Two Books About Nutrition

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Salt-Sugar-Fat-Book-CoverI don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden I have three books to finish reading. In previous post I blogged about the “millionaire teacher,” Andrew Hallam and his “Global Expatriate’s Guide to Investing.” I’m on the second chapter on that one. But before that I actually made it almost halfway to Michael Moss’ “Salt, Sugar, Fat.” I’m on the chapter about Kellogg and cereals. I may have to set aside the investing book (it’s working, by the way, went to Macy’s and Toys R’ Us the other day and was able to resist buying, even if items were on sale!) and go back to SSF, because of this book that a friend loaned to me last week.

518LA381NILDr. Weston Price was a dentist who found a correlation between dental health and overall health after studying 14 groups of isolated people in Northern Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. These include Peruvian Indians, New Zealand Maori, and African tribes. These people not only have 1% tooth decay yet none of them ever used toothbrush. More important, they showed high immunity to tuberculosis and other diseases like that plague their counterparts who are on modern, Western diet of highly processed foods and have a higher incidence of cavities and crooked teeth. The book reads like a medical journal, but fortunately contains many photos to support it.

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It will be good to read these two side by side, but I’m not sure if I will be able to do justice to Dr. Price’s book. Here are two articles about it, one explaining the highlights of his work and recommendations in more simpler terms. Dr. Stephen Byrnes wrote this in 2001:

While the other one is an “expose” of how his findings have been misinterpreted or misrepresented as a type of meat-centered diet by the Weston A. Price Foundation. The article agrees with the WAPF against highly processed foods, but criticizes “potentially dangerous ideas” like consuming whole, raw (unpasteurized) milk, and limiting fruits and vegetables in children’s diets. Note that the writer, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, is challenging what the WAPF is recommending, that its “good intentions went awry” because its leaders wanted to be loyal to Dr. Price’s original but flawed observations rather than his original intent. It is only now, many years later, that we learned that the healthy primitive people he praised also had shorter lifespan and higher infant mortality rate.

BMI and Waist to Height Ratio

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Yes, I did it — achieved a healthy weight and waist to height ratio according to the BMI calculator in WebMD.

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Last month I bought my first “Small” size pants and turtleneck top in 10, maybe 12 years, and it felt good. Even the size 8 jeans I exchanged for the size 10 that I got as Christmas present has to be worn with a belt.

Here are significant differences on why I got better and faster results than when I attempted to lose weight after my son was born six years ago:

  • MORE REALISTIC GOAL – like most people I initially aimed to lose weight and set out to lose a pound or two a week. This was a mistake because I quickly got discouraged when my weight fluctuated and flatlined. Adding insult to injury my husband also lost 5 lbs. on the first month, even though he was not doing any exercise while I was working out at least 2 hours a day. This time I set my goal on being able to fit in my old clothes. I could actually see results and felt encouraged when my clothes felt looser week after week. My only regret is I gave away all my old jeans until I was down to one pair of size 12, and my only belt is the braided type that does not have holes.
  • TRYING TOO HARD – I bought several exercise videos and did two each day, working out at least two hours daily to compensate for the fact that I was so out of shape I could not keep up or complete the segments. I took more breaks to catch my breath or drink water especially during the jumping jacks and crunches portions. The exercises wore me out and instead of making me feel challenged it was demoralizing. This time I started easy by joining my mother-in-law during her hourly walks every morning. She’s been doing this for years and is a brisk walker, but at least I was not doing it alone. Then I dug up the old exercise videos, but stuck to just one at a time and paced myself. I also let my muscles rest by alternating among the 5-6 videos I have, so it was a different workout each day.
  • POOR NUTRITION – We made important changes to our diet after my cardiologist brother checked our cholesterol and found them above normal. Within a year my cholesterol dropped by half, back to low normal levels. But I was still far from being fit and being apple-shaped my flabby belly was always sticking out, even though I was supposed to have lost weight. In our misguided attempts to lower our cholesterol I cut back on dairy, eggs, and meat. Thanks to helpful articles on the Web and shared posts on Facebook I learned to focus on proteins and metabolism boosting foods. As a result my diet was nutritionally imbalanced.
    • OWN YOUR DIET. At least 90 percent of what we eat was prepared at home. When we lived overseas we had cooks, went to a lot of parties, and ate out or ordered food delivery. Now we have more control over what we eat – how they are prepared and what their ingredients are. If you have been following this blog you will notice that I have been trying and fine-tuning different recipes. This is so I have enough dishes in our recipe bank for variety, while getting consistent meals: basically same recipes for asparagus, green beans, salmon, and so on.
  • EATING SMART & PORTION CONTROL – Sure I counted calories, but that was only to educate myself about how much I was consuming. I still consume what I like – dark chocolates, nuts, cereal, red wine — knowing that even if they are high in calories they provide other health benefits if taken in moderation.
  • WATER! WATER! WATER! – used to drink only when I was thirsty, and that was 3 glasses a day at the most. No wonder I ached everywhere whenever I did anything physical, and felt sluggish all the time. Now I drink 8 ounces 15 minutes before working out and finish almost 2 liters or quarts when I’m done. Even my sore muscles felt like a “good ache.” At dinner time I drink about 20 ounces, so about half a liter  My goal this week is to increase it to 3 liters a day, after seeing this amazing photo.

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Christmas Eve Dinner & Christmas Day Brunch

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cinnamon rolls
cinnamon rolls
apple pie
apple pie
vegetable tian
vegetable tian
roasted squash and pears
Christmas ham
vegetable tian, roasted squash with pears, grilled porkchop
Christmas ham
shrimp-spinach-avocado salad
shrimp-spinach-avocado salad

My mother-in-law is evil! Okay, seriously, I love her to death. But imagine my consternation when we walked in her home and found all kitchen counters filled with brownies, cookies, crinkles, and other baked goodies that she made that day. “They’re not for you,” she sniffed, “it’s for church, but you’re welcome to have some.”

Well, she was so busy with all these that I volunteered to prepare dinner on Christmas eve. It was probably the only healthy food we had during our visit. I could not stop pigging out on junk food, chocolates, brownies, and white bread.

And MIL bonded once again when we took turns working out to our favorite exercise videos. Last summer we bonded when she let me borrow her weights and mat while she got to use my exercise videos. You gotta love her, she let me keep her 3-lbs. weights because she never used these, “they’re too light!”

RECIPES

Good Calories vs. Bad Calories

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“I am on a 1200-calorie diet and find it very difficult,” a friend confided. Which is why I try not to get hung up on calories per se. There are days when I am able to keep it down to 1000-1200 calories a day, but it is seldom a nutritionally balanced diet. My husband and I love food and enjoy cooking too much to diet. But I can find a good balance at 1500 calories/day.

It turns out that on days when I didn’t have the appetite or time to eat … such as when I was stressing over my son’s IEP meeting … my body was undernourished. When I give in to cravings I end up loading on carbs and salt. When I steered clear of dairy and meat to keep my cholesterol down I end up eating more carbs and salty food, so it is a vicious cycle.

The key is to eat smart: focus on foods rich in nutrients and which boost metabolism, cut down on foods that are “empty calories,” because they usually add to belly fat.

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This is my power breakfast, it’s what I’ve been eating six days a week for months, although the Chia seeds are a recent addition. When combined with green tea and honey this breakfast is 562 calories, but it’s loaded with fat burning nutrients.

And because I am willing to sacrifice my body for the worthy cause of comparing calories in foods we also ate at Shakeys. This plate with a slice of cheese pizza, 3 slices of mojos, and 2 pcs chicken wings (my weakness) is 561 calories, and loaded with fat, protein, and sodium.

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Here are the two meals with the same amount of calories, and their nutrition analysis by Caloriecount.about.com:

Steamed Spinach with Roasted Sesame (Goma-e)

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This is a wonderful side dish that is easy to prepare. Believe it or not, it has less than 100 calories and both spinach and sesame offer many health benefits.

6 oz Spinach with Roasted Sesame = 90 cal
toast the sesame seeds on a dry pan
they are ready when they turn gold and brown
grind the seeds to release their flavor, aroma, and nutrients
steam the spinach for a minute
I should have used the entire box, there’s only 1 cup of cooked spinach
too much sesame sauce, too little spinach

Caloriecount.com is the source, but I relied on memory when I used to make these in Islamabad with a slightly more bitter and mature spinach leaves, so the result here with baby spinach was very salty. So I’ve adjusted the recipe here, while the pictures look different showing much less spinach, down to 1 cup, after it was steamed.

RECIPE

  • 6 oz (170 g) Spinach
  • 1 Tbsp Sesame seeds
  • 1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
  • 1/2 tsp Sugar

Toast the sesame seeds on a pan — or you can skip this part if you have toasted sesame seeds already. Grind the sesame seeds. (When I didn’t have a mortar and pestle I used an empty sauce jar.) Steam spinach over boiling water for a minute. Blend soy sauce and sugar then pour over spinach. Sprinkle sesame and toss.

You can also try this Japanese style recipe which includes sake and mirin to make the sesame sauce.

Counting Calories

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Yes, my pre-NY Resolution is to monitor the calories of what I’m eating. I am not trying to lose weight — I have been working out mainly to Zumba five-six days a week for four months and dropped two sizes even though I still weigh the same. So in a way I already achieved my initial goal. But the second phase is staying fit and getting rid of the flab in my midsection, and that is a complicated challenge. I need to pay more attention to fat burning foods, the kind that boost metabolism, while avoiding foods that increase belly fat. It won’t be easy, I have been unsuccessfully and erratically trying to lose weight for the last 10 years. I often quit and got discouraged too soon. So this is the farthest I’ve gone and I would hate to see my efforts going nowhere.

There is a silver lining to being unemployed and grounded in Spokane: I get to prepare my own food and don’t have parties to go to. When we taught overseas there were so many celebrations and parties starting Thanksgiving. It was worse when we traveled to the Philippines because lechon (pork roasted on a spit) was present in every party. During one visit my mother-in-law was shocked to find herself in five parties all with lechon during her first three days in my hometown. Because Filipinos love bond over food we always hooked up with friends and relatives in restaurants. “Can’t we meet your friends without eating?” my husband wondered once. Going elsewhere was just as bad, because we are on a holiday there was always the tendency to binge on food we couldn’t have or were more expensive in Lagos.

My online references:

Here is my latest project, which is my own version of what food with 200 calories or less look like. This gallery features food we have at home, so it will continue to be updated. I still have to analyze the recipes of my favorite dishes to get their caloric value.

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Edamame

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Fred Meyer has edamame, or soybeans! After getting by without these for five years I can’t get enough of them this time. They are the perfect healthy snack when I’m craving for food an hour before dinner. The ones at Fred Meyer are very salty though. For double that amount and only 10 cents more I should have grabbed more at the Asian grocery store. But the FM pack is the perfect single serving.

Here’s why they are good for you according to WebMD:

  • 120 calories
  • 9 grams fiber (same as 4 slices of wheat bread or 4 cups of zucchini)
  • 2.5 grams fat
  • 1.5 grams polyunsaturated fat (0.3 grams plant omega-3 fatty acids)
  • 0.5 gram monounsaturated fat
  • 11 grams protein
  • 13 grams carbohydrate
  • 15 mg sodium
  • 10% of the Daily Value for vitamin C
  • 10% Daily Value for iron (same as 4-ounce roasted chicken breast(
  • 8% Daily Value for vitamin A
  • 4% Daily Value for calcium

The Secret of Edamame