About the MWL and Non-MWL list of recipes from the McDougall Newsletters.
On the MWL list I did not include recipes that had pasta, bread, tortillas, tofu, soy milk, nuts, peanut butter, tahini, sesame oil, flour, fruit juice or more than a tiny amount of dried fruit.
I did include recipes with corn starch and couscous because there are recipes with those ingredients in the MWL Program book. I included a couple of recipes with sugar on the MWL list even though McDougall recommends only using sugar on the surface of food in the MWL book.
In the MWL book McDougall specifically says to avoid soy milk but he lists fat free soy milk & rice milk as an acceptable milk substitute. So when I saw soy milk listed in a recipe I considered it not MWL. If it listed 'soy or rice milk' I considered it MWL.
If there was a Non-MWL ingredient in the recipe’s ingredient list with (optional) after it, I did not include it on the MWL list. However, if in the hints it suggested adding a Non-MWL ingredient when serving the dish (such as a spoonful tofu sour cream on your chili or serving a soup with crusty bread) I kept it on the MWL list.
Many of the non-MWL recipes could easily be converted to MWL by changing just one ingredient. Like changing the soy milk to fat free soy milk, or the tofu to beans, the pasta to brown rice, or leaving out the optional nuts or olives.
As a final disclaimer, I made these lists as a helpful tool for myself and to share with other McDougallers. The two lists have nearly 500 recipes and I would not be surprised if I made an error or two when compiling the list. So please use your own judgment when deciding if a recipe would help you meet your health goals. Best wishes.
Letha
Thanks Letha this was very kind of you. I'll be using it.
I've wined and dined on muligan stew and never wished for turkey
as I hitched and hiked and grifted too
from Maine to Albuquerque.
-From "The Lady is a Tramp"