SOB DietTM stands for Salad (or Soup), Oatmeal, and Beans. Trudi and I started this way of eating almost 10 years ago. Without question, we credit this core way of approaching food intake to:
- Decreased illness (colds, flu, etc)
- Better sleep
- Increased energy
- Decreased stress (in general and in planning meals)
- Increased savings at the grocery store
- Improved skin health
- Improved bowel health
The SOB DietTM presents an enormous opportunity to eat healthy, inexpensive meals with a strong base of healthy proteins and fats, whole foods, and a tremendous variety of grains and vitamins and minerals. Within the SOB DietTM, there are infinite options.
Your only limit is your imagination.
Before I get to the particulars of how we approach the SOB DietTM , I want to clarify that we are not vegetarians or vegans, but we purposely never purchase or eat meat, so the SOB DietTM does not include meat. We believe that the research supports that much of the inflammation and gut diseases can be traced to eating too much meat, and particularly industrially raised meats. Since cutting out almost all meat from our diet (we occasionally eat small amounts of meat when we eat out or at a friends/families’ home), we found our energy and bowel health to be much more robust.
We also avoid most dairy except for hard cheeses or yogurts…for much the same reasons as we avoid meat.
Let’s jump into some specifics about the SOB DietTM. As stated at the beginning of the article, the S represents Salad or Soup. In the summer, we typically eat salads for supper or cool soups, but come winter, we love making and enjoying healthful warm soups.
Salad doesn’t mean just iceberg and tomatoes. It can, of course, but do not limit yourself or your salads!
Salads begin with the base. The base can be made of:
- Greens (lettuce, kale, arugula, micro-greens, chard, etc)
- Grains (quinoa, farro)
- Pasta (use whole grain pasta)
- Potatoes
- Beans or lentils
Notice, we said base of the salad first. A good, healthful, tasty salad goes way beyond the base…and really that is where the fun begins as well! Here is where you can add whatever you enjoy, including, but not limited to:
- Raw nuts and seeds. Think walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc). For added flavor, you can choose to toast some of them on your stove top, but never use processed nuts full of oils and salt.
- Extra vegetables…tomatoes, peppers, celery, carrots, avocado, brussel sprouts, beets, etc.
- Fruit…blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, apples, pears, dried fruit (look for no sugar added)
- Fresh herbs and garlic
- Eggs. Hard boiled, soft boiled, poached, or scrambled.
- Cheese…not too heavy.
Lastly, you need a tasty topping for your salad. If you make a large salad on the weekend or early in the week, add your dressing only when you eat it, the salad can then be reused for up to 3-4 days. Depending on the extras you want, they might be best kept in separate containers until ready to eat as well.
Our favorite dressing is a healthy drizzle of olive oil, fresh squeezed lemon juice (or 100% lemon juice no sugar added from a squeeze bottle), a little salt and pepper, and then cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, or freshly crushed chiltipin pepper.
Dressings are where many salad users go wrong. Too much dressing or the wrong types of dressings can add a tremendous amount of unwanted sugar and fat to an otherwise healthful salad. Be creative making your salads and a little dressing goes a long way!
The alternate S is the SOB DietTM is soup. No canned or packaged soups here. Soups are always made from scratch and are simple, quick,and easy. Again, we almost never make a soup with meat or a meat based broth and prefer to use vegetable or no broth as our base. Most of our soups start with a based of finely chopped onion, celery, garlic, and carrot lightly stir fried in olive oil before adding the rest of the ingredients. If we are using a broth starter, we start with our homemade vegetable broth created from vegetable scraps we keep in a bag in the freezer.
We found all three of these liver cleanse soups to be tasty and equally good warm or cool. Here is the beet soup recipe:
Beet Detox Soup
Cook time: 45 mins
Total time: 45 mins
Ingredients
- 3 medium beet roots
- 2 carrots, finely diced
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 small leek, finely diced
- 1 tsp coconut oil
- 2 cups vegetable broth, warm
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp chia, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, 1 teaspoon coconut milk, to garnish
Instructions
- Place the unpeeled beet roots in a pot, cover with water, bring to boil then simmer for 30 minutes until tender.
- Drain from water and set aside to cool.
- Heat the coconut oil in a cast iron skillet, add the onions, garlic, leek, and carrot and cook for 5-7 minutes over low heat. Remove from the heat and transfer onto a plate.
- Peel the beet roots, cut into cubes, and add into the blender, together with the cooked vegetables and warm vegetable broth.
- Process to obtain a smooth cream.
- Season with salt and serve garnished with mixed seeds.
This article would be way too long if we listed all of our soup recipes, but scan the internet for soup recipes and try the ones with the fewest ingredients for the best tasting and most healthful soups. If you like a creamy soup, use an immersion blender to make almost any soup creamy and wonderful. If you need to add a little cream, try coconut cream or just a few tablespoons of olive oil.
Onto the O in the SOB DietTM . O stands for Oatmeal. The fixture of our breakfast is oatmeal. We eat both rolled oats and our favorite steel-cut oats. Again, we make a huge batch at the beginning of the week and then reheat for a few days while adding new options to eat for 3-4 days before needing to make more.
Many people seem to be afraid of cooking steel-cut oats, so here is our method that we picked up from reading a kitchen hacks article many years ago:
Steel Cut Oats
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 1 cup steel-cut oats
- 3 cups water
- Pinch of salt
- 1 cup milk (optional)
Instructions
- Start this the night before you want to have steel-cut oatmeal.
- Measure out your oats. This quantity will make about 4 servings.
- Put all ingredients into the pan
- Stir and bring to a rolling boil.
- Turn off the heat and cover the pan.
- Leave it on the stove, and go to bed!
- The next morning, uncover the pan and bring the oatmeal back up to a simmer. If you would like thinner and creamier oatmeal, add a little more water as it warms.
- When the oatmeal is warm, scoop out and enjoy!
That’s the basic, fail safe recipe. The oatmeal is wonderful just like this, but if you want to do more, do more!
We, of course, don’t stop there. Like the salads, we add any number of ingredients individually or many at a time…depends on how we feel. The ingredients we use most often are:
- Spices…cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, nutmeg. Fresh is best, but powdered is ok.
- Chia seeds or hemp hearts.
- Raw nuts and seeds. Think walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc). For added flavor, you can choose to toast some of them on your stove top, but never use processed nuts full of oils and salt.
- Fruit…almost any fruit that you like is fair game!
Thanks to a recent visit to Oatmeals in New York City, we are now excited about savory oatmeal!! Check out their web site for some ideas that you can add to jazz up your oatmeal even more!
Now onto my favorite part of the SOB DietTM …the B which stands for Beans! To say that I love beans is a gross understatement. Growing up in in New Mexico, pinto beans were a staple our diet. After college, I discovered that the wonderful pinto bean had many family members, almost all of which I enjoy.
Consider that a one pound bag of dried pinto beans ($2-3) can be the cornerstone of 12-16 meals! Beyond being thrifty, they bring us a great source of protein, vitamins and minerals and fiber. Contrary to popular belief, beans do not, by themselves, cause gastric distress or flatulence. In fact, the distress many attribute to beans, is often the result of the things that people add to the beans; bad oils, sugar, or the combination of foods they eat with the beans.
On their own, cooked properly and simply, beans will not bother the normal gastrointestinal system.
What is the easiest way to cook them, you ask? First, let’s dispel the myth of soaking beans. It can be done, but absolutely does not have to be done. I never soak my beans and have enjoyed them for more than 40 years!
My time is valuable, as yours is, and for my time and money, the best way to cook any bean is with a crock pot! Super fast preparation and hands off cooking followed by amazing aroma permeating your home as they cook!
Here is our fail safe crock pot bean recipe:
Dried Bean Recipe
Ingredients
1 pound beans (any type)
3 Quarts of water (preferably filtered)
1 Tablespoon salt
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Empty the beans into a colander and examine them for rocks or other non-bean material and discard (this doesn’t take long and is kind of fun).
- Rinse the beans thoroughly under running water, still checking for any non-beans you might have missed.
- Toss the washed beans into a crock pot or slow cooker.
- Add 3 quarts of water (more for larger beans like kidney or navy).
- Add the salt and pepper.
- Turn on your crock pot to medium or medium-high.
- Put the lid on and don’t even look at them for at least 6 hours (I like to start them before going to bed).
- After 6 hours, stir them and add more water if necessary. Also, taste for salt content.
If you like a firm bean, then 6-8 hours might be enough for most beans…taste them and find out if they meet your expectations! If you like soft, creamy beans, let them cook (stir every few hours or so and don’t let them dry out).
You cannot over cook beans, unless they dry out!
That’s it! Cooking beans does not have to be hard at all, and the rewards are limitless!
As with the variety I wrote about for soups, salads and oatmeal, the options with beans are equally diverse. First, you can use whatever type of beans you like. The basic recipe will work as well for pintos as it does for black, tepary, kidney, navy, or any other beans. And their are many dozens of varieties to experiment with and sample. They will all have slightly different cooking times, so sample them along the way for your particular tastes and take notes for the next time.
As they are cooking, we sometimes will add 4-6 tablespoons of olive oil for a richer broth. Also, it is perfectly acceptable to add any combination of the following to your pot of goodness:
Onion
Garlic
Potatoes (yams, sweet, white, russet, etc)
Carrots
Celery
Jalapeño (or other favorite pepper)
Chipotle (or other dried pepper)
Other dried or fresh herbs including oregano, cumin, chili powder
When your beans are done, enjoy them as a soup, or use an immersion blender to make your own, healthy refried beans and make burritos, tostadas, or any other dish you like with beans. Leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 4-5 days, or you can freeze half the pot or individual portions if you like.
Thanks for reading to the end! We believe that we stumbled on a wonderful basic diet that can be adapted to many different tastes and preferences. The SOB DietTM is not only thrifty, but also healthful and enjoyable. Leave your questions or comments below about our diet or ideas that you might have to enhance it further! Watch for future articles that expand on side dishes, leftovers, and other ways we utilize the SOB DietTM.
