Book Review: The New Sonoma Diet

The New Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, More Energy in Just 10 Days

By Dr. Connie Guttersen RD, PhD

Hardcover, 400 pages

Publisher: Sterling; 1 edition (January 4, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1402781186

Rating (1 to 5 *): *****

I have said it before, and it bears repeating, I despise diet books. They are hideous things aimed at people who hate the food they eat and who hate themselves for eating it.  I love food and I do not need to reprioritize food in my life. At its best food is art, and I am a connoisseur. The food recommended by diets is horrid, contrived to make dieters despise the food that they eat. It is not for me. But The New Sonoma Diet is different.

Much of the overweight problem in the United States today is directly related to the view of food as nothing more than fuel. Many of us do not consider the labor and love that went into making what we eat, we view it simply as coal to be shoveled into our furnaces. The diet subculture does not change this view – quite to the contrary, it reinforces it, then tells us how wicked we are for shoveling in too much fuel. In order to accommodate the need to moderate that fuel intake, they (the smart money-makers in the diet marketing industry) provide pre-packaged frozen foods, akin to the Swanson Hungry-Man meals that we have supposedly been glutting ourselves with up to now. 

The New Sonoma Diet does not do that. As discussed before, much of the Sonoma Diet concept has to do with fresh, seasonal food, prepared with love and care. It is the new and expanded version of The Sonoma Diet Plan, reviewed here about a year ago, despite the title, this is not a “diet” book in the traditional sense. This is a book about healthy eating, aimed at devout foodies. This book is for people who love to eat and love to cook. In fact, if the original Sonoma Diet Plan had any failing it was that you really had to plan your meals. There were no shortcuts – everything was about fresh produce and high quality proteins and taking the time to cook them. Lunch on day two depended upon having leftover grilled flank steak from day one, and you had to keep a healthy stock of fresh herbs on hand.

I, for one, love to cook, but I have lots to do in my life and often do not have the time to stand in the kitchen for an hour preparing good quality fresh food, so my darling wife and I often fudged, applying the principles of The Sonoma Diet, but not getting the variety of produce that Dr. Guttersen recommends.

The New Sonoma Diet has solved this problem. The diet is unchanged, and the principles remain the same as in the earlier work, but now, in addition to the wonderful recipes and menus from the original book, there is a selection of more convenient and easy to use recipes. She has also expanded on her section of valuable power foods. Ultimately, The New Sonoma Diet is not so much a recipe book, though there are a number of excellent recipes included in it, as it is a book on how to eat. It leverages the wisdom of Mediterranean eating habits, and applies them to the modern American eater. To benefit from this book, you do not need to eat her Nectarine, Arugula and Goat Cheese Salad (p. 286), though you may be sorely tempted, but you simply need to understand how to balance your plate, what to eat a quantity of, and when to stop. This is not a diet that relies on denial. Quite the contrary, when using Dr. Guttersen’s recipes and her recommended menus, my wife and I never felt hungry or deprived.

The tag-line on this book describes it the best: “A Simple, Healthy, More Delicious Way to Live.” And it truly is a way to live. So get out to the farmers’ market and have a field day, then come home and eat like a king! You will feel better immediately.

Spanish Roast Pork Tenderloin with Chickpeas and Spinach

The New Sonoma Diet, p. 260

Start to Finish: 1 hour

Yield: 4 servings

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound pork tenderloin in Spanish Marinade (recipe follows)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup onions, chopped

1 tablespoon garlic, chopped

1 ½ teaspoons Spanish paprika

1 can chickpeas, drained; reserve liquid

1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half or chopped tomatoes

4 cups baby spinach

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400° F.
2. Heat a sauté pan over medium heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil and pork tenderloin. Cook until lightly browned. Turn tenderloin over and move to the side of the pan.
3. Add onions to the side of the pan where the pork had browned. Add 1 tablespoon of the bean liquid. Add garlic and paprika to the onions and stir. Let pork continue to brown. Once brown, remove pork from pan. Add chickpeas to onions; stir to coat. Place pork on top of chickpeas and place in hot oven. Roast for 15 – 20 minutes, or until the pork is 143° F (turn at 8 minutes).
4.  Remove pork from pan and let rest in a warm spot. Sprinkle cherry tomatoes on top of chickpeas. Place in oven and roast for 10 minutes until slightly dried. Stir in the spinach and 1 tablespoon chickpea liquid. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Slice pork ¼ inch thick on the bias.
5. To serve, place 1 cup of chickpea mixture on the plate and top with 4 ounces of sliced pork.

Nutritional Facts per Serving: 450 calories, 35 g protein, 19 g fat (3.5 g saturated fat), 39 g carbohydrate, 11 g fiber, 60 mg cholesterol, 350 mg sodium, 6 glycemic load)

Spanish Marinade for Pork Loin or Chicken Breasts

The New Sonoma Diet, p. 179

1 teaspoon garlic, mashed to a paste

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon ground cumin, roasted

¼ teaspoon ground coriander, roasted

1 teaspoon Spanish paprika, smoked or plain

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon lemon juice and zest

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix ingredients together
2. Place in a leakproof container or resealable bag, such as a Ziploc bag. Add pork or chicken. Let sit for 15 minutes to overnight. Grill or sauté the meat.

Book Review: The Sonoma Diet by Dr. Connie Guttersen, R.D., Ph.D.

The Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, Better Health in Just 10 Days [Hardcover] by Connie Guttersen (Author), Stephanie Karpinske (Editor)
Publisher: Meredith Books (December 27, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0641975678
Rating (1 to 5*): ****

I have dealt with a significant tendency toward overweight for all of my life. This comes from my personal burden of loving food mated with my fundamental laziness. Now, as it happens, my darling wife also loves food, but she is a dynamo, and she tends to work excess calories off readily. In addition to that, through the years, she has tried a variety of diets and life-plans that are conducive to losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight. But I hate diets. I do not like the frozen diet foods and the fodder that diet books try to convince you to eat – I am a foodie! I really want good quality food.

Worse than the diets are the "healthy living plans" that forbid all things delicious. They instruct that you should become accustomed to eating construction paper and that all things tempting and delicious are for short-lived fatties. They do wisely recommend vigorous activity on a regular basis, but the eating aspect is hellish.

So, one day, at one of these travelling book fairs, on the bottom shelf of the cookbook rack I spotted a book called The Sonoma Diet. Since I am a fan of all things associated with the lyrically beautiful Sonoma County, and since I also love to ridicule diet books, I picked it up to give it a quick once-over. In perusing its pages I found that much of it is based on the very reputable South Beach Diet, which is, in turn, heavily influenced by the Mediterranean Diet Plan. OK, so far, so good. The South Beach Diet, whilst much of the food is convenience oriented, is a well balanced approach to eating for life – it does not deny much of anything. Like the Mediterranean Diet Plan, it is more about finding balance in what you eat, and less about cutting things out, with the notable exception of garbage. There is no room in any of these plans for much of anything made by Hostess, but that is alright by me.

Then I got to the recipe section of the book. The diet and the recipes are laid out in three phases – Wave 1 is the acclimation portion of the diet, Wave 2 is for continued weight loss, and Wave 3 is the way to balance food for your life. If you fall off the wagon for a bit – go on a cruise or opt for the butter poached lobster at The French Laundry (and who wouldn't?) – it is easy to back off to an earlier wave to drop a few, or a number of, pounds, and you are back on track.

And the recipes are fantastic. Everything in Dr. Guttersen's book is about fresh ingredients. We really leverage our local farmers' markets heavily to acquire the fresh and ripe vegetables, fruits and herbs that we eat in this diet. Since we live in the northern end of the beautiful Sacramento Valley in California, we are blessed with fresh local fruits and vegetables no less than ten months per year.

The fantastic food is, however, both the best thing about this diet and the stumbling block that some dieters may find with it. Since real cooking is involved, much of the food requires preparation of fresh ingredients and, as such, it may be more time consuming than many wish to, or can, devote to preparation. The way menus for Phases 1 and 2 are written, however, is such that much of the prep for two or three days may be done at once. Additionally, there are times when leftovers from the previous day's dinner are used in the next day's lunch. For example, on one day we had marinated flank steak for dinner, and the following day we had steak & blue cheese wraps using the leftover steak.

I do not always like Dr. Guttersen's recommendations. Omelets, for example, are a staple of The Sonoma Diet in all three waves, which is great – I love omelets. She, however, wants them to be cooked in extra virgin olive oil, and in my view, that undermines much of the joy of a good omelet. I would use extra virgin olive oil as a first choice substitute for whole butter, but, because of the temperatures at which omelets are cooked and because of how wonderfully butter and eggs mate, I really like to cook my omelets in butter. I understand the virtues of olive oil, and the generally exaggerated evils of good quality butter, but that does not matter. I want butter with my eggs.

The good doctor, however, is looking after my health, so I adhere to her rules. And, despite that fact, on this diet I have no significant cravings. Yes, periodically I jones for a Porterhouse cooked rare over charcoal and seasoned with freshly cracked black Tellicherry peppercorns, a generous pinch of fleur de sel and lemon wedges, a side of Johnny Schmitt's Potatoes au Gratin and maybe a scoopful of the roasted carrots and onions the way that they do them at Izzy's; but I crave that stuff when I am normally eating badly.

If I give into those temptations now and then, that is alright – as a wise man once said, "It's not what you eat on Sundays that makes you fat. It's what you eat every day that makes you fat." This diet is an amazingly good way to eat every day. It is appealing to people who love good fresh food and who love to cook, but who need to watch their food intake.

Here is an example of one of our Wave 1 friendly recipes from The Sonoma Diet, p. 180: 

 Beef and Mushroom Kabobs 

Prep: 25 minutes Marinate: 30 minutes to 1 hour Grill: 8 minutes Makes: 6 servings 

• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano or 2 teaspoons dried oregano, crushed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (1 teaspoon minced)
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds beef tenderloin or boneless sirloin, cut into 1 inch pieces
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 8 ounces fresh mushrooms
• 12 cherry tomatoes

1. For marinade, in a medium bowl combine vinegar, oil, the water, shallot, oregano, thyme, garlic, the ¾ teaspoon kosher salt and the ½ teaspoon pepper. 
2. Season meat with additional kosher salt and pepper. Place meat in a self-sealing plastic bag set in a shallow dish. Pour half of the marinade over the meat. (Reserve remaining marinade for vegetables.) Seal bag; turn to coat meat. Marinate meat in refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour, turning bag occasionally. 
3. Place mushrooms and cherry tomatoes in another self-sealing plastic bag and set in a shallow dish. Pour remaining marinade over vegetables. Seal bag; turn to coat vegetables. Marinate at room temperature for 20 minutes. 
4. Drain meat and vegetables, discarding marinade. On twelve 10-inch skewers*, alternately thread beef, mushrooms and tomatoes, leaving a ¼-inch space between pieces.
5. For a charcoal grill, place kebobs on the rack of an uncovered grill directly over medium coals. Grill until desired doneness, turning kabobs once halfway through grilling. Allow 8 to 12 minutes for medium-rare doneness (145°F) or 12 to 15 minutes for medium doneness (160°F). (For a gas grill, preheat grill. Reduce heat to medium. Place kabobs on grill rack over heat. Cover and grill as above.) 

 Nutrition Facts per serving: 220 cal., 11 g total fat (4 g sat. fat), 70 mg chol., 177 mg sodium, 4 g carbo., 1 g fiber, 25 g pro.*Note: If using wooden skewers, soak them in water at least 1 hour before using.
Broiler method: Place kabobs on the unheated rack of a broiler pan. Broil 4 to 5 inches from the heat until desired doneness. Allow 8 to 12 minutes for medium-rare doneness (145°F) or 12 to 15 minutes for medium doneness (160°F), turning once halfway through broiling. 

When we do this recipe, I opt for the tenderloin. This goes against my natural inclination when it comes to kabobs, as they are traditionally a peasant food, but this is so delicious with tenderloin that I just cannot resist. Because I am using good quality tenderloin, I prefer to undercook it a bit. Also, we have access to some high quality baby portabella mushrooms, so we use those instead of white mushrooms, and they are fantastic on the grill.

In short, this is the best diet I have ever encountered for those who like to eat. It works, and there is no feeling of deprivation.