Excerpt: 'The Diet Code' by Stephen Lanzalotta
April 3, 2006 — -- If you're a fan of Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code," and you want to lose weight, then you may be interested in "The Diet Code" by Stephen Lanzalotta
Just as Brown's book discusses Da Vinci's Golden Ratio, Lanzalotta's does too -- and tells you how it can help you shed pounds. Lanzalotta, a baker who lives in Portland, Maine, applies mathematical principles to his cafe menu and shows you how to apply it to your daily eating for optimal health.
Below is an excerpt from "The Diet Code."
The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.— LEONARDO DA VINCI
Man achieves the height of Wisdom when all that he does is asself-evident as what Nature does.— I CHING
Milan, Winter 1492
The pencil drops from Leonardo's left hand as he picks up a chunk ofbigio, or whole grain bread, to soak up broth from a steaming bowl ofminestra, a Milanese broth featuring the region's distinctive savoycabbage and a mix of root vegetables and their greens. He distractedlystabs at a bit of turnip with the fork in his right hand. Within reachare some thin slabs of creamy Taleggio cheese and a flask of wine fromthe vineyards of his patron, Ludovico Sforza, duke of Bari.
Momentarily focusing on his soup, Leonardo reminisces about hisnative Tuscany and the Florentine minestrone, spicy and meaty froma soffrito mix of minced and sautéed chicken giblets, pork and peppercorns.The duke had been suitably surprised by the dish when Leonardoprepared it for him. The Lombard ruler is quite fond of meat from thepig and well knows of Leonardo's reputation as a brilliant cook, but itwas the last meal he expected from a vegetarian's kitchen.
Leonardo isn't painting much these days, because the duke is presentlymore interested in civic planning and engineering -- moats, walls, war machines and the like. But the duke has been suggesting a frescofor the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and Leonardois already plotting the depiction of another meal of bread andwine. Unbeknownst to his patron, the artist has in mind to use thefresco to convey a message so grand, so unexpected and so shockingthat its deepest meanings will have to be encoded if the fresco is to bepainted at all.
That will come later, though. Now, Leonardo occupies his peripateticmind with plotting the geometry of what will become one ofhis greatest works. Lifting the bowl to sip the last of his soup, he contemplatesproportioning the enormous work by what he calls sectod'aurea -- golden section or, as it is later renamed, the golden ratio. Hevisualizes the way lines will relate to each other, forming key angles. Ifthe numbers governing the structure of a painting are right, heknows, the aesthetic will resonate deep within viewers.
Leonardo lifts the bowl to his lips, sips the last of his soup andmops up the final drops with a crust torn from the loaf, enjoying asecret latent in his lunch: the key to long life and good health is literallyin his hands.
In this imagined scene, one of the world's great geniuses finishes ameal as ideally proportioned as any of his master works. WhatLeonardo da Vinci brought a tavolo (to the table) was as balanced asanything he consciously designed during his long career -- a career inwhich he devoted much energy to exploring and exploiting anancient mathematical formula that's come to be known as theGolden Ratio. Leonardo's application of the Golden Ratio wasarguably quite calculated when it came to his art, but it was likelyintuitive when it came to his meal planning. Leonardo simply chosefrom the variety of fresh whole foods available to him, nourishing hisbody and mind with ease in a way we seem to have entirely abandonedtoday. The effect of proper proportions is just as powerful onthe plate and in the body, however, as it is on a canvas. Leonardodined on the particular ancient triumvirate of bread, wine and Ncheese, which makes up the trinity of essential macronutrients -- carbohydrate, protein and fat.
Leonardo, for one, reaped the benefits. He was slender throughouthis long life and famously strong. (He was said to be capable ofbending horseshoes with a single hand or stopping a horse runningpast him at full gallop with his bare hands.) That's not to mention cultivatingperhaps the most amazing brain ever -- one of the keenest,most synthetic and far-reaching intellects of all time!
While I can't guarantee that eating the same way will turn youinto a great painter, inventor, architect, engineer, botanist, anatomist,astronomer or sculptor, I can promise that consciously re-creating thequality, combinations and proportion of foods Leonardo relied onwill help you become lean and strong. Put these new proportionsinside your body, and you'll soon see new proportions outside. Allyou have to do is crack "The Diet Code" -- master the simple formulathat unlocks the secret to easy weight loss: maximizing nutrition andmetabolism.
As a self-taught baker raised on my grandmother's rustic Italiancooking, I've thrived on meals much like those on which Leonardomust have supped. I make breads hardly different from those hewould have known, using the exact same technology as bakers inLeonardo's time did. More directly, I've admired Leonardo's polymathmind and strived for decades to take what insights I could fromhim and apply them across multiple aspects of my life. Again andagain, I've circled back to that one formula, famously encoded in theangles of his spread-eagle Vitruvian Man, among many of his otherworks, not to mention a litany of designs dating back to the earliesthuman civilizations: the Golden Ratio.
The Golden Ratio guided Leonardo in designing the famous fresco(The Last Supper) that I imagine him contemplating in the opening ofthis chapter and has been given credit for the enthralling effect of his Mona Lisa. He used it in his more practical undertakings, too, proportioninggarden schematics, city planning layouts, everyday engineeringplans and the like. In doing so, he was rediscovering wisdom fromancient Rome, Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia, which had at thatpoint been all but lost; among Leonardo's many extraordinary achievementscount rescuing and revitalizing this vital knowledge.
The latest cutting-edge science and technology has proven justhow deep this mathematical wisdom goes, documenting the GoldenRatio in everything from the pattern of galaxies and the shape ofocean waves to the spiral of seashells and the arrangement of petalsin a rose. The same natural laws of design also dictate the form ofhuman genetic material (the DNA double helix), the development ofthe human fetus and many details in the architecture of the humanbody. The Golden Ratio has been successfully applied by humans inso many arenas simply because they affirm the greater wisdom ofnature when they do so.
