Mar­keters love my mom. They phone, send her snail mail, pop­u­late her inbox, and come at her with more and more promis­es, think­ing even­tu­al­ly she may say yes. Like my mom, many old­er adults are the tar­gets of scam­mers try­ing to sell hope. Maybe in that way old­er adults are sim­i­lar to peo­ple try­ing to lose weight – the promis­es sound so appeal­ing.

I wrote my first diet for a nation­al women’s mag­a­zine many years ago. Ever the con­sci­en­tious dietit­ian, I made sure to include bal­anced meals and snacks with foods that sup­plied enough vit­a­mins and min­er­als – I includ­ed kale before it was trendy – and pro­vid­ed a sen­si­ble num­ber of calo­ries. As mag­a­zine edi­tors did at the time, the team over­see­ing my arti­cle met to con­ceive of a cov­er line for my sto­ry and came up with “Lose 20, 30, 40 Pounds by Sum­mer.” I was crest­fall­en to see my care­ful­ly craft­ed diet reduced to an emp­ty promise.

Fast for­ward to today, with years of arti­cles and books behind me. I’m proud of the work I’ve done, but the cov­er lines, cov­ers and promis­es assigned by mar­ket­ing teams don’t real­ly tell the sto­ry of what’s inside. One of the best-sell­ing books I worked on was “400 Calo­rie Fix: The Easy New Rule for Per­ma­nent Weight Loss.” Liz Vac­cariel­lo, then edi­tor-in-chief of Pre­ven­tion, was the lead author. I nev­er expect­ed peo­ple to think that 400 calo­ries meant 400 calo­ries per day. Actu­al­ly, the eat­ing plan was built around 400 calo­rie meals, with read­ers choos­ing from three to five meals each day, depend­ing on activ­i­ty lev­el and whether they want­ed to lose or main­tain weight. And the most impor­tant lessons in the book, in my opin­ion, were on man­ag­ing calo­ries when eat­ing out. It takes care­ful plan­ning to lim­it restau­rant calo­ries to under 1,000, let alone 400.

I’ve crunched num­bers for books that show­case weight loss suc­cess sto­ries. While sto­ries are inspi­ra­tional, results are high­ly indi­vid­ual and usu­al­ly not replic­a­ble. Again, peo­ple who looked beyond the cov­er promise could find sol­id guid­ance on how to put togeth­er meals that didn’t over­shoot calo­ries, espe­cial­ly when eat­ing out.

The Ulti­mate Vol­u­met­rics is the straight­est-talk­ing book I’ve worked on. Dr. Bar­bara Rolls, a world-renowned researcher at Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty, based the book on her exten­sive research on hunger and full­ness, and I was hon­ored to be her “with” on the book. No out­sized promis­es on the cov­er, just call-outs for feel­ing fuller on few calo­ries and sim­ple, sci­ence-based strate­gies for los­ing weight and keep­ing it off. Dr. Rolls’ research shows that eat­ing “low ener­gy den­si­ty” foods that don’t have a lot of calo­ries for the amount of food – think soups and green sal­ads – fills peo­ple up and helps them eat less, often with­out real­iz­ing it. The book should have been a run­away best sell­er like Dr. Rolls’ first book, but it came out the same month that Bor­ders Books closed. Still, the Vol­u­met­rics phi­los­o­phy con­tin­ues to be named among the best approach­es to weight loss, most recent­ly by U.S. News.

I thought of Vol­u­met­rics last week when I was inspired to make a pot of white bean and esca­role soup. We had come off of a cou­ple of weeks of hol­i­day par­ties so it was time to eat more health­ful­ly. Also, I heard a lec­ture on “brin­ing” beans before cook­ing to make them creami­er yet firm and I had to give it a try. We used a veg­etable-broth base, like Dr. Rolls rec­om­mends, plus white beans and sliv­ered esca­role, plus cheese tortelli­ni to make the soup a bit hearti­er. Every­thing went into the slow cook­er mid­day and was ready by din­ner. The recipe isn’t in Vol­u­met­rics but it upholds the book’s phi­los­o­phy.

White Bean and Esca­role Soup for Bar­bara

Makes 6 serv­ings

1 table­spoon olive oil

1 medi­um onion, peeled and fine­ly chopped

1 gar­lic clove, peeled and fine­ly chopped

4 cups veg­etable broth, prefer­ably reduced sodi­um

2 cups cooked or canned, drained white kid­ney, navy, or can­nelli­ni beans

1 bunch esca­role, about 12 ounces

10 twists McCormick Ital­ian Blend (grinder)

1 cup dry or frozen cheese tortelli­ni

Salt and fresh­ly ground black pep­per to taste

1/2 cup shaved or grat­ed Parmi­giano Reg­giano

Direc­tions

  1. Heat the oil in a large skil­let over medi­um-low heat. Add the onion and gar­lic and sauté until soft and begin­ning to brown, about 5 min­utes. Remove from heat and add to the crock­pot.
  2. Add the broth, beans, esca­role, and Ital­ian Blend to the crock­pot. Turn the heat to high, cov­er, and cook for about 3 hours, until the esca­role is very soft.
  3. Add the tortelli­ni and cook until al dente, about 15 min­utes for frozen and 30 min­utes for dry.
  4. Sea­son to taste and gar­nish with the cheese.