Diet books are very popular. I reviewed one recently that began with the premise that our digestive systems have evolved over the milennia to digest a particular diet. That seemed quite reasonable. Unfortunately the author's concept of primitive cultures must have come from reading Alley Oop, because he went on to prescribe a diet consisting almost entirely of red meat!
There is a joke where a vegetarian asks a meat-eater if he has never heard of cholesterol to which he replies, "Sure. It's what they put in steak to make it taste so good." There is a lot of truth in that. Most of human history (and pre-history) has been a story of scarcity and privation. Under those conditions, there is an obvious advantage to having a preference for high-octane foods like beef and pork.
In the modern world, however, our main dietary challenge is too much of a good thing. Obesity, diabetes, cardiac and arterial disease and a host of other common ailments can be traced not exclusively to red meat, but to eating as much as we like of whatever tastes good to us. I love a good steak as much as anyone, but there are a lot of other delicious wholesome foods made with poultry or fish or (gasp) no meat at all.
One of the easiest ways to reduce your meat intake is with textured vegetable protein. TVP is defatted soy flour extruded under pressure and dried to have a texture resembling that of meat. It absorbs the flavors of whatever it is cooked with and is a good source of protein. Vegetarians use it as a meat substitute, but it might be more realistic to introduce a bit into your ground meat dishes. I find that a half cup of dry TVP rehydrated and added to a pound of ground meat is barely detectable.
Dried TVP has a shelf life of at least six months, and it is not only a healthy alternative to meat, but is also considerably cheaper. If you use it with ground meat as I suggest above, you can use a lot more in recipes that combine meat with other ingredients. Start with a small amount and experiment with different quantities until you find a ratio that works for you.
Frances Moore Lappe has advocated strictly vegetarian diets for decades, and advances some very reasonable arguments in favor of that option. You must realize that a good deal of knowledge and planning are required to maintain balanced nutrition in an entirely meatless regimen. You should definitely read her books if you want to go that route. Even if you are only interested in adding a few vegetarian dishes to your recipe file, you should read her classic Diet for a Small Planet, which explains protein complementarity and a host of other vegetarian essentials.
I find it ironic that Amazon.com lists healthy cooking and whole foods books under "special diet", but I suppose most people don't think about good nutrition nearly enough. Nutrition books are in the Health: Mind and Body section, as are American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association selections under Diets and Weight Loss. This tends to weed out some of the fad diet books, but also makes the more authoritative sources harder to find.
