A Look at Unpolitically Correct Atkins

ELLEN MARCUS

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In a politically correct world, I would never cook this recipe — but there is nothing politically correct about the Atkins diet.

The Atkins diet is made up of high fat and almost complete omission of the whole food group — carbohydrates. How could it possibly be good for you? The ironic thing is, that if practiced correctly, it works.

Personally I could never be successful on this diet. I grew up eating cornbread at almost every meal; cornbread, purple hull peas and fresh cucumbers; cornbread and fried chicken; cornbread and turnip greens, cornbread and spaghetti. My father didn’t consider it a meal if there wasn’t cornbread on the table.

But, I do have several friends on the Atkins diet, and one was coming over for lunch. After considering the do’s and don’ts, I decided to make a spinach salad.

So the first thing I did was fry some bacon. I then squeezed a little lime juice and sprinkled chili powder on two boneless chicken breasts. To make up for the fact that they were skinless and fat free, I fried them in the bacon drippings. I set the bacon and the chicken aside to cool. I filled a salad bowl full of baby spinach leaves and tossed in split baby carrots, chopped green onion, finely diced purple onion and chopped cucumbers. The colors were vivid and almost screamed good health.

But at the last minute I decided against the light lime and olive oil salad dressing I would normally use. After having entertained Jeff’s parents with their low fat diet, I was feeling quite liberated, so without thinking twice I combined two heaping tablespoons of real mayonnaise, five tablespoons of sour cream, a tablespoon of fresh lime juice, cracked black pepper and two tablespoons of bacon drippings. I stirred this up and mixed it into the salad. I chopped the cooled chicken and bacon and tossed it in. My salad at this point was unredeemable. It was clearly screaming fat. And in the end, just because I could, I grated Colby-jack cheese on top and sprinkled it with whole cashews.

I served it with salsa made from fresh tomatoes and jalapeños. It was good. It was really good. My friend loved it. She said she was going to make it. As we ate it I almost forgot what was in it. Not until I started cleaning up after she left did I fully realized what I had just eaten — basically a pretty salad bowl full of lard and a few fresh vegetables.

So even though the fat was not congealing on my friend’s thighs due to changes in her metabolism, my bottom was already singing the Jello theme song. The saying, “you can’t have your cake and eat it to” came to mind.

I decided to modify the recipe. Not surprisingly I was able to cut a large percentage of fat and calories without sacrificing the taste. It is still fattening but as my four-year-old likes to tell me, “Bacon is so, so, so good,” so what can you do?




Salsa

2 medium tomatoes seeded and chopped

1/4 purple onion chopped

1 fresh jalapeño diced and sliced

juice of ½ lime

fresh cilantro to taste

(make first and set aside)

3 pieces of bacon

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (lightly sprinkled with chili powder)

Fry bacon and when done place on paper plate in microwave and cook for 1 minute blot with paper towel. Pour off bacon grease reserving 2 TB to cook chicken in on medium heat. When chicken is done sprinkle with fresh lime juice. Chop both chicken and bacon and set aside to cool. Reserve 1 TB of drippings for dressing.




Salad

4 cups of washed and drained fresh spinach leaves

½ cup julienne baby carrots

2 cucumbers sliced

2 green onions finely chopped

1/4 purple onion diced

1/4 bell pepper diced

1 apple chopped

add cooled chicken and bacon toss and top with 1/4 cups shredded low-fat Colby-jack cheese.




Dressing

4 TB of low fat real mayonnaise (the fat free doesn’t taste or mix well)

6 TB of low fat sour cream (fat free sour cream is just plain scary)

1 TB of bacon drippings

2 TB of lime juice

½ TS of chili powder

Serve the dressing and salsa on the side.