Let them eat bread -- while you maintain your hard-won weight loss

A 10-inch frittata with smoked wild salmon, sweet potatoes and fresh spinach (folded into the egg mixture) starts out on top of the stove and finishes under the broiler. After you remove it from the oven, add Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale, where you can find most of the other ingredients.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Sweet potatoes, baked or mashed. Organic brown rice and organic quinoa prepared in an electric cooker. Organic whole-wheat pasta imported from Italy.

Let me count the substitutes I've enjoyed since embarking on a no-bread, no-pizza diet several years ago, and shedding 40 pounds.

I put back about 10 of those pounds after I gave up one of my two part-time jobs and became less active.

But the bread substitutes still work to help me maintain my weight loss, and they can be enjoyed at any meal where bread is served, even breakfast.

Of course, I don't drink soda, never touch dessert, eat reduced fat cheeses and try to avoid pasta sauces and other products made with added sugar, which is linked to the obesity epidemic.

A wedge of the frittata with baked and mashed sweet potatoes, the latter made with extra-virgin olive oil, cinnamon, curry powder and other seasonings.

Organic brown rice joins mashed sweet potatoes at another meal with a wedge of frittata.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Capellini, an Italian import available for $1.25 a pound at ShopRite in Paramus, complements an egg-white omelet stuffed with spinach.

Mateo's Gourmet Salsa and Earthbound Farm Organic Baby Spinach, both from Costco Wholesale, are perfect for stuffing a 10-inch omelet made with Kirkland Signature Egg Whites.

Mateo's Gourmet Salsa has no added sugar. A 32-ounce jar was $4.97 at Costco in Hackensack.

Some Kirkland Signature spices now have a new top, above, replacing a top that would sometimes come off, below, dumping ounces of black pepper, red-pepper flakes and other seasoning into the food you were preparing.

Here, I was seasoning the frittata egg mixture (16 ounces of whites and three whole organic eggs) after folding in the fresh spinach with a spoon.

Here, organic brown rice makes a nice foundation for a light dinner of salted fish prepared with sweet peppers, all accented with Valentina Mexican Hot Sauce, below.

Organic quinoa (prepared in an electric cooker with organic black beans, organic diced tomatoes and olive oil), with Roasted Chipotle Salsa I used tonight to poach wild-caught Icelandic Haddock Fillets, below.

The fresh haddock was $8.99 a pound at Costco. A 16-ounce jar of the salsa was $2.69 at Whole Foods Market in Paramus. I used most of the jar to poach 1.8 pounds of the fish in under 10 minutes. Tonight, I added the fresh juice of a lime and a little red wine to the salsa, and brought them to a boil before adding the fish and covering the pot.