Money Sundays: How To Make the Tax Code Work For YOU

Readers, the dustup over Mitt Romney's recent comments about taxes once again reveals a fundamental economic truism that we all should understand if we want to do the right thing financially for our families.

Here's the truism:

The US tax code treats different forms of income differently.

An important corollary to this truism is:

The US tax code treats salary income the worst of all.

Now, this is not a political blog (duh), and it is not the purpose of this post to judge whether these truisms are good or bad. For once, let's just shut it about the politics. Instead, let's focus on the reality of the tax code, and try to understand methods we can put the tax code to work for us rather than against us.

How, then, do we make the tax code work for us? A simple three-step process:

1) Identify which forms of income are taxed at favorable rates. Examples would be dividends from stocks, earned interest, municipal bond interest, interest earned from preferred stocks, and so on. [For still more ideas, see this post from my YMOYL series.]

2) Next, maximize savings of your wage income by aggressively and intelligently managing your expenses down. Ben Franklin had it all wrong when he said "a penny saved is a penny earned." Today, in an era where the combination of federal, state, Social Security, Medicare and other miscellaneous taxes can push your combined salary/wage tax rate up towards 50%, a penny saved is worth, literally, two pennies earned.

3) Third, take that money you're aggressively saving and start putting it into the income-generating investments you've identified in Step 1. This step will create additional income that will supplement the wage income you're already earning. Repeat this step relentlessly.

Look, in the eyes of the taxman, ordinary wage income is the proverbial red-headed stepchild of our family of income sources. Nobody likes it and nobody treats it well. In contrast, interest earned from municipal bonds is more like the favorite son: in nearly all cases muni bond interest is totally tax free. Also, remember: municipal bonds finance our communities' schools, libraries, roads, bridges, water treatment systems and more, so they are an important--even critical--element of the investment firmament.

To continue with my already-stretched analogy: Dividends from stocks are kind of like the Prince Harry of income sources: most dividends are taxed at just 15% (this may change come January, but even so, dividend income will still be treated more favorably than wage income).

Finally, earned interest is sort of the youngest child of the family--mostly ignored, but happy to do her own thing without all the extra attention. Earned interest (e.g., interest earned from bonds, bank deposits or preferred stocks) is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate, but it is still completely free from Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Here's your conclusion. All of these non-wage income sources are taxed at much lower rates than the wage income we've all been conditioned to work for. Understand this, and you've reached the first step towards escaping the cognitive shackles of wage-slave living. Start making these investments--and build your income from these sources alongside your existing wage income--and you actually will escape wage slavery.

One last thing. Don't slip into the lazy trap of claiming that only "the rich" can do these things. If you're gazing at some internet device and reading this post, you are in an economic position to get started on this process. So get started.

Edit: Be sure to read the follow up post to this one: Is Looking For Tax-Efficient Investments Icky? Or Intelligent?


Related Posts:
Your Money Or Your Life: The Full Archive
Here's What To Do With Your Money: Alternatives to Treasury Bonds
On Timeshares, Beware
Extreme Savings
What's "In" And "Out" For The New Recession
Avoiding the "Yes, But" Vortex


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday September 28, 2012

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Don't let analysis paralysis stop you from losing weight. (344 Pounds)

The secret to winning the "chore wars" with laundry. (Oil and Garlic)

Recipe Links:
An absolutely delicious Filipino dish: Munggo. (Real Food Freaks) PS: For extra context on cooking with sprouted mung beans, see here.

Hyderabadi-Style Scrambled Eggs. (My Kitchen and Beyond)

Don't ever bother with overpriced store-bought Pumpkin Pie Spice mixes. Make your own! (Budget Bytes)

Off-Topic Links:
The keys to primal exercise: Move, Lift and Sprint. And play. (Mark's Daily Apple)

Minimalism isn't following some fad or counting your possessions. (Miss Minimalist)

Self-objectification and how to avoid it. PS: Contrary to what this writer says, it does happen to men. (The Beheld)

You only get seven exclamation marks in your life. Use them wisely. (The Atlantic Wire)


Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Why Box Wine Is Better

Most wine consumers hold a deep disdain towards boxed wine. It's low end. It's trashy. Heck, it comes in a box. Obviously, it can't be any good.

I want CK readers to stop and stare when they hear sweeping--and tautological--generalizations like these. Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting you plop a wine box on the dining room table at your next dinner party. Then again, you might be shocked at how few of your friends can tell the difference between a mid-range boxed red and a mid-range bottled red. If you doubt me, try your own blind tasting and see for yourself.

The truth is, box wine has improved dramatically in quality in recent years. And if you're looking for a simple white or red table wine for your typical everyday dinner, consider ditching your usual glass-bottled casual wine and try boxed wine instead.

And when it comes to white wine, boxed wine offers a gigantic advantage over glass: boxed wine won't oxidize. Remember, white wines tend to oxidize more rapidly than reds, so a half-finished bottle of decent white can taste "off" within a day or two of being opened.

However, with boxed white wine, you don't face this problem at all. The wine is in an airtight plastic pouch. There's no air touching the wine at all, which means you can drink boxed white wine for weeks without any decline in quality.

But where boxed wines really stand out is in their surprisingly low environmental impact. Boxed wine generates half the carbon footprint of traditional glass-bottled wines, and it produces up to 80% less landfill waste. Think about it: glass wine bottles biodegrade poorly, and they're relatively costly to recycle. The cardboard used in boxed wine is usually made from post-consumer recycled paper--and it can easily be recycled again.

Here's one more environmental factor to think about: boxed wine can be stacked efficiently, and its recyclable cardboard packaging weighs far less than glass bottles. Which means your wine can be shipped to your local stores using fewer trucks and a lot less fuel.

So, the quality's the same, the shelf life is longer, and the environmental impact is less. But it's the price that seals the deal. For around $15-$16, you can buy five liters of highly drinkable wine. For those of you without calculators, that's six and two-thirds bottles! Remember: you--the consumer-- will utimately pay for all the extra packaging and transport costs involved in getting glass-bottled wine to your stores. Why not avoid those costs entirely by switching over to boxed wine?

I know I talk a lot about consumer empowerment here at Casual Kitchen. And to me, boxed wine might be one of the best win-wins available to consumers right now. So the next time you visit your local wine store, don't turn up your nose at the boxed wine section--check it out instead.

Readers, what do you think about boxed wine?

Related Posts:
How to Enjoy Wine On A Budget
Recommended Reading for A Good Wine Education
Trusting Your Own Taste in Wine and Food
27 Themes and Ideas for Wine Tasting Club Meetings
Red, White and Blue Sangria
Casual Kitchen Interview in the South Florida Food and Wine Blog
Top Ten Low Alcohol Drinks
Countdown: The Top Ten Best No-Alcohol Drinks


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday September 21, 2012

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Programming note: Don't forget to leave a comment to enter the Dad Cooks Dinner Rotisserie Grilling giveaway!

Ten simple ways to eat less without noticing. (Summer Tomato)

If my evening at Olive Garden has taught me anything, it’s to insist on taking friends to local restaurants rather than chains. (Ben Starr, via Erica Douglass)

Be sure to take some time to check out Harvard University's free Chef Lecture Series, a collaboration between Harvard food science experts and world-class chefs. PS: These lectures--held every Monday evening at 7pm ET--are free to view in live streaming, and past lectures are available on Youtube! (Harvard University)

Recipe Links:
Chocolate Hummus? Seriously? (Budget Bytes)

35 mouthwatering Chili Recipes to kickstart your fall! (Aggie's Kitchen, via Alosha's Kitchen)

Chips like you've never seen them before: Potato Chips with Curry Leaf Inserts. (A Life of Spice)

Off-Topic Links:
Don't fall prey to your brain’s desire to destroy all opposing evidence. Listen to the other side. (Tara Hunt)

Why it's absolutely critical to get an early start saving up money for retirement. PS: Math is unstoppable. (Early Retirement Extreme)

Don't go through life letting people trample you. Practice persistence. (In Over Your Head)


Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Giveaway! Rotisserie Grilling

Readers! I've got two free Kindle edition copies of Mike Vrobel's new book Rotisserie Grilling and I'd like to give them away to two lucky commenters.

Mike is the author of the excellent food blog Dad Cooks Dinner, and he's taught me the majority of what I know about grilling. Now, he's officially an indie author with his comprehensive and easy-to-understand cookbook on the techniques and secrets of rotisserie grilling--a subject that, intriguingly, isn't really addressed anywhere elsewhere in the cookbook marketplace.

Mike's book covers literally everything: You'll learn how to set up your own rotisserie at home. You'll learn the pros and cons of different types of grills. You'll learn everything you need to know to make magazine-caliber meals out of rotisserie poultry, pork, beef, roasts, ribs and lamb. You'll learn the techniques of trussing, spitting (no, not that kind of spitting), salting, brining, dry and wet rubs, marinating--even "brinerating." And Mike also shares more than fifty of his top favorite rotisserie recipes.

In other words, CK readers are in for a treat with today's giveaway.

As always, I want to use this giveaway to help readers cross-fertilize and promote their own work, so here are the laughably simple rules to enter today's giveaway: Just leave a comment below with a grilling, roasting or barbecue recipe you'd like to publicize from your blog, and share a link to it in your comment! You'll get your work in front of all of Casual Kitchen's readers too.

It doesn't matter if the recipe you share is meat-based, veggie-based... or carbon life form-based. Baked potatoes, roasted veggies, secret marinades, recipes for steaks, shellfish or shrimp--I don't care. What I want are recipes, people! Get the word out on what you've written, and we can make this into a resource for everyone.

PS: If you don't have a blog, feel free to share a favorite recipe from the site of a blogger you follow. If by some horrible twist of fate you don't know any grilling, roasting or BBQ recipes, you can still enter: just leave a comment with your name and some way for me to reach you.

Once again, here are the rules:

1) Leave a comment below
2) Share a link to a grilling, roasting, barbecue or marinade recipe on your blog.
3) Sit back and enjoy while our readers cross-fertilize.

I'll make a random selection of the two winners on Monday, September 24, at noon Eastern time. Let's get to sharing recipes!




How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Garden Pasta

This is one of the easiest dishes in the entire history of Casual Kitchen. It takes just 15 minutes to prepare, and with its simple and suprisingly powerful fresh garden flavors, this recipe is one the best I've featured so far this year.

Not only that, but you can make this dish for a total cost of about $1.50. A buck fifty!

I know I keep harping on this, but the idea that "healthy food has to be expensive" is nothing more than a ludicrous fiction. Yes, you can eat healthy, delicious meals at home with simple, easy to obtain ingredients--and you do not have to spend a lot of time or money.

Make this incredible recipe and you'll see exactly what I mean.
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Garden Pasta

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
About 1 cup grated carrot (one medium to large carrot)
About 1 cup grated zucchini (a smallish zucchini will suffice)
About 1/2 pound linguine, fettucine or spaghetti
Black pepper to taste
Optional: parmesan cheese to taste

Directions:
1) Cook pasta according to directions. While pasta is cooking, mince/press the garlic and grate the carrot and zucchini (use the coarsest holes in a simple hand grater).

2) Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large, non stick pan. Add the garlic, saute for 1 minute. Add the grated carrot and zucchini and saute for 3-4 minutes.

3) Drain pasta, and while still hot, combine with the sauteed carrot, zucchini and garlic. Add a few shakes of black pepper and serve with optional parmesan cheese.

Serves 3. Can be easily doubled.
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Finally, a quick itemization of the key cost components of this dish:

1/2 pound pasta: 50-75c
1 carrot: 20c
small zucchini: 50c
garlic cloves: 10c
Total cost: $1.30-1.55, or around 50c a serving.


Related Posts:
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
Five Laughably Easy Timesaving Tips in the Kitchen
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap
Glossary of Casual Kitchen Memes

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday September 14, 2012

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Two deeply critical reviews of Wheat Belly. (No Gluten, No Problem and Evolutionary Psychiatry)

Food companies are motivated by what consumers want, not the other way around. (Chemicals In My Food)

Engage your critical thinking skills for this article: Why you'll be a vegetarian in 25 years, like it or not. (Fooducate)

An absolutely adorable snack that won't crush your daily calorie count. (Owlhaven)

Recipe Links:
Looking for a ton of Pressure Cooker recipes? Here's your go-to resource. (Dad Cooks Dinner)

I'm obsessed with this Four Herb Pecan Pesto too. (21st Century Urban Pioneers)

Want to make your own homemade Flavored Salts? Here's how. (Table Matters)

Off-Topic Links:
Why does an artist in a white tent craft fair have less credibility than an artist hanging on a white wall in a museum? (Ask Harriete) Bonus Post: Craft fairs devalue handcrafted art.

Read this post, and you'll never get trapped by The Worst Argument In The World. (Less Wrong)

How do you interpret Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken? (Zen Pencils,via Alosha's Kitchen)


Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Is Organic Food Healthier? Or Just Another Aspirational Product?

Is organic food better for you? Is it safer than regular produce? And if it really is safer, is that margin of safety significant?

Let's say you answered yes to each of these questions. Now, how much more are you willing to pay for those incremental feelings of health and safety? In other words, what is organic food really worth to you? Twenty percent more? Fifty percent more? Would you pay double... or even triple?

Don't worry, I'm not trying to convince you to buy--or stop buying--organic foods. My purpose is different: I want to get readers to think about organic food from the perspective of those selling it to us.

To our grocery stores, organic food is just another product segment, just like boxed cereal, gift cards and gourmet cheeses. And your grocery store stocks it for two reasons: because customers want it, and because it's profitable.

Correction: it's extremely profitable. In fact, organic foods are one of the most profitable product segments in your entire grocery store.

Here's another way to look at organic foods. Think of it like a brand: an aspirational brand that taps into many of our most powerful feelings about health, safety--even guilt. After all, you'd never buy pesticide-laden carrots just to save a little money, would you? Of course not. And clearly you'd never feed your family anything but the safest, healthiest foods.

Consumers want to feel good about the purchases they make, and we will gladly pay a premium in order to do so. And it's beyond obvious to say that when companies succeed in associating their products with our deepest feelings of guilt, fear, happiness, success or well-being, it's child's play for them to convince us to pay more.

Once again, my goal is to get you to see this from the perspective of the food industry. To them, organic food is just another aspirational product category--one that coincidentally happens to have well above average profit margins.

So, let's go back to the question I asked above: How much extra are you willing to pay for food that makes you feel safer and healthier?

If you truly can see this product category from the perspective of the people selling it to you, it shouldn't surprise you in the least that whatever price premium you're willing to pay--thirty percent, triple or ten times as much--they're going to try and charge it to you. The higher the better.

One final thought. Are you an educated and informed reader who can quickly dig up several articles and studies defending the value and importance of organic foods? Are you itching to leave a comment below sharing links to those studies, so you can explain how sadly misinformed I am to question the incremental value of organic food?

You're doing their branding for them. For free.

If I were a profit-maximizing food retailer, and if I wanted to introduce a premium-priced, aspirational product category, I'd surely try to find one that I wouldn't have to work very hard to sell. I'd look for one that consumers would convince themselves they needed. And needless to say, I'd charge as much as I could for it.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Does Wheat Belly Eating Always Cost More?

An intriguing comment from reader Sally:

Not only is [the Wheat Belly diet] going to make Meatless Mondays a challenge, it's going to make laughably cheap recipes challenging. In fact, I think it pretty much negates the idea that one can eat well cheaply. It does make it expensive to eat well.

This is an insightful statement. Admittedly, it's a generalization, but it sounds "generally" right, doesn't it? Think about it: a Wheat Belly-style diet cuts out gluten and significantly reduces carbs and starchy foods. Which means low-cost staples like rice and pasta--foods central to many of Casual Kitchen's best laughably cheap recipes--will need to be replaced. 

And clearly, if you replace these low-cost staple foods with expensive steaks, Boar's Head brand deli meats, pork loin, high-end cheeses, etc., you could easily send your food costs through the roof.

On the other hand, there are exceptions to even the most ironclad of generalizations. We all know, for example, that the widely-held generalization "healthy food costs more" is true in certain instances, but there's such an infinity of counter-examples that I was able to build an entire food blog around the idea of disproving it.

I'm betting the statement "the Wheat Belly diet makes it expensive to eat well" has its own exceptions too.

Readers, that's where you come in. By far the best resource here at Casual Kitchen is my readers' collective brainpower. Today, I want to ask what foods you would choose to meet the demands of a lower-carb diet without breaking the bank. Feel free to refer back to my post on how to follow a Wheat Belly diet, and share whatever examples you can come up with of lower-cost ways to do it.

I'll go first: by switching to eggs at breakfast, the cost of my breakfasts actually went down. A lot. I'm eating breakfast now for one-third of what I would have spent on more traditional breakfast of cereal, fruit and juice, yet I'm getting the same number of calories and I'm full for hours longer. It's a simple but striking example.

So readers: what do you think? How would you find exceptions and contra-examples to this reader's comment, and how would you eat a lower-carb diet without busting your wallet?

Share your thoughts!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday September 7, 2012

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Here's why the debate on the benefits of organic food is irrelevant. (Fooducate) Programming note: On Tuesday, I'll address organic food from a consumer empowerment perspective. Look for it!

There's a culture war brewing over soft drinks. (Table Matters)

What really goes on in our grocers' minds? By the author of Stuffed. (Stuffed Nation)

Ten unusually creative tips for the lazy cook. (The GastroGnome)

Recipe Links:
Get your Gangnam style on! Spicy Korean Cucumber Salad. (80 Breakfasts)

One word: OMG. Sweet and Spicy Grilled Shrimp with Marmalade Molasses Sauce. (Tasty Kitchen via Cookin' Canuck)

Delicious and easy: Bluefish with Crispy Potatoes. (Beyond Salmon)

Off-Topic Links:
Twelve really simple rules to enjoy investing. (The Reformed Broker)

Why it takes us time--sometimes a lot of time--to recognize our mistakes. (99U)

Explaining the Law of Attraction to doubters and Secret-haters. (Raptitude)





Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

How Do I Follow the Wheat Belly Diet?

For readers interested in pursuing the ideas behind the book Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis (see my review here and my interview with Dr. Davis here), this post gives suggestions on how to apply a Wheat Belly-style diet optimized for weight loss, the elimination of visceral/belly fat, and improved digestive health:

Eliminate:
* Wheat in all forms (um, duh.)

Avoid/Reduce:
* Carbohydrates (especially carb-heavy junk foods, refined sugars and HFCS)
* Most "gluten-free" foods that substitute high-carb ingredients such as potato flour, cornstarch or rice starch in place of wheat flour
* Soft drinks and fruit juices
* Nearly all grains, including oats, bulgur, barley, rye, quinoa
* Nearly all breakfast cereals
* Most processed foods, especially those high in sugars and starches
* High-starch vegetables (e.g. potatoes, sweet potatoes)
* High-sugar content fruits

Replace with:
* Fiber-rich, low-starch vegetables (e.g., broccoli, cauliflower, onions, peppers, celery, green beans, cabbage, etc.)
* Leafy greens, salads
* Nuts and seeds
* Modest quantities of low-sugar fruit (blueberries, blackberries, cranberries or cherries)
* Olives
* Hummus
* Fish
* Pork, Beef, Chicken and other meats
* Shellfish
* Eggs, cheeses and dairy

At the risk of oversimplifying, this diet essentially tells you to stay out of the bread and cereal aisles of your grocery store, and definitely stay out of the chips, cookies and snack food aisles. Instead, focus your food buying in the produce section, the meat and fish section and the dairy aisle.

A Quick Warning on "Gluten-Free" Foods
One very rich irony that I want to make extra clear to readers: most "gluten-free" foods merely replace traditional wheat flour with some other high-carbohydrate flour like rice flour or potato flour. Remember, the Wheat Belly diet doesn't just cut out gluten, it dramatically reduces your intake of carbs too. In other words, Wheat Belly followers may find themselves in the amusing position of avoiding both gluten-based foods and most foods that are aggressively advertised as "gluten-free." Just be warned.

Logistics
Here at Casual Kitchen, we've been experimenting with this diet over the past few weeks, and while I'm by no means an expert, I can share a few hints on meal structure to help you adhere to a Wheat Belly-style diet.

Breakfast is easy: skip the overpriced, oversweetened, branded boxed cereal, get rid of the breads, toasts and muffins, and center your breakfasts around eggs. Eggs can be prepared in a million ways--so you'll never be short of variety--and nutritionally they are a nearly complete food.

Lunches were much more of a challenge for me, in part because I typically enjoy pasta after my mid-morning run. Sadly, pasta is off-limits: not only is it high in carbs, it's also made from gluten-heavy durum and/or semolina wheat. Instead, an energy-dense meal centered around nuts, avocados, sandwich meat (sans bread, of course), grilled chicken or fish can function quite well in its place.

Many readers will face the same challenges with dinner: many of our meals here at Casual Kitchen include gluten-rich foods (particularly pasta, we generally don't eat bread) or carb-rich foods (rice, brown rice, potatoes, etc.). If you eat like we do, you'll have to seriously rethink some the building blocks of your meals. That said, you might find it relatively easy to transition your dinners over to entrees like a big salad with grilled meat, or a delicious hummus platter accompanied by low-starch veggies like celery and green peppers. Even ultra-traditional foods like grilled cheeseburgers can be repurposed for this diet--just replace the bun with a lettuce or cabbage wrap. Again, the key is to focus your meals around proteins, dairy, low-starch veggies and salads.

Last, a quick thought on processed foods and snacks. If you're trying to lose weight or improve the health quality of your diet, ruthlessly eliminating high-sugar, high-gluten and high-carb junk foods is a critical and fundamental step. Our bodies convert these kinds of foods into visceral body fat with alarming efficiency.

Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, this diet offers some interesting logistical challenges, and you might find it simply isn't worth your while to pursue a low carb/gluten-free diet with 100% strictness. But I encourage readers to experiment with this diet to the extent they wish to and see what results they achieve. For one thing, you'll find yourself making some new and different food choices, and that alone could be a worthwhile learning experience. For us, it's been intriguing to rethink some of the basic building blocks of our meals--and it's made us far more mindful of the sheer quantity of wheat and carbs in our diet.

However, it's not our goal to embrace this diet religiously. Instead, we've been attempting some iterations to some of our meals (one major example: I've transitioned 100% of my breakfasts away from carbs/gluten and have centered them around protein, and I've discovered significant benefits in both satiety and energy levels during my morning writing sessions). We'll be tinkering with aspects of this diet over the coming weeks and months, and if there's anything interesting or worthwhile to report, I'll be sure to share it.

Readers, as I said before, I'm far from an expert at low-carb/low-gluten eating. What thoughts and ideas would you add to the conversation? Share your thoughts!





How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!