junk food – That's Just Me

January 1st! New Year New Outlook

Isn’t it funny how we always think that crossing over to January 1st is going to magically change our lives? LOL.

I don’t normally encourage New Years Resolutions, but this year, I’m a believer!

During the last couple of months, my food/health habits have declined, and my weight has creeped up to 141ish. Take out dinners have taken precedence over home-cooked meals, and that has to STOP! I haven’t been as active as usual, and my back “went out” a few days ago. I feel flabby and gross; I’m addicted to fatty junk foods and sugar again.

BUT I’m not considering this to be a failure!

I’m moving into 2013 with a fresh attitude. I have great support from my sweet husband and much-needed inspiration from my buddies over at MyFitnessPal.com.

oranges are healthy

I can do this! :)

Food Babe Investigates Chipotle vs Moes

Please read this article!

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/08/14/food-babe-investigates-chipotle-vs-moes/

We don’t have any Moe’s restaurants in our area, but we do occasionally dine at the local Chipotle restaurants. I’m really shocked by the “expose” from 100 Days of Real Food, although I suppose nothing should shock me about our commercial food system.

Yea, I understood that Chipotle was fast food, but I always thought it would be a better choice than perhaps McDonalds or even the 99 Restaurant. Yeah, I fell for the marketing.

But after reading her article (please go read it, it’s fascinating!), I’m really saddened.

I should have expected it though. It only proves that any large-scale food business is going to be somehow compromised. It’s impossible to feed millions of people and not have to cut corners with GMOs, trans fats, and fillers.

Will I continue to eat at Chipotle? Maybe. Probably.

But my eyes will be open, and I will rank their restaurant the same as any other fast food or chain restaurant. If I feel like Mexican, okay, but I won’t single them out as being a healthier choice than IHOP or Wendy’s. They’re all the same!

UPDATE: From the Food Babe web site: http://foodbabe.com/2012/08/28/whats-in-chipotles-food-they-still-wont-tell-us/

McDonalds’ Chef Considers Menu to be Healthy

McDonald’s senior director of culinary innovation, “chef” Daniel Coudreaut, was recently interviewed by Lisa Abraham, a Beacon Journal food writer.

Besides chef Coudreaut’s crazy statement that he “doesn’t see anything on the menu that’s unhealthy,” he was promoting the “healthy” items on McDonald’s menu.

It made me giggle that he’s an actual “chef” – a chef??! at McDonald’s??? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

He should be refer to himself as a chemist, because there is nothing chef-like about creating the “food products” at McDonald’s, and there certainly isn’t anything healthy about them either.

It’s all about choice, balance and moderation. There are healthful items on the McDonald’s menu — oatmeal, yogurt parfaits, salads, grilled chicken and low-fat milk.

Stop right there! These are what he considers the healthful items at McDonalds? Oatmeal, yogurt parfaits, salads, grilled chicken and low-fat milk?

Time to dissect each one!

McDonald’s Oatmeal

Yes! In our nation’s current obesity crisis, oatmeal with 32g of sugar is something to be proud of. I suppose it beats the 42g of fat in a double quarter pounder!

Sure, you can order the oatmeal without brown sugar & cranberry raisin mix, but what average McDonald’s patron is going to do that? They see the word oatmeal, and it immediately brings to mind something healthy.

And McDonald’s preys on that misconception!

In reality, what is the difference between their loaded up oatmeal and any one of the sugar-laden dry cereals like Honey Smacks or Fruit Loops?

McDonald’s Yogurt Parfait

McDonald’s Yogurt Parfaits are probably one of the sneakiest items on their menu. At least with a Big Mac, you know what you are getting!

Just like oatmeal, consumers have considered yogurt synonymous with a healthy food item, but most commercial flavored yogurts are loaded with refined sugar; McDonald’s yogurt parfaits are no exception, with 23g of sugar in their 5.2 oz (149g) serving.

Even if you just ate their yogurt “plain”, you’d still be getting 16g of sugar because they’ve added refined sugar PLUS fructose in their ingredients. And it’s only a 3 oz serving.

In comparison, a container of low-fat plain Stonyfield yogurt is 6 oz and contains 11g of sugar (natural dairy sugar). That’s 5.5g sugar if you match McDonald’s 3 oz serving. So, if you opt for McDonald’s yogurt, you’re getting 3x the sugar! What is healthy about that???

McDonald’s Salads

Next is Salads. Yeah, we all know how misrepresented salads are in restaurants. It’s been repeated over and over in a trillion different ways on TV and in print! But we still don’t listen.

Actually, it’s really not the salads that are unhealthy, it’s the dressing slobbering all over the salad that makes it unhealthy. Can you believe that 2 fl oz of Newman’s Own Creamy Caesar dressing (that’s 2 Tbsp) is 190 calories: 18g fat and 500mg sodium. All for a “healthy” salad!

McDonald’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich

You probably thought I could give McDonald’s Grilled Chicken a pass, right? Wrong. Grilled chicken, made at home, can be healthy, if it’s just plain chicken.

But add a McDonald’s white flour bun & cheese, slap on some mayo and you’ve got 400 calories with 13g of fat, 840g sodium, and 8g of sugar. Yikes!

If you think that eating just their chicken by itself would be a healthy choice, you’d also be wrong.

Look at the ingredients in one piece of grilled chicken:

Chicken breast fillet with rib meat, water, seasoning (rice starch, salt, sugar, yeast extract, canola oil, onion powder, maltodextrin, chicken skin, paprika, flavor, sunflower oil, chicken, garlic powder, chicken fat, spices), sodium phosphates.

Prepared with Liquid Margarine: Liquid soybean oil and hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils, water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, salt, soy lecithin, mono-and diglycerides, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservatives), artificial flavor, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color).

They’ve even sneaked some sugar in the “seasoning” and I just love their “liquid margarine” – GROSS!

Low Fat Milk

Okay, I will give the low-fat milk a pass, although I’m not convinced that low fat dairy is all that healthy, but that’s for another discussion.

Junk Food is Still Just Junk Food Even with Fancy McMarketing

So, I’m not going to lie and state that I never ever go to McDonald’s, but when I go, I’m not fooling myself into thinking I’m eating something healthy.

It’s junk food. It’s ALL junk food.

From the oatmeal to the fish filet, it’s junk food and it’s time we STOP allowing corporate Food’s CEOs and “chefs” to continue feeding us their misleading marketing myths!

Wake up and smell the oatmeal!

Hamburger Helper Stuffed Bellies

Just saw a TV commercial for Hamburger Helper.

The family is together, sitting at the dinner table and the dad is stuffed so he leans back and pats his belly, full to the brim.

He looks at his young daughter, they smile at each other and she imitates him, patting her belly as well. Camera pans out to show everyone is happy and laughing as they all pat their full bellies after dinner.

Their tagline: “Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni – now even cheesier and tastier.”

So that’s the message of Big Food! Inspiring families to eat meals together, but eat until bellies are stuffed or better yet, over-stuffed!

Sigh

And THAT, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with our dysfunctional eating habits. We don’t stop eating BEFORE we get to the point of busting our bellies! Our brains are broken, not connecting with our bellies to tell us to stop eating.

The bigger problem is, overly-processed foods like Hamburger Helper are never going to satiate us, so we have to keep eating, and eating, and eating, until it’s too late and our bellies are beyond stuffed.

So, good ole Betty Crocker is taking advantage of our dysfunction by feeding us more of their processed crap, that tastes really, really good, but doesn’t do anything to really NOURISH us.

Stuffing your belly, until it hurts, with white pasta drowned in dried cheeses is not healthy, even if mom makes it at home, and all family members eat it together at the dinner table!

Just in case you were wondering, here is the list of ingredients for Hamburger Cheeseburger Macaroni. It’s funny, in comparison to their older ingredients (found online), they weren’t lying when they said it was now “cheesier” – they’ve added a lot of dried cheeses:

Enriched Macaroni, Corn Starch, Salt, Enriched flour, Sugar, Dried Ricotta cheese, Dried Tomato, MSG, Natural flavor, Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Modified Corn Starch, Paprika, Spice, Colors (Yellow Lake 5&6 and Yellow 5&6), Monoglycerides, Dried Cheddar Cheese, Dried Cheddar cheese, Dried Whey, Dried Buttermilk, Dried Blue cheese, Enzyme modified blue cheese, Silicon Dioxide, Sodium Phosphate, Enzyme modified cheddar cheese

They wanted to hate on me for coming down with something – Paula Deen

Oh lordie, Paula Deen, just doesn’t get it! Late last week, she was quoted by AP as saying

I think a few people who have access to a TV camera and ink kind of wanted to hate on me for coming down with something.

First, she didn’t “come down” with diabetes – it’s not a cold or flu that will go away in a few days.

And no one is upset because she developed diabetes; it’s the fact that she was diagnosed years ago, but decided to go public by partnering with a diabetes ~~drug lord~~, err, pharmaceutical company.

Then there’s the pesky fact that she continued to make show episodes using unhealthy quantities of ingredients like cream and butter, knowing full well that she was diabetic. Hey, I’m the first to admit that I use butter, but I don’t need 2 sticks in my cornbread!

And, really, hate is such a strong word; I really don’t think most people actually hate her, although there are probably a lot of people who can’t stand her.

Personally, I feel she is moving in the wrong direction. She has an opportunity to really make a difference, but she’s wasting time denying that her diet was a large factor in her illness. She keeps babbling about genetics, stress and age.

Wouldn’t it have been fantastic, if she decided 2 years ago, to change her lifestyle? Last month, she could have announced she was diagnosed, but instead of turning to pharmaceuticals, she took charge, lost weight, changed her diet, started exercising, and beat diabetes! Wow, talk about being an inspiration! That would have sparked a lot of people to follow her example! But alas, that didn’t happen, and it probably will never happen.

Cook This, Not That 350 Calorie Meals – Book Review

When I first started changing my lifestyle, one of the first books I borrowed from the library was “Eat This, Not That” and then the “Eat This, Not That: Supermarket Survival Guide.”

Yeah, these books get you thinking in the right direction (and they did help me initially), but truthfully, they are really just about eating better-quality junk food; at the end of the day, it’s still junk food.

The original ETNT book was published in late 2007, and since then, the authors/publishers have cultivated this “brand” into a huge franchise, publishing new, updated versions every year, and coming up with more titles, such as “Drink This, Not That” and their “Restaurant Survival Guide.” According to wikipedia, as of Sept, 2011, they’ve sold more than 8 million books!

Cook This, Not That

I was curious about the “Cook This, Not That – 350 Calorie Meals” version, so I borrowed it from the library.

As expected, it was true to the franchise formula, offering recipes to home-cook a restaurant-style dish (eat this,) while claiming they could save the reader money and calories compared to the restaurant counterpart (not that.)

Big problem though. I found some, if not most, of the book examples weren’t fair comparisons.

For example, lasagna rolls (page 196) compares itself to Olive Garden’s Lasagna Rollata al Forno. The recipe calls for 6 oz of long thin lasagna noodles, to make a 6 serving recipe. That’s only 1 oz of pasta for each person, calculating a total of 380 calories for each serving.

Come on! Do they really think we’re going to be satisfied with only one serving? Compared to the size of the Olive Garden plate, I would venture a guess that you’d need at least TWO (or more) servings, totaling 760+, coming a lot closer to the Olive Garden’s 1170 calorie plate.

A second example, the California Pizza Kitchen Original BBQ Chicken Pizza (page 180) is calculated at 1136 calories for a whole pizza (web site states current calories are less at 1055). The recipe makes 2 pizzas divided into 4 servings, at 380 calories for half pizza. How is that fair? Eating the whole homemade pizza brings the calories up to 760. A little sneaky and misleading that they’re not comparing apples to apples and pizzas to pizzas!

Most recipes were pushed down to the 350 calorie mark, but don’t be fooled, because in order to reduce calories, they weren’t giving you complete meals. Most so-called meals were only proteins. No carbs, no vegetables.

For Example, 360 calories for Chicken Pizzaioli (page 222) is compared to 1090 calories for the Olive Garden’s Chicken Parmigiana. Well, they kind of left out the fact that their version gives you a much smaller portion of chicken and doesn’t include any pasta, so in reality, it’s really not such a mind-blowing difference, is it?

Same with Herb Roasted Turkey Breast (page 228) compared to Bob Evans Turkey and Dressing. The recipe just calculates the turkey at 140 calories, but remove the dressing and gravy from the Bob Evans plate, and I bet it comes in just about equally. Very sneaky!

Don’t Waste Your Time and Money on this Book

Don’t waste your time with “Cook This, Not That – 350 Calorie Meals“, you’ll only be disappointed; their low 350 calorie meals are unbalanced and incomplete. They will not fill you up, and you’ll be searching for something else to eat, adding more calories to your daily total.

When you need a special treat, isn’t it better to splurge on something decadent? No, living a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t include a visit to the Olive Garden or Wendy’s very often, but sometimes you just want a good plate of junk food from a chain restaurant. Don’t worry about calories for ONE crazy treat meal, just enjoy and savor it while it lasts! :)

Recommendations Instead of This Book

If you need help to cook healthy, satisfying meals at home, borrow a Jamie Oliver book from the library; I especially love to recommend Cook With Jamie.

Also highly recommended is Hallmark TV channel’s “Mad Hungry” with Lucinda Scala Quinn. I love her down-to-earth, simple recipes!

There are also countless amounts of instructional cooking videos on youtube, and even many cooking podcasts on iTunes.

These are all much better choices than anything offered from the Eat This, Not That franchise. Good luck!

Disclaimer:
I love reading cookbooks, like some people love reading novels! I am inspired by recipes, and enjoy learning ideas from cookbooks, which means I’d rather put my own spin on a recipe than follow it exactly. Please keep in mind that my opinions might be completely different from the other home cooks.

Multi Grain Peanut Butter Cheerios – What’s Next General Mills?

Cheerios used to be thought of as one of the “good” cereals, but over the years, General Mills has capitalized on the Cheerios name to produce UN-healthier, alternative flavors like Dulce de Leche Cheerios and Chocolate Cheerios. And now Peanut Butter is part of the Cheerios flavor family!

Cheerios Multi-Grain Peanut Butter cereal ingredients:

Whole Grain Corn, Sugar, Peanut Butter (peanuts, monoglycerides), Whole Grain Oats, Whole Grain Sorghum, Whole Grain Barley, Whole Grain Rice, Corn Syrup, Dextrose, Salt, Canola and/or Rice Bran Oil, Peanut Oil, Color Added, Vitamin E, and BHT. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Carbonate, Zinc and Iron (Mineral Nutrients), Vitamin C (Sodium Ascorbate), a B Vitamin (Niacinamide), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (Thiamin Mononitrate), Vitamin A (Palmitate), a B Vitamin (Folic Acid), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3

Even though there are a lot of whole grains on the list, one small serving of Peanut Butter Cheerios offers only a paltry 2g of fiber, along with 9g of sugar (sugar, corn syrup & dextrose.)

No, 9 grams isn’t earth shattering, but do you know how small a serving of 3/4 cup is? Pretty small. My guess is, most consumers will go for 2 servings, which brings the sugar up to 18 grams.

It’s even sadder that regular Cheerios now has ingredients like “modified corn starch” and “wheat starch” – Do you think these highly-processed ingredients were part of the package years ago when Cheerios were first produced? I doubt it.

Consumers don’t realize that highly processed grains (like in commercial cereals) do not offer the same qualities and benefits as fresh whole grains. Plus, there’s the issue of GMO corn and soy, along with sugars, unnecessary oils & emulsifiers (monoglycerides), preservatives, and colors.

And why all the extra added vitamins?

I’m so sick of Big Food adding a few synthetic vitamins and declaring their product a health food. (WhoNu, anyone?)

Let’s just keep the vitamins in our fruits and vegetables, and stop the sneaky marketing!

BEWARE! Peanut Allergies

And one more BIG strike against General Mills is that this is going to cause a lot of peanut allergy issues due to the similarity to regular cheerios!

It’s especially disconcerting since the packaging for both the multi-grain peanut butter and plain multi-grain look very similar. Plus the actual cereal pieces are virtually identical as well.

multi-grain peanut butter cheerios multi-grain cheerios

It’s been reported that a parent accidentally brought home a box of the peanut butter cereal and thankfully his wife caught the error before serving it to their allergic child.

Links:

So What’s Next General Mills?

So what’s next General Mills? Will you come out with Birthday Cake flavored Cheerios? How about Bacon flavored Cheerios?

Maybe someday, consumers will stop falling for Big Food’s cute clever marketing, but then what would Big Pharma do if the world was free of obesity, cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure?

Yoplait Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Scam

yoplait yogurt pink lid breast cancer scam

It drives me crazy every October when I see the Yoplait Yogurt ads for their “Pink Ribbon/Lids Breast Cancer” marketing ploy.

My biggest problem with Yoplait’s Pink Lid promotion, besides the obvious trick to gain more sales, is that highly processed, highly sugary food products like Yoplait Yogurt could possibly be one of the factors that increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer in the first place!

So to reiterate, they want you to buy (and consume) more of their sugary, chemical laden yogurts, just so they can send out (up to) $2 million for a cure for the same cancer that they possibly could be causing! It makes me crazy when I think about it!

Yoplait, why don’t you keep that $2 million and IMPROVE your own products so they are not loaded with sweeteners (including artificial) and unpronounceable chemicals and other highly processed junk!

It’s food products from companies like Yoplait that are making American’s obese and ill! When are we going to open our eyes to these huge marketing scams and just SAY NO!

Confessions of a Compulsive Eater – 141.8

Okay, confession time.

This summer was brutal. While on our vacations, I ate a lot lot lot of sugary foods, & it seems like it made my “compulsive” eating issues come alive a little bit. It was getting harder and harder to say “no” to foods that I shouldn’t be eating.

This weekend, I didn’t think twice about grabbing a couple of processed store-bought cookies & a small bag of buttered/salted popcorn that was offered at a local hardware store’s grand re-opening. ugh.

I never had trouble refusing gross processed cookies in the past, so I know there’s a problem.

I mean, I always felt that if I was going to treat myself, it would have to be something special and really delicious. Not some store bought oreos, chips ahoy, or fig newtons! sigh.

Bottom line, I have been slowly gaining back a little weight. Not a lot, but I’m up to 141.8! I think the gain is a combination of my eating habits and my messed up peri-menopausal system, but either way, I’ve got to do better with my food choices.

I’ve officially adjusted my profile weight up to 141.8 at MyFitnessPal.

I adjusted my daily calories from 1800 to 1650, and posted my confession on my MyFitnessPal newsfeed! What a marvelous wonderful group of supportive friends I have on MFP.

Yes yes yes, I know I can do it!

I don’t want to ignore this problem, that’s how I ended up at 200 pounds in the first place!
I’m trying to be accountable
I’m admitting that I’m doing something wrong and I want to change!

I should add that 140 is actually a “normal” weight for someone at my height of 5’8″ but I feel “normal” at around 138ish.

Dastardly Donut

Ugh, the dastardly donut got me today at lunch. I was visiting DH and we ate lunch together in his work lunchroom, and there was a box of Dunkin Donuts that another co-worker brought in that morning. Of course, DH had to open it, and there were just a few left, all jelly filled. I couldn’t resist. Darn! I think this is the first day, in a long time, that I really felt guilty about something I ate!

Darn Dastardly Donut!

And then when I looked up the calories in one of those suckas, yikes! 290 calories! That’s criminal! I won’t be doing that again, so I suppose it’s a good thing then. Anytime you learn a lesson, it’s good. And yes, I learned!

#1, look up foods like donuts BEFORE you eat them, that way you can judge if the cost of calories is worth the “cheat treat”

#2, It was a good donut, but really not worth 300 calories!