easy to make

There are some grains and things that are so easy to make, you can do it even if you are weak with hypoglycemia.

Couscous is a good one. You take a measure of water, and boil it. Then you take the pot off the heat, put in the same measure of couscous, and put a lid on it for about five or ten minutes. It's a good sort of "grain" that is actually a pasta, and if you fluff it with a fork you can use it for salad, or put vegetables in it, or sauce on it.

The same for bulghar wheat. This is the grain that makes tabouli: it's a sort of parboiled cracked wheat. You make it the same way you make couscous. To use it in tabouli, add lots of chopped fresh parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, tomatos (and use their juice for the dressing), a little basil, a little mint, salt and pepper, and cucumber. (But the thing about cucumber is that, once it's cut, it goes mushy pretty fast in the fridge, so if you're going to save the tabouli, maybe only cut up the cucumber just before serving.)

For both bulghar wheat and couscous, you can even boil water in the kettle, and leave it to steam in the serving bowl with a plate overtop.

Polenta is another good little grain dish: boil three measures of salted water for every measure of corn meal. It's better if it's good, thick water-ground corn meal rather than the bright yellow box stuff, but both will make some sort of cake with this method. While the water is boiling, mix with the dry corn meal things that might make the finished corn cake interesting: red pepper flakes, saffron, oregano, sundried tomatos. When the water is boiling, turn the stove down low, pour in the corn meal and whisk or stir it to make it smooth. Put the lid on and leave for about 15 minutes on low or no heat. It will be kind of gooey, and you can eat it like this, or . . .

put it in a container in the fridge, with the lid half-on. It will get firm, like a sort of moist cake. Then you can slice it and fry it or bar-b-q it or make it into cubes and use like tofu. If the cubes are firm enough, you can even put them in soup just before serving.

So, RBT asks, is any of this "healthy"? Well, compared to corn chips, white flour, sugar, mashed potatos with gravy, even bagels, these grains are really nutritious. They are filling, and how they rate fat-wise depends on what you put on them.

I really wouldn't worry about whether something has lots of calories or fat, so long as it's a whole, unprocessed food. The less packaging, the fewer ingredients on the package, the more recently is was packaged, the more "healthy" you should consider it. Good food is more about variety and provision of nutrients than calories, carbs and fat.

Bad food has lots of bulk or weight but not much for nutrients (my bagel example). Some food has lots of bulk but shouldn't be avoided: it still has lots of fiber, nutrients, or complementary protein.

I can't believe you listen to me.