bbq grill to celebrate Labor Day over hamburgers and maybe some other kind of red meat, so there probably won’t be any other healthy recipes posted for a while.