The 10 in 10 Diet is a total system for eating healthy food conveniently while keeping your grocery bill under $150 a month per person, and reducing our contribution to climate change – with a goal in mind of 10% reduction of CO2 in 2010. It's a way to fast track to a simpler, more peaceful life. It's totally possible to really enjoy food while eating more like the majority of people in the world.

In this low-carbon diet you'll find a limited menu of carefully worked out meals and recipes to help you get off the cycle of eating mindlessly (and expensively) now and feeling guilty about it later. This is the complete opposite of making a hobby of experimenting with gourmet cooking. It's also not about being too much of a stickler for any 'ism'.

This simple system is mostly plant-based, organic when not prohibitively expensive, low on wheat and dairy but not lacking a molecule of either. Packaged food is avoided, but not banned. Local food in season is given priority, mostly as a practice for the possibility of future contractions in food distribution. Milk is used sparingly. The book The China Study cooled me off on dairy. Eggs are used mostly for for baking – in our case from farmer neighbors whose chickens we have met personally. I make yogurt to keep the yeast in check, say no more.

One key item is the cabbage soup we almost always eat for lunch. I believe it was a major factor in my fairly painlessly reducing my weight by two clothes sizes last year.

My methods are as important as the ingredients in creating a lifestyle of mindful cooking. Just as restaurants train line cooks in specific procedures, I'm providing my way.

You can take all the anxiety out of nutrition, food spending, snacking, and cooking. This frees up space in your mind, money in your pocket and time in your day.