Dress Up Your Broccoli

I feel like I need to apologize to broccoli.

Whenever I talk about the painful dieting experiences of the past, the example I use for my soul-sucking, pre-paleo food is always, “chicken breast with steamed broccoli.”

When I was a “dieter,” I ate a lot of chicken breast and broccoli. A lot. Truckloads full. I distinctly remember asking a sales clerk once if a Teflon pan was really, really non-stick because, “I need to be able to put a plain chicken breast in there without any oil to cook it.”

And the broccoli didn’t fare much better. It was insulted by being steamed, garlic-salted, and tossed with Smart Balance fat-free margarine. Now, of course, I know better. I know that the right amount of healthy fats goes a long way toward making everything taste ever-so-much better, while keeping me fit, healthy, happy, and not feeling deprived.