The struggle--never ending

  

In summer we spend a lot of time reading books on our porch, 

then a short walk to the kitchen for a snack.

 

Portion Distortion

 

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/wecan/eat-right/distortion.htm

Smaller plates at home.

Doggie bag at restaurant, and put half in it before you start to eat.

Don’t buy supersize or value packs of anything.  You’ll just eat more.

What’s in the Yogurt?

Let’s avoid for this post (and maybe all posts) GMO, pesticides and happy, contented non-Holstein cows free roaming in green pastures.  I have before me Dannon All natural plan nonfat yogurt (grade A)  and Yoplait plain nonfat yogurt (no artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners also Grade A).  I’m not a huge fan of yogurt, but sometimes will use it to cut dressings or add to fruit instead of milk.

Yoplait is made from grade A pasteurized nonfat milk and contains corn starch, gelatin, pectin, Vit. A acetate, Vit. D3 and has 130 calories per cup, zero from fat.

Dannon is made from cultured grade A nonfat milk and pectin. It is 100 calories per cup, zero from fat.

Percentages listed: Yoplait has more sodium, less potassium; both have 12 grams of protein. Then it gets a little complicated as amounts are listed only in percentage.  Yoplait has added vitamin A and D.  Dannon has a higher percentage of Calcium and Phosphorus (probably because it has less filler) and lists some B vitamins which Yoplait doesn’t.

Pectin is a fiber found in fruits and is used in many medicines. “Cornstarch and pectin act as thickening agents, making the yogurt creamier. Kosher gelatin also adds texture to the yogurt. It is often assumed that kosher gelatin is derived from a vegetarian source; however, contrary to common belief, it may also be derived from animal or dairy. Unless a product specifies that its kosher gelatin is derived from a vegetarian source, such as carob beans or agar agar, it may contain animal or dairy products.” (Livestrong.com)

I’ll go with Dannon in the future.

How far can they count?

Why 70% are obese or overweight in the U.S.—maybe

I kid you not.  This is a real diagram in a real research paper which attempts to explain the best method for measuring why if we eat more and move less (energy gap) we gain weight. At least I think that is what it is about. Time to get on the exercycle.

Energy Gap in the Aetiology of Body Weight Gain and Obesity: A Challenging Concept with a Complex Evaluation and Pitfalls

Calories at fast food restaurants

I love the You Pick 2 at Panera's, and if counting calories, it could be the better choice. The You Pick Two Broccoli Cheddar Soup and Chicken Caesar Salad add up to only 420 calories. A single Sierra Turkey Sandwich has a jaw-dropping 920 calories. (from a quiz on fast food calories at Dr. Oz) On politics I score 94%; on fast food calories, only 33%. I guess I need to eat out more.

It’s no wonder

Breakfast with Ron and Nancy at the Patio on Sunday; lunch on Monday with Kate at Houlihan’s; breakfast at the Idlewyld with Joan and Dan on Tuesday; picnic in the park with other Lakesiders on Wednesday; breakfast at the Tin Goose on Thursday with Wes and Sue; and lunch at the hotel with Rod and Lynn on Friday. It’s just hard to control weight in the summer even with all the extra walking.

Patio Restaurant, Lakeside, Ohio, 2013 paintings

Speaking of architects

Our exercise leader, Christine, has challenged the class to count calories track the food we eat for one week. My husband is a little new at this. He was shocked to learn that although 1/2 cup of chicken, a cup of tossed salad, and 1/2 cup of cooked carrots, was only 315 calories, the one Klondike bar he had for dessert was about 450. Just didn't seem fair. Tell me about it.

The internet makes this tracking much easier than in the past.

Yams and sweet potatoes--like OWS and the Tea Party

Our Monday exercise class instructor challenged the class to track calories for one week, so I've been reading labels and checking the internet. I'm a bit bored with the usual fare of peas, beans and corn, so today at Giant Eagle I looked at sweet potatoes--or thought I did. I actually almost picked up a yam, which isn't even close in nutritional value to a sweet potato. The two aren't even related. Yam has 3% vit. A; sweet potato has 770%. Yam is inflammatory; sweet potato is highly anti-inflammatory.

Sweet potato
770% vit. A
65% vit. C.
180 Calories
Highly anti-inflammatory
This food is low in Sodium, and very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin B6 and Potassium, and a very good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Manganese.

Yam
3% vit. A
27% vit. C
158 calories
Moderately inflammatory
This food is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Potassium and Manganese

Sweet potatoes: Popular in the American South, these yellow or orange tubers are elongated with ends that taper to a point and are of two dominant types. The paler-skinned sweet potato has a thin, light yellow skin with pale yellow flesh which is not sweet and has a dry, crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. The darker-skinned variety (which is most often called "yam" in error) has a thicker, dark orange to reddish skin with a vivid orange, sweet flesh and a moist texture.

The true yam: is the tuber of a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato. The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676.

The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Yams are generally sweeter than a sweet potato.

So, from now on, I'm buying only sweet potatoes--better nutrition and highly anti-inflammatory.

For lunch I'm having sweet potato sticks, with some fresh spinach. Not sure it will exactly this in appearance, but all the nutritional stuff should be there.

Do you suppose it's the butter?

What a good idea, I thought. Mini bags of microwave popcorn. Only 2 servings in a bag, 4 bags to a box. For some reason, I can't discipline myself to NOT eat the entire bag (4 servings) when I pop microwave popcorn. That I even buy the stuff is a bit of embarrassment, but I weakened when my neighbor came to the door last spring with her grandson "selling" it for his Boy Scout fund raiser. At the lake house I keep a small jar of unbrand popcorn and just pop about 1/4 C in a little oil when I get a snack attack. So I have a pack of 15 from the boy scout--or did have--only 3 are left. But the labels don't lie. The only "flavor" of the minis on the shelf at Meijer's this morning was "Movie theater butter," which we all remember from our movie watching youth (as a teen I saw at least one movie a week because my boyfriend ran the concession stand), isn't really butter but some sort of tinted oil. Corn, palm oil and salt. Yum. The Boy Scout fund raiser pop corn, Trail's End, has canola oil, corn oil and cottonseed oil, but has half the calories of the mini bag popcorn. What to do, what to do. Fortunately, today I'm not hungry after a sensible lunch of rice, asparagus, carrots and peas. And 2 cookies.

Besides, cottonseed oil isn't good for you. Next time I'll buy plain and add butter.

A Thigh Master appointee?

We knew this was coming, didn’t we? More taxes to hurt the poor and grow government agencies.

“Hot dogs, potato chips, soda and beer are staples of the traditional Memorial Day cookout, but Washington wants to redesign the menu. Just in time for your neighborhood block party, the Obama Administration and Senate Finance Committee are signalling a change in your diet.

President Obama has named Thomas Frieden, the New York City health commissioner who championed a ban on artificial trans fats, as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Frieden's campaign forced McDonald's to change the way it cooks french fries -- you may have noticed the taste -- and he has lately called for all restaurants to use less salt. Let's hope he spends at least some of his time considering flu pandemics and bioterrorism.” Memorial Day Make-over

Actually, I’m in favor of some government meddling in my food. Like, why can’t we clearly have on every label--canned item, frozen food package, and bag of carrots or lettuce--“grown in the USA.” The “distributed by” doesn’t mean a thing. I waste so much time looking for that tiny piece of information, and even then I came home the other day with carrots grown in Mexico. I’m not going to give USDA an A+ on everything, but we have a much better chance of avoiding parasitic diseases transmitted by careless hygiene, bacteria and gross amounts of pesticides, if we can buy American, even if our inspectors don't have enough staff, and we can’t do that without the information. I don’t want them off the market, they are important for trade, but I want to make the choice. That’s one area of my life where I am pro-choice.

Where it is grown or baked is more important to me than the percentage of fat or salt. I think I can figure out that a handful of potato chips won’t hurt me, but a bagful just might. And non-calorie pop must make people hungry and thirsty, because I never see a thin person drinking one. (Actually, I do buy it occasionally for my husband who wants something cold on an 84 degree day painting the house.)

Also, with so many people suffering from allergies, I think the wheat and peanut labeling is a good plan. Just don’t take the wheat and peanut products out of the store because two people within a mile of the store have severe reactions. In the last 30 years, there have been all sorts of movements by novices, animal rights groups, amateurs and environmentalist-food nazis to remove certain things because of obesity. And what has happened? We’re much fatter than we were in the 1970s as a nation, particularly men and children. Junk Food Science is the best place to go to read about the hype that comes with food warnings--it's the science that's junk, not the food, says Sandy.

If Americans need to lose weight, I suggest that Congress begin by emulating our First Couple. They are slim and trim and growing a garden in the yard (with tax paid gardeners). The Bushes were also a normal, healthy weight, and so were the Clintons (after Bill slimmed down) and the Bushes before them. It’s Congress that is fat in body and attitude--along with some of the regulatory agency employees and research staffers. Their retirement plan and health plan are also fat and sassy--and you'll never see anything like that!

If you're interested in beer, here's a cute story about beer and history at TonyRogers.com.

"The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.

These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives."

Would posting calories help?

For lunch today I had onions, peppers, carrots, broccoli and cucumbers grilled in a little olive oil. It was fine; tasted good. But I topped it off with some sugar-free peanut butter chocolate ice cream. The calories were posted on the carton. And I ate it anyway.

Will posting calories prominently really make Americans think twice and order more healthy items? "Anecdotally, you hear constantly about people who've changed their choices," say [New York City] Commissioner Frieden. "You go into fast-food places and you hear a lot of buzz online."

Elisabetta Politi, director of nutrition at the Duke Diet & Fitness Center, isn't so sure. "Some of our clients know so much about nutrition they could teach the classes, but does that help them control their weight? Absolutely not," she says. From WSJ Health Journal

The editor of this story needed to find a different photo to show how rising prices for food are hurting people.

4853 New twist on an old myth

When I was a little girl, children were told to clean up their plates because there were starving children in China (or India or Africa depending on where your church had missions). Most of us were skinny and baffled how that would help other kids--but guilt never makes much sense. Today I heard some expert say that if Americans would just eat less, Indians would have more. The reason people don't have enough food has nothing to do with available calories in their own country. Since the 1970s all countries, even the poorest, have been self-sufficient in food. The problem is corrupt governments that let it rot, or who steal it, trade it or control people with it, or don't build roads so poor, rural people can get to it. When the Irish were starving in the 19th century, Britain was exporting their food. When the Ukrainians were starving in the early 20th century, they were living in the bread basket of the world. Those were political, not agricultural, famines. Right now people are starving in Burma after a natural disaster, but they were probably awfully thin going into it; U.S. and U.N. food aid has been stolen by the military-communist controlled government. There are calls for the U.N. to DO SOMETHING besides form a committee and write a report!

Burning food stuffs to run cars does change the balance of trade and supply, and even if it never got to Burma, wouldn't you feel better if you weren't burning it?

Could it be our choices?

Would more government regulation of the fast food industry really protect Americans from obesity, which is now a bigger health problem than smoking? Would posting calorie count and fat content at casual dining places influence most consumers?

Grocery store food is labeled. There's a reason for these "loss leaders" being on the front page of this grocery store flyer--a store with low prices and no loyalty card to jack up the cost to the consumer. I'll take a wild guess--no one buying 8 liters of pop and assorted varieties of chips is reading labels for calories content, sodium and calories. Even if sold at a loss, if these items bring people into the store, and they then pick up other items, even broccoli and carrots, the manager has chosen well. The cashiers, stockers, office staff, truckers, packagers, ad designers, marketers, the utility companies, the rental agent, the stockholders and eventually the farmers will all be paid a living wage. (I'm so old I remember when milk was a loss leader--but that was before global warming and corn in the gas tank!) Now it's pop*, chips, beer, and bottled water. There's a tiny column on the inside of the flyer which reveals what a good deal we can still get at the grocery store: seedless cukes from Canada, $1; 1 lb bag of mini-carrots, $1; 3 lb. bag of onions, $1; 3 lb. bag of potatoes, $1; 8 oz. pkg of whole mushrooms $1; cantaloupe $1; pears, $1/lb.; Gala apples, $1/lb.

I use as much processed food (canned and frozen) now as I did when I worked. Using frozen instead of canned often cuts down on sugar and sodium**, and sometimes there is better protection of nutrients than using "fresh" produce that's been out of the field or off the tree for a long, long time. (I think my "fresh" turnip greens have been in the frig over 2 weeks and the cabbage more than 3, and the peppers are looking sad.) In my opinion, we'd all do better and consume fewer calories if we'd cut back on variety and choices--stick with the basics and contribute your own preparation. However, that action would put people out of work, so there's a trade-off.

*The cost of corn syrup should soon be forcing soda drink prices through the roof, too.

**In the U.S. diet, 77% of sodium comes from processed and restaurant foods, 12% occurs naturally in foods, 6% is added at the table, and 5% is added during cooking. (figures may be dated: J Am Coll Nutr. 1991; 10(4):;383-393 via JAMA)--but they weren't checking my kitchen--I add way more salt than the average cook.