Quality ingredients to shove up your gobbler

Remember when I said I was going to start a series decoding the chemically-sounding ingredients in common foods? And how I posted one entry? And haven't since? Yeah. Well, that's mainly because (believe it or not) that entry involved about 4 or 5 hours of work total. It was grueling, in the instantaneous blogosphere. I have since shied away from such research-heavy endeavors, leaning on personal anecdotes that, while taking at least an hour to write (the lengthier, more introspective ones at least), are so much easier. On my brain.

But I'm not satisfied with just these types of posts because there's a big world out there and other people talking in it that should be heard. That's blogging, right? So several days ago I thought, "I need to subscribe to health news, or just get disciplined enough to read it daily."

So I did. Well, just right now. I guess "once" isn't really "daily" (yet); whatever.

The New York Times, besides being regarded as a modern-day dinosaur by the Daily Show in one of their always-hilarious sketches, has a website that is really more of a labyrinth of news and blogs and multimedia and other things with words that is intimidating yet alluring. Its most prominent health blog is Well, which I mentioned in the Pollan post. Now, Well is extremely informative, and it would probably benefit me to read it regularly, but my only problem with it is a lack of personalness or personality or humanness. I.e. it reads like news, not really like a blog.

But nudged next to Well on the Health and Fitness homepage is a weekly series (a blog? is it in the paper too? I'm not sure) called Recipes for Health.

Jackpot. If there's one thing I'm lacking, and know damn well I'm lacking, it's recipes. Maybe because I'm only 21, don't have a family or boyfriend to cook for, a lot of money to spend on food, etc. Maybe I'm making excuses (probably). But that doesn't mean I shouldn't still talk about it!

This week, in lieu of Thanksgiving, the writer Martha Rose Shulman posts an alternative recipe for stuffing. Now, I have always been a big anti-fan of stuffing. I'm not sure why except I think it was one of those things I tried as a child and then just decided I hated. Maybe because it cooks inside the carcass of a dead animal and even at seven something about that rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe because it often has random animal parts in it that you would never see anywhere else on a dining room table (Dear, can you pass the liver?), parts that I am not particularly comfortable ingesting.

But this recipe has no necks. Just some veggies, herbs, spices, almonds, chicken stock and--best of all--wild rice. If you've never had wild rice, please do. My sister and I made enchiladas with it once and it was phenomenal. Wild rice, besides the color appeal, is not as sticky and mushy as white or brown rice, and nutritionally it is a tiny step above brown with 2 more grams of protein and a few less calories. But mainly it's pretty.

And in my book, pretty beats full o' chicken parts. This is something I might actually be able to stomach. Except--I'd probably make it the vegetarian way. No turkey ovens for me.

the bread machine of wonders

Last year my mom cut gluten (part of the wheat germ) out of her life, because her doctor thought it may have been causing the debilitating migraines she had been suffering several times a week for decades. Well, it ended up being attributable not to gluten, but to a hormone called progesterone, but I still got a bread maker out of the deal.

My mom has had this machine since I was a kid, but she got a new one because this one was gluten-contaminated. So I told her (asked politely) to hand that sucker down.


I don't know many other people who have bread machines, but everyone should, because these things are quite nifty. They combine the best of both worlds: the ease of minimal effort and the wholesome satisfaction of eating something you yourself made. I mean it when I say these things require no baking skills. Or mixing skills. You just measure ingredients and pour them in the pre-formed bread pan. The machine does the kneading and rising and baking for you.

And, of course, there's health benefits from baking your own bread, but if you already buy your bread from a baker or minimally-processed whole-wheat loaves from companies like Brownberry, it is primarily a feel-good look-what-I-can-do thing (like when you give quarters to the Salvation Army Santa... you walk away smiling because you are such a good person but how much change is a few quarters gonna bring?) But, if you're eating squishy white bread, you'll definitely be doing your body a preservative-free favor.

I make it with a ratio of 5 parts whole wheat flour to 1 part bread flour (because it doesn't rise as well with all whole wheat... but once I drag my ass to a health food store and buy gluten, I'll make it 100% WW.)

But when I was a kid, my mom used to bake white loaves for the PB & J's she packed in my lunch. I can't remember if I voiced my distress at the time, but I hated it. Not because it tasted bad (it didn't) but because it looked different. And all the prying judgment-filled eyes of my peers noticed, and everyone asked why it looked so funny, and while I still ate it, I would hold my sandwiches under the lunch table, embarrassed, wishing I could just be like all the other kids with their pristine, blindingly white Wonder Bread.

Because even kids know this is weird (although this is wheat... so imagine it a few shades lighter):

And this is normal:

Which, now that the years have stacked up, strikes me as quite an odd dilemma in the life of a kid. Who cares what your bread looks like? I also got teased for having (and eating) apples in my lunch. Is this food-related ridicule universal? I went to elementary school in an area where a larger-than-average percentage of adults were poor and pretty uneducated, and for whom the struggle to be able to tame hungry little bellies overrode the need to make sure that sustenance was healthy. (Or, perhaps in some situations, the culprit was more ignorance and contentment with ignorance than lack of money. That's worth arguing.) So most of my friends ate a lot of Little Debbie or her generic counterparts. Was it different in more affluent areas?

This is dipping heavily into a topic I'd like to discuss more in depth at a later time--how to feed kids healthy things they'll like, and what factors other than taste affect their detestation of certain foods. Because, whenever the day comes, you can bet my kids will be carrying the same funny-looking sandwiches in their futuristic lunch pails that I carried way, way back in the prehistoric 1990s.

<3 pEaNuT bUtTeR!~!~!~

When I found out I had high cholesterol, one of the things that was suggested was to eat more oatmeal, or anything made from oats. (I know we've all seen the Cheerio's commercials about lowering your cholesterol if you eat like 500 bowls of Cheerio's every day for the rest of your life.)

Which, you know, was no big deal. Oatmeal's good. But--my idea of "oatmeal" was a sugar-doused flavored product. Even when my mom made me real Quaker Oats as a kid, I put a lot, a lot, of brown sugar on it. Like it was essentially sugar with a coupla lone oats tossed in.

So what to do now? How to make it appetizing without reversing the health benefits? I started by adding raisins, which plump when you cook them and add some natural sweetness, but I couldn't help but sprinkle a packet of Splenda on there too. When I became a little more informed and thus wary of artificial sweeteners, I stuck to just raisins. And it was okay, but I honestly had to force myself to make it. Like I would never wake up craving it, or even really wanting it, but I would shove it down my gullet anyway, reminding myself of its artery unclogging powers.

Then this past summer, I was at Kelsey's house one morning and she was making oatmeal for me, her, and her boyfriend George. When she asked George what he wanted in his, he said peanut butter. I remember doing a double take. Peanut butter? In oatmeal? I asked her who the hell she thought she was mixing these two things. She laughed at me.

Since then, I've embarked on a love affair with the union of these two previously disparate foods. I was already shacking up with peanut butter, have been for a long time. But now oatmeal's invited, and for the first time I really want him there.

If you've never had this, and you like peanut butter, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try. I mix about a half cup of oats with a cup of skim milk (but you can make however much you want) and usually just pop it in the microwave, but if you are cooking for more than one person, I'd recommend the stove. Then mix in about a tablespoon of peanut butter while the oatmeal's hot and it will sort of just dissolve. This breakfast has about 18 grams of protein (if you make it with skim milk, which I don't know how anyone eats it with water without barfing), about 335 calories, and, yes, about 11 grams of fat, but only about 1 1/2 grams are saturated; the rest are either polyunsaturated or monounsaturated (the good-for-your-heart kind.)

And if you use almond butter instead of pb, its extra monounsaturated fats serve up a double whammy sucker punch to lower LDL cholesterol (the bad one). Unfortunately, almond butter is a quite a bit more expensive. Thus far I have only picked it up wistfully in the grocery store, set it back on the shelf with a sigh, and slowly pushed my cart down the aisle, looking over my shoulder with big, cartoonish eyes. Someday, we will be united.

the mother of all grains

A friend asked the other night about the vegetable I mentioned on my blog, so I said you mean collard greens? and she said, "No, that other one.... that qu--something."

What she was referring to is quinoa (KEEN-wah), which is eaten as a grain; thus my confusion. I realized I wrongly assumed while writing that post that just because my family is used to eating something, and I've seen it talked about in health magazines, doesn't mean everyone knows about it. Slap on wrist.

A mini bio, then, on my little buddy of a grain:

First of all, quinoa is a leafy plant similar species-wise to beets and spinach, but unlike these veggies, the leaves aren't generally eaten--just the seed, which is cooked in the same fashion as grains like rice and couscous. (So, ironically, my friend was absolutely right in calling it a vegetable, even though it caused me to stare at her blankly for several seconds.)

But quinoa has a definite one-up over these other grains because it has an unusually complete amino acid structure, making it an ideal high-protein choice for vegetarians or vegans or just people like me who shy away from relying too much on the flesh of animals. Plus it's got fiber and minerals and wouldn't ya know!--it's delicious too. Unlike the sometimes dry texture of a grain like bulgur wheat, quinoa is light and fluffy and easy to digest.

Besides nutrition, quinoa are also steeped in rich history. They were first harvested by the Incas and are still grown in the Andes--i.e. in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile. So although this grain is relatively new on the American health food scene, it is ancient to South Americans, who have been eating this "mother grain" (which is what quinoa means in Quechua, the language of the Incas) for thousands of years.

Now, I hope you are thinking "hm, well Kayla where can I purchase this tiny miracle?" and the answer is at virtually any grocery store. There is a downside though--the price for quinoa is a bit steeper than that of rice or bulgur (seems like if you want nutrition in this country, you better expect to cough it up) and it's only increasing along with demand. I've had my two 12-ounce boxes of quinoa for months--*cringe* shows how much I cook--and honestly cannot remember how much they cost, but I did a little calculation of what is sold on Amazon (they really do sell everything! hotdamn) and it seems like it's around 5 bucks a pop. But--a little perspective: there are 8 servings per box, thus it's still less than a dollar per serving.

So hold off on that golden arched value menu and buy something you won't wanna throw up 10 minutes later! Your belly will thank you.

veintiuno!

Today, the Seventh of October in the Two Thousand and Ninth Year of Our Lord, marks the twenty-first year since I was birthed.

!!!!!!!!!!

Last night I drafted something yammering on about the anti-climacticness of the American 21st birthday because I can count on one hand the number of people I know who waited until they were 21 to drink (great example of this: tonight at Harris Grill in Shadyside I asked the dashing young waiter for suggestions regarding drinks, and he goes, "Well, what do you like?") But I realize now that I was just being a lame-o grumper-pants because all my closest friends are 20 still, and wanted to complain about how I couldn't go out with them because they're not cool college kids with fake IDs, and why would I want to pay twice as much for a drink in a stuffy perv-crawling bar REALLY.

But somewhere around 10 this morning as I sat at work I thought, "I can go buy a bottle of wine after this" and the heavens opened up and rained fermented goodness on the crown of my head.

So anyway. Junked that entry. But none of this really applies to my blog in any way other than setting a really bad example. Because alcohol is generally not great for you, especially if you drink it by the gallon, not the glass. And that's the only way it seems to come in college....... until you turn 21. Then suddenly you are an adult and can drink without painting the walls with vomit. For some at least; for others puke-green is just their shade.

I guess I'm in the former category because the only drink I bought was a cosmo. Tonight at least. Tomorrow I'm going to the very classy bars in Oakland with my older sister and some friends, so I decided to look for a list of the lowest calorie drinks so I don't down my daily intake. Consensus on a bunch of sites: mix with club soda, drink water in between, or have light beer (and only a few). That's fine for normal nights, but tomorrow it is time for highly complicated and fancily named drinks. Except I of course would like to avoid those that are hot fudge sundaes in disguise, so I found something on Forbes.com about the ten worst drinks for you. Click on it for a buzzkill.

Or don't click. Because I'm going to tell you about it anyway. Or at least about the top 5 because the rest are sort of well-duh (like number 8 is vodka and tonic, with 2 shots and 5 ounces tonic, at 200 calories. I mean, I guess that could be a shocker if you are unaware of the tiny sugary discrepancies between tonic water and club soda.)

TOP TEN (five) HIGHEST 

CAL COCKTAILS!

1.) Long Island Iced Tea: 780 calories

2.) Margarita: 740 

3.) Piña Colada: 644

4.) White Russian: 425 (explains a lot about The Dude)

5.) Mai Tai: 350

Just soak up the top two for a moment. Those are both (large) meals.

So I guess with alcohol, like with food, simpler is better. I just wouldn't advise pounding shots unless you're prepared to wake up in a bush with a penis drawn on your face.

adventures to smoothie-land

So I bought that Greek yogurt earlier this week with the sole intention of using it in smoothies. If you've ever had Greek yogurt, you'll know it has a biting taste more like that of sour cream than what we associate with yogurt, which I'm sure causes most non-nutrition obsessed customers to turn up their noses. But funny fact: Greek yogurt is what plain ol' yogurt used to be until the days of additives and thickening agents. The only ingredients in it are skim milk, cream, and a plethora of good-for-your-belly cultures. Because of this, it has substantially more protein than regular yogurt (24g per cup vs. 7g per cup in Yoplait light vanilla). But, you're a real trooper if you can handle it plain. I can't. They sell different flavors in small containers but they are more expensive. So instead I bought the big one and a bag of frozen mixed berries (I already had frozen mango chunks) and decided to try my hand at the art of smoothie-making. What I got was more like frozen yogurt. I was so giddy about the delicious results I decided to post this pseudo-recipe in the hopes that you will try it out!

The only thing I really measured was the yogurt (not because I'm a fantastic chef by any means, I am just lazy and hate doing dishes) but I eyeballed the approximate measurements of the rest:

2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
~10 chunks of frozen mango
~1/2 cup frozen berries
drizzled honey over it all
splash of skim milk (maybe 1/2 cup?)

Then blend blend blend. If you have a super shitty hand-me-down blender like mine, this could be... a process, mainly because this smoothie is pretty thick. I probably should have given my ancient appliance a break by adding more milk, (I realized while digging mangled mango chunks out of my dull blender blades), but I didn't, mainly because I got really excited when I realized it was like ice cream. But you can feel free to add more milk, different fruits, whatever. It's your discretion.

Which is probably the greatest part about home-made smoothies: you can make them however you want! To hell with recipes! And if you put in healthy ingredients (yogurt instead of ice cream, frozen fruit instead of ice cubes), you're gonna get a smooth, guiltless treat. I know smoothies are and have been a huge health craze for awhile, but if you buy them at some fancy shop they are usually pretty expensive and can add extra crap and calories. But if you make your smoothies at home, then you know what exactly is going into that blender and how much. No surprises there (except the extra cash in your pocket).

And remember, just because you are drinking it doesn't mean it's not a meal/snack. I think our waistlines all learned that several years ago from Frappucinos.

it started with eggs.

So there's this site I often use to find out the nutritional content of food. (I have no idea where they get their information from but it's very legit looking and has everything so I'll take it.)

I went on there earlier this morning as I made breakfast to find out just how bad egg yolks v. egg whites are, and they are very bad, if you are looking to raise your cholesterol just start drinking egg yolks. But I saw a link to an article about the "Paleo diet" and the graphics included two crossed spears and I thought "oh hey! somebody's talking about eating naturally!" so I clicked on it and very quickly became confused. The nutritionist talked about paleo diet vs. Mediterranean diet and what you can and cannot eat on one or the other and my eyes began to cross and I smelled something, perhaps my eggs, burning.

This is a good example of why I hate Diets. I'd say my hate affair started in the first half of this decade, when my dad and stepmom did the whole Atkins bullshit, trading their fruits for pounds of steak and bacon, then wondered why they weren't losing any weight.

Now there are aspects of the Atkins I agree with, and probably most diets for that matter. Protein will keep you fuller than carbs, especially refined ones, and I think that everyone should place sugar and white flour on the same nutritional battlefield as fat. Fat is not alone in this party.

My qualm is with the restriction aspect. The fact that this old guy's telling people you can't eat certain foods-- in an apparently very convincing way, because my parents treated him like a golden all-knowing god-- really grinds my gears. (Is it too early for a Family Guy reference? Probably.)

I believe that it's this restriction, these bans and rules that make people feel confined and unfulfilled while on a diet, and that's why they never work. Scenario: Woman hates body, tells self to stop eating sweets, does it for about a week, then caves in over tiramisu, hates self, feels like a failure, gives up, goes back to unhealthy ways. Convinced that she doesn't have it in her.

Have it in her to do what? Deprive herself in a completely unrealistic way? It takes a superhuman to only eat vegetables, fruits, lean meat, whole grains, and nuts... which is what "the paleo diet" apparently is-- no oils, no dairy. Or it takes someone with buckets of cash to throw away on personal (food conscience) trainers.

So to hell with these diets. America has been diet obsessed for decades and, guess what, we're still fat. I think it's time for every American to start thinking for themselves regarding their health, instead of putting it in the hands of people that I honestly don't trust, because their job is to get you to follow their diets. Stop thinking you aren't "qualified" to make your own decisions about what you eat; we're not dummies, but the Diet industry seems to think we are. It's just common sense, actually thinking about the food before you shove it down your gob. Like, say you crave chocolate. Ho-ho? Hmm... you are high in calories, could probably survive a nuclear holocaust what with all your preservatives, but you are deliciously chocolatey. Dark chocolate bar? You are even MORE chocolatey yet don't have all the crazy gunk ho-ho has! I choose you. But I also know you are high in fat, so I will not eat you everyday, because you are a treat and should stay that way.

But no seriously, try it out! And if you're not sure if something is or isn't good for you, do some research, just make sure Atkins isn't your only source.

Why should I care, you damn hippy?

First, I'm going to be honest with you so you don't get your panties in a bunch later on: I am not a nutritional expert. I don't claim to be. Any health advice given in this blog should be taken with many grains of salt (or maybe not because you could then die of a sodium-induced heart attack.) I'm just a semi-normal Midwestern girl, circa 21 years since birth, grappling with newfound mortality and the fact that I have a body that is mine and will be until the day I die.

Like many modern Americans, I have struggled with my weight my whole life, winning and losing various battles. I spent most of my childhood overweight, feeling imprisoned in flesh. Come junior high and puberty and an apparently lightning fast metabolism, I shed weight and could suddenly eat what I wanted and stay slim. But "slim" is a word I use in retrospect-- throughout high school my mirror falsely painted me as chubby, and I mentally punished myself for those extra Cheetos.

Then I went to college, and the mirror wasn't lying anymore: the fabled Freshman Fifteen came true. That spring, my doctor informed me that I had extremely high cholesterol for my age. I mean it's not like I was going to die or anything (yet), but it was the first time I realized that I was not invincible. Just because my outside was smooth and shiny and smiley and young, didn't mean that inside there wasn't a sticky monster lurking in the depths of my arteries.

Since then, I have overhauled my lifestyle. And I've made discoveries along the way, gems that I think elude many Americans blinded by beacons of neon M's seen from the comfy seats of their sedans. But I don't blame anyone for falling into this unhealthy trap, because there's no reason or need to fight for food in our society anymore; if anything, we have too many choices. Even in our present recession, instead of people thinning out like our grandfathers in the Great Depression, we are gaining weight, courtesy of an abundance of cheap processed food products.

So to put my views in the simplest way: I try to eat real foods. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Whole grains. Lean meat and dairy. Things that have been manipulated and morphed by humans as little as possible. But I'm no martyr; I still have pizza, ice cream, and other junk that I know is bad for me. But I don't keep them in my apartment, because I treat them like the indulgences they are.

Most of what I think about food seems like common sense to me, and it is, but it's overlooked in our society, where people define "diet" as temporary torture to lose a few pounds, instead of the way they eat everyday. "Flavor" consists of fat, salt, and sugar, instead of the myriad other spices in our cupboards. Biologically, we have not changed much in the past few thousand years. But within the past fifty, the way and the things we feed ourselves have. And so has the quality of our health.

So I'm here to tell you how I (and others) have given the ol' bod some much deserved and needed love and respect. Hopefully America will do the same before we all find our bodies giving us one last chance, with a gun to our thick, fat skulls.