esrosedotblog

Labels: diet, fads, health

Hey, I went to MIT.

I studied Food Technology and Food Science. I didn't practice in the field very long. I parlayed my training into work in production and management and then I was out of that entirely.

But I did learn a lot which I applied in my life. After all, eating is a big part of living. Eating well a pursuit worth investing in.

So, when it came out that there were problems with saturated fats and blood cholesterol and that there was a connection between high blood cholesterol and heart disease, obesity and other ills, I was ready to drink the Koolaid on the subject and acted accordingly in my diet and in my cooking.

I didn't go nuts actually. I simply became a conservative user of butter fat but usually used margarine. Saturated whatever. Sunflower, all the rest. Vegetable oils.

Then I ended up with a partner with chronic heart disease and the need to eat less fat became more serious.

Now, once again, the science has been overturned by new, credible, long term studies all over the world.

New study puts final nail in the “saturated fat causes heart disease” coffin

It is one of the longer living dietary scams, and not even the result of food faddists. Real deluded scientists.

I am not about to go out and buy lard and use it heavily. Fat is still fat. But the saturated bit is the nub of the question. Vegetable fats are pretty good for cooking. Better in many cases. But in daily diet, a dab of butter beats any "real" tasting margarine. Hydrogenated or otherwise.

And then there is bacon. Go for it. In moderation of course. This is not fat lib.

But a good marbled steak? Dig in. Go for it.

I will probably not change the cooking part. Butter is kind of lousy at frying and all. It burns and discolors. But on toast? GO go go.

Labels: diet

You know, I guess, that all that shit about cholesterol and unsaturated fats is just that, shit.

Check it out here: Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Make that "studies" as there are a lot more than one.

I probably wrote about this before.

Now, I can report that there has been a mild impact on our eating.

From the day we heard the scare stuff about saturated fats, we did a 180 on our eating.

Butter, out. Fatty meats, out. Fake spreads, in. Turkey, in.

The revisionism news for today is that we had real pork sausage for dinner. With pancakes as the "starch". And fruit salad, mixed frozen to balance the "bad" stuff.

You have no idea, well maybe you do if you are also a sinner, how much better real pork sausage tastes than the turkey kind.

Worlds of difference.

John said that it made him want some more. Me too. But we kept it to four ounces. Our usual meat portion. And that was pre cooking where a lot of the fat just melted out.

I don't imagine that there are going to be a lot of changes in diet because of all this.

But things like the sausage are in, baby, in.

Labels: diet

TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OR MORE

For decades, a long time, in this house, we have made our vows about salt. Till death do us part.

That is, we had decided that if and/or when the day came we had to curtail salt, we would jump ship and use it no matter what "they" thought it was doing for us.

Did you ever have a boiled egg without salt? Impossible.

What about any entree or snack?

Well, I don't put salt on pieces of fruit although I know some folks who do.

Looming over our taste for salt has been this bogeyman. The idea that salt kills. Salt destroys. Salt will give you a fucking heart attack! Screams inserted here.

Now, once again, common dietary wisdom is trumped with some actual research.

Panel Finds No Benefit in Sharply Restricting Sodium

Salt joins the long line of things that are good then condemned then, well if not good, OK again.

I know. It is just a case of cherry picking the data but it is not too much of a reach.

Labels: diet

FISHY

Well, this is a kick in the ass.

Or, rather, it brought me back to my senses.

I always figured that diet supplement claims were bogus. I was also bothered that nothing sold by the supplement people is actually FDA tested.

But little by little I succumbed to the "pressure" and did add some supplements to my diet.

One of these was "fish oil" capsules as guilt compensation for the fact that we do not eat or like much fish. Well, some. Crab in crab cakes maybe. Salmon. Yeh, really guilty here, fish sticks? We love 'em.

Here is the latest incoming.

Sad Story of Fish Oils and Small Sample Sizes

So another diet myth bites the dust.

I have already quit the supplemental calcium that Men's Health told me to take. No effect and possibly dangerous if you drink a lot of milk. We do. Skim.

I also use biotin for my nails. But after years of using it, my nails still break or split from time to time. Less? Can't know.

I use oldster vitamins. I have always used vitamins although I know that I have a good diet and probably don't need them.

Honestly that is it. So I am not pill crazy.

So, I suppose I will quit the fish oil capsules. They are a little pricey, the GNC brand.

Nothing but the best even if it is useless.

Actually, this article is about sample size but I already knew that. I just haven't really paid any attention to it when making choices for myself.

Labels: diet, health

CREEPING INTO THANKSGIVING

We will have a traditional Thanksgiving meal tomorrow but it will have been assembled in pieces.

I made the annual real whole cranberry sauce yesterday. It is setting in the refrigerator.

Today, a turkey breast, which I needed to make anyway. By chance, the menu for this day is turkey! The 60 day menu cycle. A direct hit.

Tomorrow, the pumpkin pie which will count as a vegetable.

I am still in my "losing weight mode" and am now thirty pounds down.

I feel pretty good about that and will do nothing to jeopardize it.

I have eaten everything I would normally eat for about three months now and have still lost the weight. Everything, that is, but frozen yogurt which I gave up cold turkey at the same time I started it.

That has helped the loss move along quite a bit. After all, it is probably why I gained most of the pounds.

A habit, incidentally. Not an addiction. I had no withdrawal. No seizures. No DTs. I just quit and lived through a brief period of mild craving at the time I would normally eat the delicious dessert.

Anyway, I have had just the same menus every day only less. The yogurt plus the less is more idea has won the day.

I have already had to buy some new pants and belts and am on my way to the second wave of that.

My goal is to get down to the weight I had when we came here or, perhaps, into the 150s. I will know when to stop. And how to stay.

I know. I know. Thanksgiving is not about food but this year I am grateful for having been able to get myself healthy again and to reverse the thinking that it was OK for me to be obese. It is not.

I am not now and will stay here in happy thin land as well as I can.

In the meantime, a short modest break for pumpkin pie.

Labels: diet, holidays, life

STUFF

Busy week so far.

Went to see Dr. Jim on Monday. He is deliriously happy about my new blood pressure numbers and nearly fell off his stool when he found that I have lost ten pounds.

It is true. It is amazing what eating about a third of the normal food and totally omitting a bowl of frozen yogurt every day can do.

Onward and upward.

Tuesday is all about gathering our resources to get John to the plane for SFO where he will spend a day with friends.

As it turned out, he spent three hours of that day sitting in Palm Springs waiting for the plane to get there.

We went and got him this morning. Today's "shuttle" went very well. Good.

With John gone I had the privilege of walking with Booker this morning who took me on the "big block" past the shopping center and around on Ramon to the Lutheran Church. A sharp right on Caballeros and then the home stretch on Baristo. He chooses his own walk and today was vanilla. The standard fare.

I have visitors today. Talking with friends. No movie.

I am planning oven fried chicken tonight. I will eschew the skin, well maybe a bit of it.

My "diet" is nothing special. I eat a very balanced diet. Just too much of everything.

So I am just cutting down the portions. If any.

Labels: Booker, diet, life

A LOAD OFF MY FEET

I am done with my diet. I lost 12 pounds. That's over the goal by two with a little to work with on the up and down.

Oddly, or not, my plantar fasciitis has gone away.

I don't really want to believe that I had that ailment because I was too fat but there isn't much other reason to connect to the healing. No other data.

I feel better. There is an extra notch or two in my belt.

The loss of weight doesn't change the sags here and there but I have given up the cosmetic benefit of good diet and physical fitness.

The gym is for cardiovascular benefit, stretching and weight ability. The buff body is a thing of the past. Good riddance. I was always chasing the illusive anyway.

I am happy about the foot though. Or feet. There was a touch of it in the right foot. Now it is all gone. Only normal "feelings".

Did you know that your feet take three times your weight? I just read that.

I guess, if it is true, that I took off 36 pounds!

Labels: diet, health

HALF WAY MEASURES

I am finally surrendering to the fact that my body weight is not going to go down by itself. And, that my highly organized diet is just a little bit heavy on the calorie side.

I am my own victim of creeping overload.

I weigh and measure everything but "everything" got a little bigger with the addition of fruit here and some other yogurt there. Bigger portions. I have a heavy hand sometimes.

So I have hit my limit and I have launched my highly successful weight reduction regimen. That is I simply eat everything I would normally eat on my organized plan but only half of it.

This is easy to do as I know the weights of everything I eat. Or the volume.

It worked before.

After a few days I quit being hungry and the pounds just go away. So does the flab and the waist inches.

There will be a "crisis period" when the body decides it is starving and I will not lose any weight at all for a week or so and then it will start to drop again.

The target is ten to twenty pounds. I will see how I feel when I get there. Ten.

Today is the first day. All is OK until about 3 pm then I feel hungry. Dog walk time.

I will report on progress as appropriate.

Labels: diet, food

HOOKED

The other day John said that we eat too much salt. Or maybe he said I did.

Guilty.

There is nothing better than a hard boiled egg dipped in salt.

I don't have problems with blood pressure so I pour it on.

I love it.

Now, Andrew Sullivan found this.

Salt is a 'natural mood booster'

Shit. Another addiction.

Maybe I should taper off.

Yehhh. When have I ever tapered off anything?

Saltanon?

Another item stolen from Andrew Sullivan

Labels: diet

THE EGG AND I

Years ago, I read a study that examined the diet of long living people. Nonagerians.

My goal is to be one.

They ran the data through a computer and found that the one thing in common about every one of the participants was that they had eaten an egg every day for most of their life.

Now, I am not one to quibble over anything that is 100%.

I have made it my business to eat an egg a day ever since.

Actually, now, I eat two eggs every other day. It averages out.

So far so good.

This is my only bit of food faddism.

The rest of the stuff I read I put aside and don't follow.

I do take some supplements. Fish oil tablets. I read the other day that they don't do any good. Omega-3 fatty acids. All that. I am still taking them though.

We can handle only so much fish in our house. The tablets are my cod and haddock.

Besides they say fish has mercury. I don't pay much attention to that either.

I also use vitamins and calcium with vitamin-D because I think that I should. I don't believe anything about them. I just take them.

But the egg. That, I believe in.

One a day.

Mine are hard boiled. When I go away, I get the scrambled. Every once in awhile, an egg salad sandwich. One egg on chef salad.

But always one a day. No more. I follow the data exactly.

Labels: diet, health