The dietary guidelines in the previous chapter provide the nutritional framework for feeding

your genes right. Here we put these guidelines into practice with recipes, menu plans, and guidelines
for selecting restaurants and eating out.

Over the past century, our society has changed from one in which nearly all meals were home-
cooked from fresh ingredients to one in which only one-third of meals are homemade. Hand in hand
with this shift in eating habits has come a change in cooking habits. Fewer people know how to cook
a meal with fresh ingredients, and a recent survey found that only about half of home meals even
involved turning on the stove!

If cooking seems like an ancient or dying art, it remains one that is surprisingly easy to learn
or relearn. However, if the prospect of cooking a meal makes you nervous, there are several ways to
increase your comfort level. First, watch the Food Network on television, paying as much attention to
the preparation and cooking techniques of chefs as to the foods they use. Second, browse cookbooks
and cooking magazines, paying particular attention to easy-to-prepare meals. Finally, check your
area’s resources for introductory cooking classes, which 8 Recipes, Menu Plans, and Guidelines for
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by community colleges or stores that sell kitchen tools. When you are ready to cook some meals from
scratch—that is, avoiding anything that comes in a box or can—here’s how to proceed:

 Plan your major meals, such as dinner, a day or two in advance. Decide on a recipe,
and make a shopping list so you buy all the ingredients you will need. For now stick
with ingredients you are familiar with, and avoid the exotic.
 Keep your initial meals simple, straightforward, and uncomplicated. They will be
easier and faster to prepare. Stir-fried meals are a great way to start.
 Don’t rush. If your favorite television show is about to come on, set up your VCR to
tape it. Take your time, and enjoy cutting up vegetables and, let’s say, a piece of
boneless and skinless chicken breast. Cooking can be a fun, creative, and sensual
experience, so approach it with a positive attitude.
 Make enough food to have some leftovers.You can use them for breakfast, lunch, or
dinner the next day, and that will save you time. When you start with quality
ingredients, your leftovers will taste surprisingly good.
 Experiment with quantities, particularly of herbs. I enjoy their rich flavor and usually
add far more than most recipes call for. Most of the recipes in this book allow for a
great deal of flexibility in terms of the amounts of ingredients.

Use a Food Palette

It may help you to follow and personalize what I call a “food palette.” Artists use a palette to
dab and mix colors of paints before applying them to a canvas, and the Feed Your Genes Right food
palette has a similar function: it provides an assortment of foods, divided into different groups, that
you can combine in the kitchen. In a sense this food palette is good for your palate!

The Feed Your Genes Right Food Palette

The rationale behind this food palette, which you can expand upon, is that it provides a
selection of nutrient-dense foods, which foster healthy DNA and normal gene function. Collectively,
these foods are rich sources of protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and healthy fats, but they c08.qxd
11/22/04 10:33 AM Page 118 RECIPES, MENU PLANS, AND GUIDELINES FOR EATING OUT 119 contain
only small amounts of carbohydrates. Legumes are listed under starchy foods, not protein sources,
because they contain a substantial amount of carbohydrate relative to their protein. The food palette
does not include refined sugars and refined carbohydrates, which trigger abnormal genetic responses
leading to obesity, diabetes, and Syndrome X.