The most noteworthy omissions from my daily diet are far from the most beloved. Through January and February, I had no SlimFast bars, frozen dinners, canned soups, store-bought bread, diet soda (except for one instance where no other low-cal beverage was available), 100-cal packs of anything, reconstituted hot chocolate, or fat-free half-and-half.

With these and other omissions came substitutions, trade-offs, and new habits. For example:

• Breakfast. With SlimFast and Kashi Crunch out of the picture, weekday breakfasts, which I eat at work, have been challenging. Mostly, I’ve been eating steel-cut oatmeal or 10-grain hot cereal prepared at home, scooped by the cupful into Rubbermaid containers, and nuked for about 2 minutes in the work microwave. Sugar, fresh or dried fruit, and maybe some chopped nuts are added at various points in this operation. Outside of hot oatmeal, there’s homemade muffins and breads, and the occasional bakery scone. If I were able to prepare and eat breakfasts at home, smoothies and omelets would rule the morning.
• Bread. Oh, how I miss the convenience of commercially manufactured bread and breadstuffs. My Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat Swirl Bread! Kasanoff’s Marble Rye! Sahara Whole Wheat Pitas! Actually, I only miss the prepared pita, since a hummus lunch (yes, comercially processed hummus — more on that later) isn’t the same without it. This weekend will be my first try at making my own pita, but I’ve already had success with baking my own breads, muffins, and rolls.
• Beverages. Fat-free half-and-half out of my coffee; whole milk or low-fat milk in. Diet soda has been replaced with either water—tap where available and potable, else bottled—or hot or iced tea.

Anyway, throughout my two-month acclimation towards a non-crap diet, I found myself grouping potential edibles into five categories—five new food groups, if you will:

The five new food groups (according to No-Whining Dining)

Let me say from the get-go that many of these categories will overlap, as you will soon see . . .

• 1. Fresh or minimally processed. These foods may have seen the inside of a fridge, freezer, or oven, or the top of a counter or stove. They might have been whirred in a blender or rolled by a sushi chef. But they’ve never seen the inside of a food factory or industrialized kitchen. Most of what I eat these days is from this category. Examples of fresh or minimally processed foods: fresh fruit, roasted chicken, homebaked goodies, oatmeal, fish chowder.
• 2. Processed. Processed generally means manufactured by unknown people in unknown places by unknown means with unknown or suspect ingredients. But there are those foods that are prepared commercially but are still relatively wholesome or don’t contain strange ingredients or chemicals. Hummus is one of those foods. If I can get straightforward hummus (Cedar’s, Joseph’s, etc.) at the supermarket, why bother making my own, especially if I’ve already revved up my in-kitchen food-prep time? Other examples of processed foods that I will eat: dried fruit, certain yogurts, certain cheeses, some shredded wheat cereals.
• 3. Packaged. Just because it’s in a package doesn’t mean it’s totally evil. Sometimes you’ve just gotta meander into the center of that super. Examples of packaged foods that I will buy: canned tuna or salmon, canned tomatoes, rice, frozen vegetables, some ice creams.
• 4. Total crap. Self-explanatory, but I’ll list some examples anyway: most breakfast cereals, junk food, frozen dinners, Cool Whip, diet soda, snack bars.
• 5. I don’t care, I’m eating it anyway. I am not giving up frosted cake or chocolate truffles, be they from the supermarket, bakery, candy shop, or home kitchen. Just ain’t happenin’.

In Defense of Food

Last month I embraced the key directives of ditching the Western diet as explained by Michael Pollan in his book In Defense of Food and embellished in Food Rules. It’s a simple mantra: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

For starters I swore off Cool Whip, instant pudding, diet soda, and frozen dinners, threw away my desk-drawer stash of Slim-Fast bars, and vowed to cook more of my own foods and shun processed or manufactured foodstuffs (“edible foodlike substances” in Pollan’s terms) to the extent practical.

This month, this nonscientific experiment of mine will fully, if slowly, set in and hopefully take hold. This year I’ll learn if I will really have the time, energy, desire, or wherewithal to cook most of my meals, including bag breakfast and lunches, or if I’ll deem the endeavor impossible and give up within months. I’ll find out if I really will or can bake my own pita bread. I’ll discover how long I can last before succumbing to York Peppermint Patties or microwaveable popcorn. But most notably, hopefully, I’ll experience the joys and sorrows, rewards and frustrations, of making and eating real food.

I’ve still some to-be-banished items lurking in my kitchen cupboards and I haven’t decided if I’ll just toss any of it my husband isn’t interested in, or if I’ll slowly consume the items, deep-six them before long, or let the product’s expiration dates make the decision for me. Probably it’ll all be decided item by item. I face dilemmas such as: should I make hot cocoa from scratch (rather easy) and toss the rest of the Swiss Miss with Marshmallows even though I paid $2.79 for several packs of brown powder and crunchy white pellets?

The Swiss Miss with Marshmallows brings up another issue I hope to address this year: disturbingly excessive food packaging. One quick example of this: My box of Swiss Miss “Sensible Sweets” “Fat Free Marshmallow Lovers” eight-serving box actually came with 16 packets — eight packets of instant cocoa, eight packets of instant marshmallows. You’re supposed to add the marshmallows after you’ve mixed the instant cocoa with the water. I guess to keep the white pellets crunchy as long as possible? Anyway, now you’ve got two pouches for each six-ounce cup of cocoa.

I’m leaning towards tossing the remaining three (er, six) packets. The net cost: about $1.50. The benefits: a bit of modified whey, sugar, and corn starch I won’t be drinking, plus about 112 cubic inches of shelf space.