I was curious about the new show on Cooking Channel TV: Good Housekeeping Drop 5 Lbs (with Melissa d’Arabian), so I made sure to DVR it.
The first episode opens with the recipe, Chicken Breasts with Apple Curry Sauce and it looked scrumptious; I love the idea of sweet & savory for dinner.
But I was a little puzzled when she suggested topping the steamed broccoli with a tsp of margarine. MARGARINE? Do people still use margarine?
It was even funnier to look at the recipe online, and see they suggested, “trans fat margarine” – LOL. I assume they meant “trans fat-free margarine” but even still, to suggest margarine over a whole food like butter is silly.
For example, after googling “margarine brands”, I found Smart Balance Buttery Spread contains 80 calories per tablespoon, that’s 26 calories for 1 tsp. Organic Valley unsalted butter contains 100 calories per tablespoon, which equals out to 34 calories per tsp. That’s hardly enough of a difference to recommend margarine over butter!
Plus if you choose the butter, you’ll save yourself the consumption of icky ingredients like artificial flavors, monoglycerides, sorbitan ester of fatty acids, disodium EDTA, along with a dose of GMO (genetically modified) vegetable oils, plus all the pesticides and toxic fertilizers.
But getting back to the episode.
I whole-heartedly agree with the advice that you need to measure your portions; I think a kitchen scale is a more accurate way than a measuring cup though (I love to weigh in grams) but it’s better than eye-balling it. Two & half years later, I still weigh most of my food. It really does help keep your portions honest!
On the whole, I’m not a fan of Good Housekeeping, it’s a bloated ad-driven magazine, but at least the show seems like a fairly good idea. No, the tips and hints aren’t anything new, but if it helps inspire someone to begin a healthier lifestyle, then that’s all that matters.
I’ll continue to DVR the episodes, so we’ll see how it develops.
Last year, I had a personal trainer/”nutrition consultant” suggest to me that I should use margarine (I rarely even eat butter but my kids do use a little and I’d certainly rather have them eating milk than hydrogenated oil) and that I should eat fat-free, sugar-free yogurt (when I told her I didn’t eat “diet” products or artificial sweeteners — I eat plain Greek yogurt with real fruit mixed in), she wondered if that was why I couldn’t lose “the last ten pounds.” The ignorance about nutrition/fake foods in the fitness industry, let alone the “cooking entertainment” and general public, is staggering. That aside, I like chicken & apples together, too!
Norma, I was just thinking about you today. Thanks for visiting. I’m going to check out your blog this afternoon too.
That trainer sounds like she’s stuck in the 80’s! LOL.
I love yogurt with real fruit too, and even adding my own maple syrup is better than most of the fruit yogurts on the shelf. PLUS it’s cheaper to buy a big tub than the little single servings.
Although I do still sometimes love Green Meadow brand, they are a lot lower in sugar…I also do still get a big tub of Brown Cow maple flavored whole yogurt as an occasional treat too.
The margarine thing kills me! It is so frustrating to see people concentrate on the calories more than the overall ingredients. People are so confused anymore they won’t even eat carrots or yams because they are too high in sugar, or an avacado because it is too high in fat. Really? All these health experts really don’t impress me that much. Thanks for keeping in real.
Kelley, OMG, it also drives me crazy when I hear people removing certain whole foods from their diet.
Potatoes and eggs are the main ones that bugs me. NO, I don’t eat potatoes every day, but they are not going to hurt you once or twice a week. And eggs, well eggs are a perfect little packet of nutrition. It drives me crazy when I hear people throwing away the yolks to eat only whites!