Counting Calories

Counting calories is hard.
Sure, it's manageable IF you're eating food straight out of a box, with a nutrition label that tells you how many calories are in it.  But that's not the best nutrition.  Nor the best taste. 

Daughter1 told Daughter3 about her discovery:  

LoseIt.com

The website harnesses the power of the internet to do all sorts of figuring for you.  For example, if you type in "banana," it will offer you choices of a small, medium, or large banana (with lengths to help you figure out size), and then it adds in a calorie count.  It has restaurant food in its search engines.  It has brand names, so you can look up Aldi spaghetti sauce or Starkist tuna or King Arthur flour.  

Best of all -- you can add recipes and it will figure that calorie count for you.  One time, Andrew had a project at school to evaluate his diet; it was far too difficult to eat the real food he was accustomed to.  Instead, he spent a few days eating instafood and fast food.  During that project, his goal was that all food come with a label listing the calories, protein, fat, etc.  But with LoseIt, we can record what went into the stirfry or casserole or salad, and the program figures up how many calories there are.  Maggie can also have "recipes" for things she eats regularly (such as the sandwich she frequently takes with her on school days) to simplify even further the record-keeping.

Maggie is motivated to use this.  She finds it easier to avoid the junk food when she knows she'll have to admit it to herself and watch the calories add up on her daily tote board.  She finds that exercise is easier when she enjoys the reward of typing in how far she walked or how many minutes she rode her bike, and sees her day's calorie-budget increase.  She set herself a goal of 2# loss per month, but she's far ahead of that for her first month.  

After a month of using the program, an added [math] bonus is that both Maggie and I are getting much better at estimating weights, volumes, and calorie counts.  

By the way, this program would be way easier with a smart phone, but LoseIt works just fine with a desktop.

Avoiding the Caffeine and Sugar

Doctor told me that I could cut down on a repeat-infection by staying away from coffee, tea, and sugar.  Boo.  Hiss.

I know some of y'all like your coffee black, the way grown-ups drink it.  But I sure do like mine with sugar.  I'm wussy.  Oh, and the tea: Mississippi sweet-tea is too much like Kool-aid for my tastes.  But I sho'nuf do like me some sugar in my tea.  BUT my mommy told me once-upon-a-time that three weeks straight with NO SUGAR in your coffee will teach you to like it black.  She and Dad toughed it out.  And they never wanted to go back to sweetened coffee.  (Or so they said.  Maybe they fibbed?)

Well, I made it for more than three weeks with no sweetener in my beverages.  Not even stevia or honey.  So I can do it.  I don't want to do it.  I want sugar.  Still.  Months later. 

What I discovered, however, is that hot water works for me on par with unsweetened tea and coffee.  Plus, if I want to ratchet-up the flavor of plain old hot water, a little lemon juice or cranberry juice or orange or lime is wunderbar.  Better than unsweetened tea or coffee.

But
still not as good as tea and coffee with sugar.

Do the Mashed Potato!

Yukon Gold versus Russets.

Organic versus standard chemical-laden large-farming techniques.

Backyard versus trucked-from-Idaho.

Dug-this-morning versus sitting-in-a-plastic-bag-for-over-a-month.

They look different.

They taste different.

And yet,
I continue to buy food from the store.
The gardening is SO superior.
But it takes time and energy that I don't have (at least, not in the amount I desire).
Same for the farmer's market:  I should go there more frequently, but the time, energy, and money are too often more than I can come up with.

Caramel without HFCS

I was recently making Glenda's Most Evil Dessert as a thank-you treat for some of my co-workers.  Of course, it never crossed my mind to buy a bag or two of caramels (which is one of the main ingredients).  So Maggie and I determined to mix up some caramels right-quick.  That's when we discovered we had no corn syrup either (a main ingredient in the caramels). 

So I substituted honey.  Y'know -- real honey.  Made by bees.  Instead of chemists.

Guess what?  Those were darn good caramels!

Hospital's Cooking Contest

I developed a delicious recipe for a chicken-and-rice dish that is good for you (as differentiated from the yummy but not-so-healthy chicken-and-rice made with cream of mushroom soup). I have been waiting for a recipe contest to come along so that I might stand a chance at winning a prize with this all-mine recipe. So I was excited to see a postcard arrive in the mail, mentioning a recipe contest.

Bummers! Turns out the prize is the privilege of being on a local cooking show, and having the host "healthy-up" your recipe. No money? Sorry, but a trip to Madison to have a mainstream-nutrition guy try to make my healthy recipe healthier (by using margarine instead of butter?? using lite soy sauce instead of real??) ain't gonna happen.

Nevertheless, I thought the sample recipe on the flyer looked like it was worth a try: Thai Chili Chicken. But once I started making it (and then tasting it) I wondered. This recipe had 1 pound of chicken and 1 quart of chopped veggies to stir-fry ... and a half-cup of sugar. A half cup for only one pound of chicken and one quart of vegetables? And this is supposed to be for "health-conscious foodies"? Excuse me. I admit I am far too fond of my sugar. But even we thought this was too sweet, and that's after I downgraded the amount of sugar by making the recipe with 50% more chicken and about three times the amount of vegetables.

If this is what passes for health-conscious cooking, no wonder the doctors don't take me seriously when I say we have a good diet. Our diet makes "healthy diets" look like junk food.

Okay. Rant over. I promise. (For a little while.)

Converted Rice

On the Learn-Something-New-Every-Day front:

I really believe in whole foods. I don't buy instant rice; I buy brown whole-grain rice. I see bags of Uncle Ben's Converted Rice on the shelf. I never knew what it was. Converted? Converted from what? To what? Sounds pretty processed to me.

But after reading Richard Blunt recently on beans & rice, I learned what converted rice is. "Converted rice" is parboiled rice, rice that is boiled a bit, but not cooked all the way. The parboiling helps to drive some of the nutrients into the rice grains. Then the rice can be polished (that is, have the outsides removed) so that it has the long-lasting, never-spoiling qualities of refined white rice. But with a lot more nutrients!

There's something valuable there for those of us who like to stock up on shelf-stable foods in case of emergencies.

Donuts

Oh, sadness, oh, woe. I think yesterday I may have eaten my last donut.

I was working the polls. The town administrator brought in a box of hard rolls and pastries for us. Discipline; smarts; thinking nutritionally. I was a good girl.

For a while.

C'mon ... a box of crullers and Danish and Bavarian-cream-filled donuts and apple fritters. Finally I decided I could have one. Right? Just one. They were calling to me, begging to be eaten, looking delicious, smelling wonderful.

Dang it. I'm old. And donuts are sweet. And full of fat and white flour. And they weren't little donuts. I can't remember the last time I had a whole donut. I think it was at Emmaus, South Bend, so it would have been several years ago.

Ten blissful minutes of savoring that donut, and I paid for it all day with an upset stomach. I intend not to make that mistake again. (But I wouldn't be surprised if my tastebuds overrule my stomach again someday when I am weak.)

Back When I Was Young

... grapes and watermelons had seeds.


(It sure ain't easy to find seeded watermelons anymore. And seeded grapes show up at the store just about as [in-]frequently.)

Nutrition-Nazi Bakes for the Neighbor

A very large dead branch came down out of the crab-apple tree shortly before vacation. We haven't gotten around to dealing with it yet. I did mention to Andrew once that we (read: he) should trim the twigs and begin sawing the branch into logs. But we (read: he, to escape my nagging) hadn't gotten to it yet.

Our neighbor Doug was outside today, trimming trees. Taking down branches. Chopping them up with a chainsaw. Wow..... Do you know how much faster chainsaws are than handsaws? Let me tell you, it is a LOT faster!

I was trying to get up my nerve to go over there and propose a barter: a couple of loaves of hotfresh bread in trade for his taking a few minutes with his chainsaw to turn that branch into a few fireplace-sized pieces. But before I did, he came over and offered! (Isn't that must mega-sweet?!?)

After picking up the logs, I told Doug of my ponderings 20 minutes earlier. He said I didn't have to do that, it was no problem, and all those nice neighborly things. I asked him whether I should make white or whole-wheat if I were to make them some bread anyhow. He said white.

So it's rising.

It looks funny. It's all .... well .... WHITE.

I feel like I'm giving him something that will hurt him. He does something so nice and I turn around and give him WHITE bread. I feel like a bad person.

(Wow, this really makes me realize what nutso I am.)

Food Is Living

The other night we watched Food Inc. Definitely biased, but certainly no more biased than the big corporations that control so much of our food supply.

One of many thoughts in the wake of the movie:
A nice, scientific level of control is behind the government oversight of our food supply and of our butchers. Food factories must maintain a certain level of chemical cleanliness. Nutrition (removed through processing) is replaced with chemical versions of vitamins. Science says to eat more of this, less of that. We don't want food to spoil, so we do things to make lettuce shelf-stable for several weeks. We take our corn and soybeans into the laboratory and turn them into all sorts of food items. It's all very scientific.

But food is about life. Food was alive. Meat was alive, walking or swimming or flying. Milk came from a living animal, to be fed to the growing baby. Fruits and veggies came from living plants. Grains came from grasses.

Science doesn't control LIFE. Science doesn't rule life. Science doesn't make life.

Sometimes LIFE even has the audacity to do what science says ain't gonna happen. People who are supposed to die end up living. People who are supposed to live end up dying. Medicines that help some people to heal are the same medicines that harm others who have the same disease.

Food is from life, and food is for life. Food often requires sacrifice: the animal must die, or the seed must be planted into the ground to die and then bring forth new life. Additionally, food engenders fellowship, and food brings pleasure. Food is not cold, hard science. There are things about gardening, ranching, butchering, and cooking that are arts, ruled more by common sense and love and skill than they are controlled by science.

And where will we be when we've lost the common sense and the skill and have to depend only on the scientists for our food?

Feasting

When I was 28, I realized I could no longer eat pizza after 9:00 at night without some seriously weird dreams. When I was in my mid-40s, I realized that the delight of a frozen custard on my tastebuds wasn't enough to compensate for the effect the sugar-high had on an empty stomach. And now I'm realizing that the feasting that goes with Christmas is more than my body can bear, and it must be reigned in and controlled.

Hey, all you young folks. Enjoy it while you can!

Raw Milk Bill

A bill (LRB 3242/3) has been introduced to the Wisconsin legislature to allow the sale of unpasteurized milk.

Raw milk has helped many people who have digestive problems, those who have allergies, and those who have problems with their teeth. Raw milk is a food which has been drunk for millenia and has been outlawed only during the last century.

If you live in Wisconsin --even if you don't care about raw milk but care about our freedom to feed ourselves real food without government interference-- please call your own assemblyman and senator on Friday (or at least before December 4), encouraging him/her to sign on to the bill as a co-sponsor.

White Bread

All those bagels made of white bread a couple of weeks ago, in addition to non-whole-wheat noodles, gunked me up in my head and throat. Finally got back to normal. Then Saturday morning we had French toast with the last of the white bread, and Saturday evening we ate buns that were only 1/3 whole wheat and the rest white. And then last night at a potluck I ate enough brownies to compensate for the political discussion around the table. Now I'm coughing and stuffy.

Dang it. I think I'm slowly learning the lesson that I simply cannot do white flour anymore. It stinks getting old. Good-bye, donuts. Farewell, yummy cookies. Boo-hoo and whine-whine.

Fat

Butter = $0.95 per cup
Walmart's cheapest coconut oil = $1.40 per cup
Real lard from the Darien butcher = $0.35 per cup
Hydrogenated lard from the store = $0.60 per cup
Aldi's raw olive oil = $2.00 per cup
Woodman's cheapest raw olive oil = $1.90 per cup
Woodman's cheapest olive oil = $1.50 per cup
Off-brand shortening = $0.50 per cup
Pomace oil = $0.70 per cup

I ran out of lard when I made soap last week. I can't find butchers around here that actually kill animals and sell the meat and other parts; the "butchers" here are just meat stores. I think I may actually have to buy some Crisco for use in seasoning skillets; it's killin' me to wipe coconut oil and olive oil on my skillets.

I've been using lard for two reasons. 1) It was the cheapest fat I could find. 2) I'd rather use unrefined fats than chemist-made fats. Of course, pigs are unclean animals, so I'm not sure that my usual plan ("I'd rather eat the fat God made than the fat the scientist made") pans out for lard.

Looking online for information on fats, I discovered that somebody else uses the same thing I'd been using as a shortening-replacement. In recipes that called for Crisco, I was using part butter and part lard, with a little more butter than lard. It seemed to work nicely, giving a buttery taste instead of such a piggy taste, with more of a shortening-texture to the baked goods.

For all the grand things my friends have told me about coconut oil and its health benefits, I'm finding that it stinks as a product for greasing pans. When I've used coconut oil to grease the granola pan or bread pan, I can't detach my food from my baking dish. It also makes cornbread turn out with a weird non-cohesive texture.

I wonder if grocery-store meat departments sell suet at this time of year. I have no idea how much it costs.

Last week I made a batch of home-made soap with Crisco. I wonder if the processed fat will work okay, or if it will give me rashes like the typical store "bath bar." If it works, it'd be a lot easier than rendering and washing animal fats. If not, I'm going to have to take a long drive to a real butcher. On the other hand, pomace isn't that much more expensive than the Crisco imitations.

But in the meantime, I'm gonna have to find me some lard, somehow, somewhere.

Tasty

We got a lot done today. There was also a lot we didn't get done. But we:
cleaned the basement
went to chapel twice
made gumbo for supper
did some algebra
made cherry jam
made peach jam
made blackberry jam

You know what? Jam made from store fruit isn't as tasty as jam made from fresh-picked berries. And it's not just that I used frozen fruit. When I froze strawberries from my own strawberry patch and then later made that into jam, it was excellent. It's the store food that isn't as good.

For some other reasons, I've been noticing the change in our diet since our shares of organic veggies --from the farm where we bought a share of "community supported agriculture"-- ended for the winter.

And right now, I am hypothesizing that "more taste" is probably indicative of better nutrition. Wouldn't an August-tomato be healthier than a January hot-house tomato? Those organic carrots that taste like candy... they have spoiled me forever when I think of buying regular store-carrots.

My jam results today, although perfectly decent, ought to be the reminder in spring that I have GOT to get out there with the shovel and the dirt and the seeds and the hose, so that we can have awesome food instead of decent food.

Obesely Hungry

Gary said he heard on the radio yesterday that the poor people in America are disproportionately obese. The middle-class and rich are thinner. This is SO different from how it is in other countries and how it has been throughout history: the fat people were the ones who had money enough to ensure a plentiful food supply; thinness was a sign that the person didn't have enough to fill his belly.

I think this news story is intimately connected with how horribly we have stripped the nutrition from our food supply. I remember so clearly when Jenn talked about her husband coming back from his soldiering and being able to cut back on his portion-sizes. Apparently he needed to eat huge amounts of the food the army serves (food much like typical American diets) to be able to meet his nutritional needs. When he came home and was eating organic veggies and grass-fed beef and whole grains, his body was getting what it needed, and thus he wasn't as hungry.

This makes so much sense. When a body takes in food that is lacking in nutrients, the body gets the calories but is still craving the vitamins and minerals and proteins it needs. So even after we eat, we're hungry. Hunger is our body's way of signaling malnourishment.

In America, we eat white bread and white rice. Our salads are small; our vegetable servings are tiny. We put chemical fertilizers on the fields and gardens instead of cow poop. We irradiate food. We genetically alter seeds. We keep chickens cooped up in tiny boxes without letting them see the sun and scratch for bugs and stretch their legs. We fill ourselves with pop and Snapple. And then there's McDonalds and Twinkies. And have you read the labels on lunchmeat and salad dressing? The recipes online this time of year are loaded with ingredients like Cool Whip and Cheese Whiz and Jello. What are we eating? Our idea of "getting our vitamins" is to pop a pill or eat a bowl of Total cereal. It's stunning that with all this food available, with all these calories we consume, we are still malnourished. But it's true.

Problem is, those healthy foods (like fresh produce, or eggs from happy chickens) cost a lot more than what you can buy at Aldi. And then us po' folks are stuck with some hard decisions.

1800's Hymns

The funeral yesterday evening for Milly was crowded with non-members. Our insurance agent sat in front of me. The librarian was a couple rows in front of him. Our neighbors across the street were there too. Milly's kids are involved in the community, and their friends and neighbors turned out to support them in their time of grief ... and were blessed (whether they know it or not) to hear the good news of Jesus' forgiveness preached to them in a way that non-Christians too could hear it.

There was a discussion recently over on Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds about hymnody. Some pastors made the case for choosing only the best. Other pastors made the case for allowing people some of their "old favorites" from the hymnal, even though there are stronger hymns that might better vivify faith. Pastor Cwirla called the Favorites "ear candy." Pastor Stuckwisch pointed out that the hymns people have learned by heart are very very dear to them, and unless they are just plain terrible, it is not wise for the shepherd to take away those precious hymns. (Seconded by the woman who is still deeply saddened that there are far too few stanzas of Gerhardt's Christmas and Advent hymns in LSB!)

The hymns at the funeral tonight were "God Loved the World So That He Gave" and "Rock of Ages" and "Abide With Me" and "I Know that My Redeemer Lives." Those are not particularly Lutheran hymns. They're fairly ecumenical. Lots of the non-Lutherans knew these hymns. Even some who have fallen away were still familiar with these hymns. Some of the songs we sang tonight would not pass muster for some pastors. They aren't the strongest choices of hymns available. A few of them have that schmaltzy feel that is so common to hymns from that century ... and which is a big part of what endears those hymns to many people.

But you know what? Those hymns still speak the Gospel. "Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling." "Christ Jesus is the ground of faith who was made flesh and suffered death." "And justified by Jesus' blood, thy Baptism grants the highest good." "What but Thy grace can foil the Tempter's power?" And people knew those hymns. Those familiar hymns could reach folks where something "better" probably would not have.

And isn't that the point?

20-25 years ago I could not have fed my husband the vegetables and whole grains that he willingly and appreciatively eats now. It was a long, slow change-over. Sometimes I would decide [boom!] we were going to start eating right, and no more of this monkeying around. Sad to say, it wasn't only my husband and the kids who had taste-buds revolting at that sudden change to what was good for us; I revolted against my own proclamation. We needed to adjust. We needed to slowly change our palates. And we're not where we "should be" yet. Probably never will be.

No matter what our minds know is good for us, we still want what we want. It may be mac&cheese. Or it may be less-than-stellar hymns. But as long as the bulk of the hymnody in a congregation is excellent and strong, even the "pretty okay" hymns can still have redeeming qualities.

Body Odor

Something noticed in recent months: a cat smell. When we were house-hunting, some houses had a cat smell and others didn't. I'm not particularly fond of cat-smell, even though I like the cats. But what I've noticed recently is that it's not Athena who contributes cat-smell to the house. It's Rosie. Athena eats real food. She eats what a cat is supposed to eat. She catches live food (with enzymes -- LOL) and eats the whole thing, bones, fur, guts, and all. Rosie, however, eats processed food. She is a lousy huntress, and eats the food from the store. Granted, it's a relatively "real" and less-processed cat food than most of what's on the shelves, but it's still grocery store food, as opposed to the hunter-gatherer food that is the mainstay of Athena's diet. And Rosie is the one who has An Odor.

Is there a lesson here for people-diets?

Cafeteria

Information from Paul's college's cafeteria arrived recently. It touts the healthy food choices available, but the word "healthy" seemed to be used nearly interchangeably with "low fat." I don't agree with that. I think "healthy" and "minimally refined" are more synonymous than "healthy" and "low fat, low calorie."

So I asked the food-service director. He tells me they have whole grain breads. But is that what I call "whole grain"? Or is it the kind of bread that has a little whole grains, just enough for them to legally label it whole-grain bread? I asked about brown rice, and I was told they have it available. But is it real brown rice, or brown Minute Rice? I asked about peanut butter, and was not surprised to find that it's the standard kind, made with hydrogenated fats and high-fructose corn syrup. But when I asked about butter, I was surprised that they don't even have any of that. EEEEEEKS!

Philip, Katie, and Nathan -- none of them did well with cafeteria food. Paul cares more about eating right than any of them did when they headed off on their own. When Gary and I would face 4 days of cafeteria food (oh, say, at FtW sem for symposium, prior to the era when Jane and/or Katie would feed us part of the time while there), a person can get to feeling pretty cruddy in that short amount of time. It's going to take some careful choosing on Paul's part to get enough unrefined foods into him to feel fit.

Weird Vegetables

I was recently reading Richard Blunt and he lamented that most Americans only eat about a dozen different kinds of vegetables. So Maggie and I brainstormed what they might be. Maybe:
onions
corn
green beans
peas
broccoli
carrots
potatoes
lettuces
cucumber
green pepper
tomatoes

Those are the kinds of veggies that are readily available at most grocers, most of the year, maybe in the freezer, and often in the produce section or as canned goods. But variety in the diet is good. It's good for our nutrition intake. It's also good for the cook's attitude so that she doesn't get bored out of her gourd. So Maggie and I brainstormed again. What else do WE eat (or should we eat)?

spinach
kohlrabi
cabbage
bok choy
brussels sprouts
rutabaga
parsnips
turnips
beets
cauliflower
okra
garlic
summer squash
eggplant
winter squash (including pumpkin)
greens (collards, turnip, kale, mustard, etc)

Then I realized that only a couple of items on this second list are available at Aldi or Super-Walmart (the grocery stores around here). But they're all available at Woodmans. My friend Tammy mentioned that she was missing the kinds of veggies she could get where she used to live; they just don't sell much variety here.

This year we joined community-supported agriculture. There are the benefits of getting good, fresh, organic foods. But one of the other attractions is that we get a variety of veggies that aren't sold in local grocery stores. And you gotta figure out what to do with them. (For instance, we got beets in our veggie-box this week. Several people sat down at the table with wrinkled noses. But you know what? Steamed beets with a slathering of little butter and salt tastes really good.) We're fine until October, but what happens when we have to start depending solely on the local grocery store for veggies again?

Looking at the seed catalog today, thinking about what kinds of shrubs and trees and raised beds we'll want to start next spring, I noticed all the weird fruits: the gooseberries and pawpaws and aronia-berries and currents. Maybe it would be better to plant those than apples. Apples are readily available. Blueberries and raspberries and Concord grapes and strawberries -- they're available but pricey. And some fruits are simply not available at all.