Have you ever walked past a supermarket checkout and noticed the magazines? On so many of the covers, the predominant theme is diet. Diet, diet, diet. Fascinatingly, if you look at the weekly publications, they often have something advertised such as “The Fat Burning Diet! Never count calories again!” All well and good, except that the very next week, the exact same magazine will be advertising “The Best Diet Ever! The Not-Diet-Diet! Scientifically Proved!” Which begs the question - if the first diet is so revolutionary, why do they need to publish a new diet the very next week? Or the next. Or the next.
The bottom line is, these diets, whether on magazine covers or on TV advertisements, just don’t work. People might lose briefly on them by avoiding certain foods and depriving themselves of this or that, but not only are these diets painfully slow, frequently their “food plans” taste like cardboard. As a result, people don’t stick to the diets very long and/or quickly have rebound weight gain when they give up and splurge on something that actually tastes like delicious, real food, because it actually is delicious and real.
Sous-vide is a method of cooking in which food is vacuum-sealed in a plastic pouch or a glass jar and then placed in a water bath or steam environment for longer than normal cooking times (usually one to seven hours, up to 48 or more in some cases) at an accurately regulated temperature. The temperature is much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 55 to 60°C (131 to 140°F) for meat, higher for vegetables. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and to retain moisture.