Cutting Back on Soda: Update #1

Just a brief update on my quest to not drink so much soda/pop/coke/whatever. This time last week, I was drinking about 3 cans (roughly 36 oz) soda a day. Mind you, I was trying to drink as much in water, but still. Since Tuesday, I've managed to cut myself back to 1 1/2 cans (18 oz) a day, with a little more in case I am driving around very late (like on my super long 8AM to 10PM Wednesdays). The secret? Actually, a few secrets:

1) I've been drinking half a can at a time, and sealing the can back up with that "seal wrap" that works so much better than plastic wrap (for most things at least)

2) I've also been drinking a lot more water and homemade iced tea. I don't touch the pre-made store bought bottled stuff. That has enough crap in it that I might as well stick with the soda.

So, that's how it's working so far. Another update is coming next week.

Natural Market (or, Who needs fish on Friday?)

I'm the first to admit: I'm a "lapsed Catholic." But for reasons bigger than I, I'm going meatless on Fridays during Lent. I tried on Ash Wednesday, too. Well, except for those delicious pieces of bacon I had for breakfast.

I've been forcing myself to eat no meat, only seafood, on Fridays. But it dawned on me that it would probably be a healthy alternative to also make some of those meatless Fridays into vegetarian Fridays.

So today, after a job interview that was more encouraging than I thought it would be, I went to the Natural Market in Timonium. There was some sort of tofu scramble that I thought was cauliflower. More interesting to me was the soy protein Sloppy Joe. For just $3 for a small container - enough to sustain me through three meals, with sides of course - I got the Sloppy Joe, which the guy behind the counter said was pretty popular. I admit: it tasted a lot better than I thought "vegan Sloppy Joe" would be. It tastes pretty good warm, wrapped in a corn tortilla with a slice of red onion. But caution: it's strong.

Swimsuit-Unfriendly Foods (or "Not exactly wasting away again in Margaritaville")

According to Men's Health magazine, a survey conducted by UCLA found that about 25% of all men and 12% of all women don't like being seen in public in a bathing suit.

Duh.

So MH recommends that we stay away from six specific foods. Some didn't surprise me: Caesar salad with its ranch dressing that will take away any nutritive benefits that eating a salad might otherwise confer; potato salad - well duh; and the evil margarita with lots and lots of sugar.

And some surprised me: specifically the one where the authors noted "cruciferous vegetables" as short-term culprits. Yep, stay away from broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussel sprouts, because even if eaten raw, they will make you gassy and bloat up very quickly. Ditto for beans (chili) and things with these vegetables in them (Chinese take-out beef and broccoli, though there are other reasons to avoid it). Their advice if you gotta have that broccoli right now: since it is healthy, do eat it; just don't eat it right before you go to the beach. Eat as much as you want of it once you're dressed again, but just avoid it at the beach. You hear that, US Olympic team? (Oh, why the hell do they care? They're fit as fiddles as it is.)

Low-fat, low-rise, strange taste...

Don't try this at home...because it's NASTY. And it has nothing to do with TC4's Andrew's culinary boner (ick).

I tried this recipe for two-ingredient low-fat cake where instead of the obligatory oil, eggs and water, you just add pumpkin from the can, then bake it and voila! It sounded easy and tasty: all you do is take a regular box of cake mix, low-fat preferably, and add a 15 oz can of pumpkin purée, bake as usual and there you go!

As I read some of the comments from those who had tried this recipe, I started having, um, second thoughts about doing it so straightforwardly. A few people gave helpful suggestions for making it better, or else just make them into muffins. It has the crumbly consistency of a large, cake-shaped muffin, as poiinted out by user "Kari", who gave it three stars:

Reviewed: Apr. 9, 2008

Good recipe, consistency a little crumbly, probably better as muffins than cake. I also added 1/2 cup water to the mixture...good overall though, will probably make again, because it is SO SIMPLE!

This five star review, from user "Pam W", proved more encouraging:

Reviewed on Nov. 7, 2005 by PamW

After reading the reviews I also decided to add 1/4 cup of sugar, 2 eggs and some canned cream till it was a little easier to spread. It was fanastic!! I love this recipe. I decided to use a jelly roll pan and make bars, topped it with cream cheese icing, and then poured carmel topping over it, all I can say is YUMMY!! I took it to work and it was gone within 5 minutes. I was trying to reproduce a recipe from a place called the Bread Basket. This was even better than theirs, :)

Okay Pam, I forgot the cream cheese. I was just going to use the standard Domino's vanilla buttercream frosting. But I did add the two eggs and a bit of water.

Thirty minutes later I took 'em out. Knife came out beautifully clean, as did the cakes themselves from their pans. I did notice they were a little, well, flat. no rise whatsoever.

And the flavor? Um, read what user "JERSEYGIRL" had to say (she gave it two stars):

Reviewed: Mar. 2, 2008

I love pumpkin but this was disappointing...I'm always looking for a healthier version of foods we love but this just didn't cut it. Maybe it would have been better with homemade icing to add a little something special...I'm sorry.

So don't try this. I mean, if all you have for dessert is a box of cake mix and a 15 oz can of pumpkin (and hopefully an egg or two), it does the job. But it doesn't do it well and you'll probably hand it the pink slip.

Sigh, it's that time of year again...

Specifically, it's that time of the year when you start hearing the silly "news" reports about Christmas-related things that either are not important:

• How much would those 12 days of Christmas gifts cost? ($78,100, or a little over £100*)
  

or astronomically impossible to figure out:

• Was the Star of Bethlehem a supernova? (possibly) And when did it appear exactly? (most think 6 BC - yes, Christ was born 6 years before Christ) -

or surprisingly have not been tackled yet

• Exactly how much oil would you need to keep a lamp burning for eight nights? (Beats me)

Well here's a new one:

• Exactly what disease did Tiny Tim (the Dickens character, not the singer) have that could've been cured by an infusion of money?

Doctors in-the-know suggest it was either kidney disease, which could have been treated with mid-nineteenth century medicines even though they didn't know exactly what the disease was, or rickets, which could've been alleviated with a stark increase in Vitamin D-rich foods into Tiny Tim's diet. This would've been made possible with a nice infusion of cash from Mr. Scrooge. Granted, they didn't know what Vitamin D actually was back then, but the English had access to foods containing it if there was money to buy it.

Well, I think I' off to have a glass of milk.

*Yes, I'm kidding - it's actually £39, 481.78 (by today's exchange rate of $1.97813 to the pound) - but the way the dollar is faring it sure seems like it, doesn't it?

Getting back to donuts...

This news item from the AP this morning (via Yahoo): Dunkin' Donuts is trying to make a healthier donut by getting rid of as many trans-fats as possible. They have to do this in NYC and Philly, which have banned them in all restaurants. Not to be outdone, Krispy Kreme (which now has a "multigrain" donut) and Starborg's Starbuck's are announcing plans to follow. The inedible Winchell's says nothing.

Why don't they just give up?

Image "Mmmm.....donuts" courtesy of Flickr.com user itspaulkelly, under a Creative Commons license.

You can really make a meal out of the freebies at Whole Foods!

It amazes me just how stuffed you can get after visiting Whole Foods. The trick is to go when they have all their free stuff. Take the Inner Harbor location, where I went today. On the elevator ride down I saw that every Saturday they have cooking demos from 1 to 4. Yum! I kinda knew they had free samples around on Saturdays. I just wasn't sure when on Saturday.

Today they had a theme: strawberries. I found no less than five separate places with fresh strawberries to munch on in some way. By the entrance, near the organic flowers, they just had plain, whole strawberries. I am not usually a fan of strawberries by themselves - they are too tart for my tastes, so I have to eat them in something. These were juicy and delicious, though.

After picking up some sort of cracker/pretzel thing that wasn't very good, I rounded back past the meats and turned left towards the cheeses. Again, more strawberry stuff! This time, a sampler of strawberry slices and creme fraiche, with toothpicks to discourage use of fingers. Again, yummy. They also had pieces of chocolate, but you had to finger those. So I only tried one. More strawberry stuff was ahead, past the cheese cubes (yes I tried one), organic potato chips (just one) and the Israeli salad (yes, I tried that, too) - strawberry skyr with real strawberries in it.

Just about nullified today's workout when I got to the dessert section. Mini vanilla cupcakes on a toothpick! Little pound cake slices! Blobs of New York cheesecake covered in chocolate! This is better than sex. Okay, not. But it does give sex a run for its money.

I wandered outside, where they occasionally have the grill set up, and found another strawberry dish - the aforementioned fourth one: grilled pound cake with strawberries, chocolate sauce and cream. Grilled! Oh, yum.

Before buying a small salad - by now I wasn't hungry enough to get anything bigger - I tried another, much smaller salad with (again) strawberry slices, baby salad greens and toasted flax seeds. Also got a free sample of soap. I'll tell you how that tastes next time. Okay, not.

Kashi Lime Cilantro Mush

Kashi - making the world better with healthy, natural foods. Ahhhhh.

Steer clear of at least one Kashi product: their Lime Cilantro Shrimp. This microwaveable frozen entrée that I had for lunch today had tastier shrimp than I expected - actually quite good for a frozen dinner. And its lime cilantro sauce was delicious, too. The veggies were, well, eh. But the one thing that detracted from everything else, so much so that it is the one thing that sticks out in my mind, is that cooked Kashi pilaf. This mix of soggy, mushy "whole oats, long grain brown rice, rye, hard red winter wheat, triticale, buckwheat, barley [and] sesame seeds [and water]" could use a better preparation than this. It turned out like a gritty, lumpy flavorless porridge.

They may be trying to get people hooked on delicious, healthy food, but they're not doing such a good job of it with their pilaf. Ick.

Very Spartan, but good

Just had a very quick and (for me) absurdly healthy snack not too long ago at Towson U. It was a cup of crispy, (probably) roasted broccoli, red bell pepper and garlic in balsamic vinegar. Yummy, very yummy.

What Do You MEAN Only 500 calories!?

I just caught this revealing post from Yahoo's "Hungry Girl" column. It's an exposé on seven unassuming "diet" and "low fat" foods that are truly jam PACKED with all the fat and calories your little heart could desire! A certain Arby's salad without dressing was the big shocker (500 calories!?). At least she gives alternatives that truly are healthy, low fat and low cal.

I really like her "fat side-thin side" comparison of a Starbucks creamy super frappucreamo strawberry creme, or whatever the hell it's called, with her dreamy low cal strawberry whippy thing.

Oh, HG also mentions National Pie Day on her home page.