Back to Basics: Rule 3

I know we all love ice cream and candy, but processed sugars are bad for you.  And yes, I am including artificial sweeteners here. The key isn’t finding ways to eat more candy, it’s finding a balance in your diet so you stop craving it.

Why:

- They become addictive, so it’s hard to stop eating. Processed sugars have what is called a “high glycemic index,” which essentially means they spike your blood sugar, then drop it off a cliff. This starts a cycle of fatigue, which makes you eat more (usually more sugar), which spikes your blood sugar and drops if off another cliff, so you eat more (usually more sugar). This is much like a drug addiction cycle, and it acts the same way, causing you to crave more and more sugar.

-They make you fat. This is a three-parter:

Artificial sweeteners break the metabolic cycle, and can cause weight gain even though they have fewer calories than sugar (and in some cases, no calories). There’s a lot of science behind this that you can look up if you want, but the simple explanation is that your body is programmed to rev up your metabolism when it tastes sweet, because sweet things usually have more calories. Your body is very smart, and doesn’t like wasting energy; so, it stops this cycle once it realizes there aren’t going to be any more calories coming.

Processed sugars, like HFCS and table sugar, are empty calories. No nutrients, just calories.  So, either nutrient rich foods are being replaced by sugars, or are being eaten on top of them. Usually, it’s the latter.

-Some are processed through the liver. Why is that bad? Again, there’s a lot of science-y stuff here, but essentially it means that they can be turned directly into fat, and that they signal your body to keep turning other things into fat. So, even if you’re only eating your necessary amount of calories per day, if you’re getting a lot of them via processed sugars you may have a difficult time losing or maintaining weight.

-Processed sugars, especially liquids like High Fructose Corn Syrup, can contribute to insulin resistance, which translates into diabetes.

-Artificial sweeteners have some nasty long-term side effects, and some are known to be carcinogenic (meaning they elevate your risk for certain cancers).

-Your getting far more of them in your daily diet than you likely know about. Ever looked at the back of a jar of tomato sauce? About 90% of those jars will have “sugar” or “high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)” listed as an ingredient. Loaves of bread? About 85% of what is sold in most supermarkets contain a processed sweetener. While some people say that sugar and HFCS are fine in moderation, it’s very difficult to get them in what most people would consider “moderation.”

-There are great alternatives, so there’s no real need. Natural sweets, like honey and whole fruit, have lower glycemic indexes, and so won’t spike your blood sugar like processed sugars do. These natural sweets also contain beneficial ingredients, so they’re not just empty calories.

How to Stop:

There are two schools of thought on this, one that works and one that doesn’t (in my humble opinion). Sugar is addictive, and you have to break that cycle. You really just need to stop eating it, and live with the fact that you want a candy bar. I recommend a “sugar fast,” or a complete break from all processed sugars, for 2 weeks. Eat fruits and veggies, add some honey to your coffee, but no processed sugars, not even in your bread and pasta. The first few days will be awful, but you’ll live through it. After that, it’s much easier. After 2 weeks, your cravings should be gone. At that point, I’ll allow myself a treat once in a while (by which I mean every few weeks for a birthday party or something), but still stick to natural sources of sugar.

The other method is to  “wean” yourself off, and slowly switch over to natural sugars. I’ve known far more people to fail at this method than succeed, but if you’re not ready to go cold turkey, you can give it a try.

Everyone I know who has given up processed sugars and artificial sweeteners on a regular basis feels better and has a much easier time maintaining their weight.

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Back to Basics: Nutrition Rule 2

Rule 2, eat whole foods, is pretty directly related to Rule 1.  Whole foods are unprocessed and unrefined foods, things that come as-is from mother nature, such as whole fruits, vegetables, legumes, dairy, eggs, and meat, or that are minimally processed, like oats and brown rice.

Ideally, no ingredient labels should be necessary, because a green pepper should have nothing it but green pepper. But, some things, like sour cream, will have more than just “sour cream,” (I really wish that wasn’t the case, but it is). Look for foods with no more than 5 ingredients, none of which you cannot pronounce, and none of which you couldn’t get at home. No High Fructose Corn Syrup, MSG (monosodium glutamate), etc.

Why is this Rule #2?

-Whole foods almost always have fewer calories than processed foods.

-They also almost always have far more nutrients,  including immune boosters, to keep you healthy.

-Whole fruits and vegetables contain a lot of fiber. This not only helps keep you full and regulate blood sugar, it also makes sure things pass through your body in a timely manner, lowering your risk of certain cancers (or, the less polite way to put it: it keeps you regular, and if you’re not emptying your bowels at least once a day, you really need to up your fiber intake).

-They don’t contain additives that are going to make you fatter, hungrier, or more likely to develop cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, or all the other crappy-food related illnesses that are skyrocketing today.

-They trigger a “satiety” feeling that processed foods usually do not, so you’ll eat less and fell fuller, longer.

-You prepare them at home, so you can control what goes into your food. This means you can cut excess calories, preservatives, and chemicals.

Eating whole foods does require some forethought and preparation, but eating shouldn’t be automatic and easy. What goes into your body profoundly affects your health, and deserves a lot more consideration than Americans tend to give it (hence, the booming rate of obesity and related issues).

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Client Opening and What’s a Frugal Menu?

A short announcement: I have one opening for a client in the greater Lynchburg area starting the first week in May. If you, or someone you know, is interested just use the “contact Renaissance Cuisine” form to the right.

On one of my boards earlier this week, someone asked what frugal meals everyone was eating. It was interesting to see everyone’s various ideas of “frugal.” For me, frugal isn’t necessarily cheap. I define it as a good value, and our meals reflect this. I don’t consider pre-packed ramen noodle packs “frugal,” because while they’re very inexpensive, they’re also both nutritionally void and full of harmful chemicals. So, pound for pound, they’re a poor way to get any kind of nutrition. Lentils, while more expensive than pre-packaged ramen noodles, are a much better value.

What do we eat? Most of my readers have seen my “On the Menu” features. For me, these are generally frugal menus. Yes, we do splurge once in a while, and we’re very lucky to be able to do that. For the most part, however, we strive to eat inexpensively and locally within a frugal budget. It’s not always easy, and it requires a good bit of time and planning. I’ll be teaching some of these skills at a new community cooking class, which I’m excited about!

On The Menu

Dinners

Sunday: Korean noodles with greens. We love ethnic food, and it’s often inexpensive and healthy. We had some of the first fresh greens of the season, which were wonderful with Korea noodles (made from yams) , and a fish-based sauce. The noodles came from an Asian market in Charlottesville, but I’m looking into making my own.

Monday:  Portuguese fish and sausage soup. Yes, we eat fish in soup. In this case, it was swai, farmed sustainably.  It’s a rich soup with gold potatoes and local sausage, and I used my homemade chicken stock as a base. This can be a more expensive dish, but it goes a really long way.

Tuesday:  Sliced beef over roasted red pepper couscous, with mixed green veggies. Thadd’s night to cook. He marinaded sliced beef, then quickly pan fried it. Couscous is a go-to side for us when we’re short on time.

Wednesday: Samosa pie with mango chutney and spinach-chickpea saag. This is a really inexpensive way to eat Indian, but it does take a good bit of time for preparation. I add about twice as much spice to my samosa mixture as this recipe calls for, and make my own chutney when mangoes are on sale. Chutney’s expensive to buy, but can be super-cheap to make yourself, and you can avoid the HFCS in most brands you’ll find at the store. The saag is a traditional side of spinach and chickpeas in a vegetable stock base with onions, ginger, garham masala, tumeric, and a cream finish.

Thursday: Tonight is sliced beef tacos with the rest of the beef from above. There’s nothing special about the tacos, really. We’ll have some fresh greens to use up, and I’ll make homemade re fried black beans. I’ve got to teach tonight, and Thadd’s busy all day, so we planned for something fast and inexpensive.

Friday: Basque chicken thighs over brown rice. This is a great, fast dish that includes a lot of smoke paprika and some prosciutto. The latter is a bit expensive, but it doesn’t use much. The rest will get frozen for later. You really don’t want to use breasts for this, as the thighs give a much richer flavor. And, they’re generally cheaper, though if you’re buying whole, local birds, I’d go ahead and piece it out and use the entire bird (as I will do). The juices from the thighs will flavor the rest.

This is as far as we got with diners this week , because we knew our weekend would be a bit crazy. I am considering making a Japenese Zisou, though, for dinner on Sunday. Hearty, fast, healthy, and I can use some homemade stock.

This is not the most frugal dinner menu I’ve ever listed. In fact, for us it’s pretty expensive. Why? Honestly, just because. We go in cycles. We have a monthly food budget, not a weekly, so some weeks are cheaper and some more expensive, but it all works out in the end.

Breakfasts include farina, homemade raw milk yogurt, local honey, local pastured eggs, raw milk,  tea, homemade whole wheat toast, and fruit (not all at once). Lunches are almost always leftovers and/or a smoothie (I do the smoothies, since I am often not really hungry in the mid-day).

What’s frugal to you?

 

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Fast One Fridays, Oct. 29, 2010

Fast One: More bad news for HFCS:  The HFCS in many sodas contains significantly more fructose than the companies reported. What This Means To You: HFCS could be an even greater contributor to obesity than previously thought. And, as importantly, there’s NO SUCH THING as moderation of this product, because you simply cannot have any idea how much you’re getting in anything you eat that contains it.  We all know that too much sugar of any kind is bad for us, whether it be table sugar, honey, maple syrup, or HFCS. The difference here is that HFCS is in so many things because it is artificially cheap, and you can’t know for sure how much or in what formulation you’re intaking it. So, just stop eating it. If you need something sweet, make some homemade cookies, or lemonade with local honey. You’re waistline (and your brain, since mercury has been found in a large percentage of HFCS) will thank you for it.

Fast One: Morningland Dairy is headed to court, after lodging a formal complaint against Missouri Milk Board’s order to destroy their products. What this means to you: Do you like having a choice in what you eat? Do you want to be able to eat raw foods, or local foods, or foods produced by someone with a face that’s not employed by one of the Big Ag companies that already own 90% of our farms and dairies (which, btw, they still try to tout as “family farm,” so be aware of that misrepresentation)? If you do, you need to speak up. Donate (see button at the end of this post), write your representatives and let them know the FDA needs to follow due process, blog about this, and just generally raise some hell. I don’t know about you, but I am terrified to see our food options continually taken away from us.

Fast One: Only 1% of chemicals on the market today are tested for safety, says Senator Lautenburg (D-New Jersey).  The laws are lax, and only 5 chemicals have been banned in the last 34 years. This means of all the chemicals on the market, only about 200 have been tested at all. What this means to you: Who knows, since this stuff isn’t tested? Okay, that was flip, I know. The point is there, though: we can’t have any real idea of the implications. It is terrifying to think companies have little regulation, and few rules about what they can or cannot put on the market without testing. We come into contact with these things every day, regardless of how “crunchy granola” we are, because they’re in everything from flooring to cell phones to clothing. What can we do about it? Write your representatives, and ask for tougher laws. Minimize what you can (chemicals in food, etc.).

Got interesting food news?

Monday Healthy Eating, October 11, 2010

No one wants to hear this, and no one wants to do it. So, I’m going to give you two options, but you have to pick one of them to eat healthfully.

Option 1: Read labels.

Option 2: Cook everything from scratch.

I, personally, mostly do Option 2, with a little of Option 1. I don’t make my own mustard, but I do read the label. It’s up to you which you chose, or how you combine them, but there’s no easy way out of this one. The good news is that reading labels gets much less onerous as time goes on, because you begin to know which brands have the ingredients you prefer (or don’t have the ones you’re trying to cut out), so you don’t have to read those as often.  But, you do still have to read them occasionally, because formulations change.

Why read labels? Largely because if you’ve never done it you’re going to be appalled at what you’ve been eating. Once, of course, you know what “that” its. If you’re eating most store-purchased ice cream, for example, you’re eating guar gum. Do you even know what that is? I didn’t. It’s a thickener, used to keep ice cream thick but soft at deep-freeze temperatures. As weird things in your food goes, it’s not particularly offensive, but it’s also not necessary if you’re eating…well, real ice cream. If you’re buying most canned or jarred tomatoes sauces, you’re eating high fructose corn syrup, same thing with BBQ sauces and even hot dogs. In many of these, it’s the first or second ingredient (including in several hot dog brands–why do you need sugar in hot dogs!?).

Once you see what’s in the food, then you’ve got to come home and look it up, because honestly I still don’t know what 90% of that stuff is and I do this for a living. Which is why I take option #2 most of the time. It’s easier.

Some of these things, like HFCS and MSG, have pretty well-known side effects and long-reaching nastiness like links to cancer and obesity, some add extra calories, some haven’t actually been studied. Essentially, it comes down to this: you can’t eat healthy without the information to make appropriate decisions, and the only way you can get that information from a box, bag, or a can you didn’t prepare yourself is to read the label and see what’s in it, how many calories it has, and how those fit into your eating goals.

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Friday Fast Ones

Fast One: Store-purchased organic eggs may not live up to all they’re cracked up to be. Those in the local food movement pretty much already know this, but it’s worth getting out there. Most organic eggs from supermarkets are produced in glorified (and often not so glorified) factory farms with very little difference from non-organic eggs, except for the price tag. Supermarket brands, including Whole Foods, rank lowest on the list of quality. What it  means to you: If you’re buying Certified Organic eggs at the supermarket, you’re probably being shafted. Find a local farmer, and get your money’s worth. And, honestly, it’ll probably be less money; though, it’s still a far better value even if it’s the same price or more expensive.  Ask around at your local farmer’s market, or go to localharvest.org to find real eggs.

Fast One: PA rejected regulation 2777, which would have effectively banned any an all ways of selling raw milk in PA! What it means to you: Well, if you’re in PA it means you can still get raw milk. If you’re anywhere else in the country, it means that some politicians are hearing those of us who are being active about wanting choices in our food. If you want the ability to decide if you should drink raw milk, eat pastured eggs and chickens from a small farm, or any other kind of food freedom, you need to get active.  Monsanto, the Corn Refiners Association, The Dairy Council…all of these companies spend millions of dollars a year lobbying to control your food.

Fast One: Speaking of the Corn Refiner’s Association, they’re now actively pushing their “educational” agenda about HFCS on blogs, and paying or otherwise compensating “mommy bloggers” to push their product as healthy. Essentially, they give money, gifts, or other compensation to people for listening to a presentation, and they blogging the positives. CRA reps are popping up on negative-HFCS blogs everywhere, and disappear when pushed about their agenda, whether or not the CRA is paying them to comment, etc. What this means to you: Buyer beware. Take a critical look at the blogs you read, and do some digging into their integrity. Taking money or other gifts to post positively about a product or service isn’t something I consider ethical, do you? There’s a large amount of money being spent here. People are becoming more aware of  HFCS and choosing to eschew it, which is starting to hurt the profits of Corporate Agriculture. They’re fighting back, and doing it in a fairly sneaky way, which writes a story all it’s own. There’s a whole post here in and of itself, one I’ve done before in some respects; but, really, just go read the link and the comments. It’s worth it.

And, last but not least:

Friday Fast One: It’s VA Wine month! There are 180 wineries in VA, many of them using grapes grown either on their estate or in close proximity.  What this means to you: Well, a very good weekend, if you plan it right! It also means, however, that all of those locavores (I hate that word, btw) out there need to hop on this bandwagon. Supporting local includes beverages, and there are some amazing wines coming out of VA. Several wineries are competing for international awards, and holding their own. For some insights, visit Swirl, Sip Snark, Dezel at MyVineSpot.Com, Drink What YOU Like, or  VA Wine Time to check out The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and plan a trip!

To Celebrate VA Wine Month, I’ll be splashing (which means pouring wine tastings) for Wintergreen Winery at Rebec’s Garlic Fest this Saturday. Swing through, say hello, see my New Hair, and try some great local wines! I’m the short blond with the short ‘do at the tasting station!

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