Superstars

First the good news – it is possible to get all your RDAs of nutrients on 1200 calories a day. The not quite so good news is that it takes a lot of effort. First of all it involves eating very large amounts of vegetables, which for little people with little tums can be a bit of a strain, and then of course it is not just any old veg. The only way of achieving this is to concentrate on those foods which supply particularly high values of a wide range of nutrients, particularly the ones in which it is easy to be deficient. Forget about eating one foodstuff per nutrient, you will end up eating 2000 calories a day like – er – oh yes, like the CRd menfolk. In the last few weeks I have in such spare moments as I have, painstakingly been creating a chart of star foods, based not on values per 100g or per cup or per tablespoon, but per 120 calories worth. It is only by comparing them with a fixed percentage of my daily intake that I can really judge how hard they are working for me. I have also been looking at how available the nutrients are, since I did remember – and then checked up – that not all the huge amounts of iron and calcium in spinach are actually absorbable, though it does provide lots of other good stuff. In practice I am finding that I need to concentrate only on those nutrients in which there is any danger of being deficient if I take my eye off the ball. These are for me – potassium, zinc and Vitamin E. Once I have those locked down, I tend to find that I have made my RDAs of all the others. I also like to ensure that I have good values of calcium, and protein. The chart is far from finished, and I am sure there are many very wonderful foods which don’t yet appear as I haven’t checked them out yet. However, these are my preliminary results. The top star foods to date are Swiss chard, spinach, red peppers, lettuce, broccoli, butternut squash, courgettes, pak-choi, Chinese leaves, mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, kale, Brussels sprouts, cucumber, celery and low fat milk products, (but cottage cheese doesn’t make the grade on the calcium front). For additional top quality protein I add eggwhites, chicken and fish, especially salmon. Now I am not advocating that anyone should confine their intake solely to these starry foods- rather that by allocating a lot of your calories to these, the other good but less starry foods will easily provide the rest of what you need, and you will still be able to get some variety into your diet.

The whole thing is much easier if you are cooking only for yourself or your best beloved is also CRd, but if not, as is my case, I have to balance the freaky CR meals I do on those occasions when I do cook for just me, with the less freaky but still very healthy meals I do when the other half and I dine together.

Lots of other veg are also very good - this means in my book that they provide between 10 and 19% of nutrients per 120 calories. The best fruits so far are kiwi strawberries and melon. However it is interesting that 120 calories worth of dried apricots (not something usually thought of as CR friendly) provides really useful amounts of potassium iron and Vitamin E. I don’t see why they can’t be used soaked overnight to add bulk, and they have the advantage over fresh of being available all year round. OK I’m off to make lunch now, which will be a big plateful of steamed asparagus, mushrooms and Chinese leaves topped with an eggwhite and skim milk omelette, and some organic tomato chilli sauce. (Yep, my poor darling has had to work today)