The Beauty of True Food (Andrew Weil, MD)

By Hklbrries

Andrew Weil, MD, puts his theories where his palate is. He has restaurants where the food is scrumptious AND healthy. Don't live near one? We've got an exclusive sample of a few of his favorite dishes.

-
Over the years, I have grown frustrated with restaurant menus that simply don't offer much that I consider healthy and appealing. So when I met restaurateur Sam Fox in 2007, I told him I'd love to see a new concept: a restaurant that would offer delicious food that's also good for you.

-
Sam was less than enthusiastic, because most "health food" restaurants served food that was boring, weird, or both. So I had him over for dinner. I made curried cauliflower soup, a vegetarian Caesar salad, salmon cakes, and a frozen dessert with cashew milk. After dinner, he seemed a little more open to the concept. We hired Michael Stebner, a classically trained French chef. And in 2008 we opened our first True Food Kitchen, in Phoenix.

-

Michael says the walk-in cooler tells the whole story. We have these vast shelves of veggies and tiny ones for meat and dairy. When he shows it to professional chefs, their jaws drop, because it looks backward to them. We may put 9 ounces of veggies and 5 ounces of animal protein on your plate. Other restaurants would do the reverse. Yet we almost immediately noticed something very rare: people eating there three, four, or five nights a week. Why? The food meets scientific criteria for health — and it tastes great.

-

Recipes in collection associated with this article: Immunity Soup; Mushroom Stock.

Ingredients

• _ _ _

Preparation

Step 1

_ _ _