You are what you eat

A Salty Woman Goes Low(er) Sodium

A few months ago I ended up in the hospital with a serious health condition. Things are more or less under control now, but I found out the hard way that I need to be careful of my sodium intake.

Upon discharge from the hospital, I was told that there were no constraints on my diet as long as I ate a healthy variety of foods. This was true in most ways. But on a five-day camping trip during which I ate more salt than usual, I discovered that I really do need to be careful when it comes to salt. I swelled up like a balloon, adding 5 or 6 pounds of water weight in about 4 days, which made me very uncomfortable due to the bloat and grotesquely swollen feet and ankles, plus edema in my lower legs.

For most Americans, the salt shaker is the least of worries when it comes to excess sodium. That's because most of our salt is found in the foods we buy from supermarket shelves, deli counters, and fast food places.  Take a look at the food labels on processed foods, or look up some of your favorite fast foods or processed meats on the Internet. You'll quickly get a grasp of just how much salt you're getting even from otherwise healthy foods (for example, a 12-ounce can of V-8 juice contains 920 mg of salt!). While the most commonly seen figure for safe salt intake is 2300 mg per day, a lot of us should be aiming for more like 1500 mg per day. That can be a challenge.

I'm one of those fortunate people who has always required less salt than most people for my food to taste good. It's common, when I serve meals to guests, for me to say "You'll probably want to add some salt," because I've learned that my salt sensor seems to be more sensitive than most people's. I'm also lucky that I don't eat fast foods (maybe some McDonald's fries once in a blue moon) or, for the most part, buy processed foods or cured meats. Like just about everybody else, though, I do occasionally like salty snacks, crave a salami sandwich or a BLT, and buy items like canned tomatoes that have quite a bit of salt added. 

On my vacation I ate a lot of salty foods in a short time: roasted salted peanuts, salt and vinegar chips, summer sausage, hot dogs, dill pickles, breakfast sausage, V-8 juice . . . on and on. Boy, did it ever take a toll. It took me several days to get rid of the water I retained, even with taking an extra diuretic (I've been prescribed two Lasix per day as it is). I keep track of my weight daily because of my health condition, so seeing it spike by several pounds was a little alarming. I immediately thought of salt and began my research on the Internet.

Since then I've been experimenting with low-sodium versions of foods I often purchase. I find that low-sodium tomato juice and V-8 taste just fine to me. At first I added a little bit of Mrs. Dash's salt-free blend, but found I didn't really need it. I'm eating low-sodium Triscuits and saltines with unsalted tops (I use saltines mostly as carriers of peanut butter or thinly sliced cheese, anyway, which has enough salt in it). We've experimented with salt-free blends and "lite" salt, which has 50% less sodium in it, the rest being potassium, and it works great on corn on the cob. Snacks that seem salty because the salt is on the surface often turn out to be not that bad--they taste really salty because the salt is right there on top. Still, I've switched to veggie straws and unsalted roasted sunflower seeds for when I get the munchies. And I doubt that I'll ever eat another reuben! Low-sodium bacon is just fine; we'd bought some not even knowing it was low-sodium and had been eating it as BLTs before I even noticed the packaging. 

Soda pop has quite a bit of sodium in a drink which is already bad for you, but luckily I don't drink pop. I like carbonated water and unsweetened green or black iced tea. (Drinking plenty of fluids is important in avoiding water retention, counter-intuitive though that may seem.)

I realize that it's been easier for me to go low-sodium because most of my cooking is from scratch, so I have control over what goes into the food. Plus, I don't use salt to make up for the lack of flavor or cover the off-taste of convenience foods. I can freeze portions of homemade soup rather than depend on the incredibly salt-laden canned soups. Although it requires some commitment and prioritizing, doing your own cooking is a significant factor in lowering sodium intake. 

And it's not like I can never eat another dill pickle. What I do, instead, is keep track of what I'm eating--it becomes very easy to do this mentally--and not eat Y after I've had X because I can't afford the salt. It all comes down to making sensible choices, whether snacking at home or ordering lunch in a restaurant. I don't feel deprived in any way because I can always make the decision about what to eat or even whether I want to risk the water retention, which, while uncomfortable, isn't going to kill me. Salt intake may be have a much more significant effect for some people than mere water retention, though.

Recently I found out that too much sugar can also lead to water retention--again, thanks to an unpleasant experience--but that's another story.

Everybody has a failure once in a while, right? Right?

I offer this post as a corrective for all those readers who think that food bloggers never fail in the kitchen. Or so it would seem when you read around on the blogs and other food sites. Of course the truth is that only the successes get written up. 

So let me tell you about my major FAIL a couple of nights ago.

I'd decided to make eggdrop soup, chicken fried rice, and napa cabbage salad with Asian dressing. I had leftover chicken and I hadn't made fried rice in ages. The last time I'd made eggdrop soup was in our old house, and we've lived in our current home for 14 years. The salad was new, something I'd not made before.

All in all, I was really looking forward to this meal. But, well, the best-laid plans . . . 

First, I'd postponed the meal by one night, which meant that I didn't trust the leftover chicken to still be safe to eat. I threw it out and got a boneless, skinless chicken breast out of the freezer. So far, so good.

I meant to cook the rice early in the day so it would have time to chill. Chilled is best for fried rice. Alas, I forgot about it until late afternoon. When I did get the rice on, it simply wouldn't get tender. I kept adding water and letting it simmer a little longer, until I'd spent about 40 minutes and still ended up with some hardness in the center of each grain. Not crunchy, exactly, but not tender, either. 

In desperation, I filled the pot with water and boiled the rice. Unfortunately, it came out as a lump of mush. Nonetheless I drained it and hoped for the best. What a relief when it came out better (somewhat) than it initially looked. 

On to the soup. Back in the day, I'd made this soup countless times, effortlessly and perfectly. Even the first time I made it, the soup came out great. So it was with confidence that I began. I had my little bowl of sesame oil and cornstarch-and-water, and my bowl of beaten egg and vegetable oil. The chicken stock was simmering away on the stove. Too bad I got confused and put the egg in first, rather than the cornstarch mixture.

I threw that batch away and started over. Judging by the taste, I used a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon of sesame oil in the cornstarch mixture, which gave the eventual "soup," if it could be dignified by that name, a rather overwhelming sesame taste. At least I got the mixture into the pot first. 

I thought the stock was plenty hot and removed the pot from the heat in order to add in the egg. The egg should sort of flash cook, and then as it does, one draws a spoon or chopsticks through the floaty stuff and lovely chiffony ribbons of egg should appear.

This did not happen. The only thing I can figure out is that either I hadn't let the stock thicken enough before adding the egg, or the stock wasn't actually as hot as I thought it was. My husband liked the soup anyway, but I dumped my portion down the drain.

The only thing that turned out really well was the salad, and really, who can mess up a salad? 

It's been a while since I turned out such a major disappointment of a meal, but I guess it can happen to anybody once in a while. So take heart if this sort of thing has happened to you. One day perhaps I'll write about the days of trying a macrobiotic diet and the disaster that was oat soup . . .

Ending the juice fast

To make a long story short (or shorter, in any case), I ended the juice fast early. I did it for 7 days instead of 10.

(My reasons for discontinuing the daily blogging of the fast had nothing to do with becoming disenchanted with the fast or fearing that I wouldn't finish the ten days. Let's just say that sometimes life hands you a rough patch.)

The morning of Day Eight, I realized that I didn't want to continue, so . . .  I didn't.  I'd read, and heard, that the first few days were the hardest, but that wasn't true for me. The first few days were really easy, and at the halfway mark, I was confident that it would be a breeze to finish the 10 days.

What happened was that I craved protein and carbs. My first foods off the fast were a boiled egg and a bunch of peanut butter-spread saltines. My daughter laughed when I told her what I'd eaten after deciding to ditch the fast. "It figures" was what she said (more or less).

I have no regrets about starting the fast or about quitting early. I will do a juice fast again, because it really was good for me. I felt good while fasting, and I looked good. In the meanwhile, I'll be juicing regularly as part of my usual eating habits. And I do think that making an extreme departure from one's usual eating habits can kick-start a healthier way of eating--for some people, anyway. 

What I learned on the fast:

1. It's really important to put the pitcher at the end of the spout where the juice comes out of the machine. If you forget (say early in the morning when you're a little groggy), it's messy.
2. If you're going to go off caffeine, do it before you start the fast itself. I had to do it gradually because of vicious caffeine-withdrawal headaches. Take that possibility into consideration.
3. Mean Green is not only palatable, it grows on you, especially if you tamper a little with the ingredient  amounts and add a pinch of salt. Who knew liquefied kale could be so tasty?
4. In fact, vegetable juices overall are really underrated. They don't get the respect they deserve. I know that I used to be revolted by the very idea of carrot juice. I was an idiot. Raw juices are delicious and you can practically feel the vitality pouring into your body.
5. But overcoming the strangeness of smelling beets or spinach in your glass might take a little time. Stay with it, because you'll get over it.
6. A juice fast will not leave you weak, tired, and hungry. At least it didn't leave me that way.
7. A juice fast will have you trying fruits and veggies you may never have tried before.  And that's a good thing.
8. I started to crave protein around the end of Day Six. Not sure I can overcome that in future fasts. This is just my experience; I'm sure every experience with a juice fast is different. And I don't think omitting protein for the length of a brief fast has any ill effects. I'm talking about cravings only, not malnutrition.
9. I'm definitely not consigning the juicer to the basement or the closet. I love the raw juices and will continue to use the juicer. I've got a great track record when it comes to actually using the kitchen gadgets I buy, and this will be no exception.
10. A macerating juicer (the kind my daughter has) really is better than a centrifugal one (mine). However, for the money, I'm not sorry about my choice of juicer. Previously, the price of juicers only added to my reluctance to try the whole juicing thing. I may trade up in the future, though.
11. Having a compost pile is a great idea if you're going to juice regularly. Lots of trimmings, plus lots of pulp. Why let it go to waste?

So, if you've got the means, I'd really recommend juicing and a juice fast of whatever length. If you can afford it, juicing will ensure that you get the veggies your body needs (and probably craves, if you're eating the SAD [standard American diet] way). Vitamin supplements are all very well, and I take them myself, but they can't replace actual plants with all their micronutrients.

If you decide to take the plunge, I'd love to hear about your own experience. You can also join the Reboot Your Life community and see what others have to say, as well as check out what it's all about.

Bon appetit! 

 [cross-posted to View from the Loft]

Me on a juice fast??

Yes, me on a juice fast.

It all started when my daughter told me about a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. (You can read her take on the film and juicing here, here, and here). I watched it on Netflix's instant play.

The documentary was inspiring and even, at times, moving. To see Phil--morbidly obese, dependent on medications, lethargic, and depressed and despairing because of his poor overall health--transformed into an energetic, healthy person who no longer needs medication is quite compelling.  No, I don't have his health problems or his weight problem, but most of us could use a little boost from time to time, and if a side benefit is to shave off a few pounds, so much the better.

I've often thought of buying a juicer, but the expense put me off, as well as the worry that if I did spend the money, I wouldn't actually use the machine. But at the website connected to the film I found a juicer that's actually quite affordable, and I thought to myself that I could do a juice fast every so often throughout the year just to drop some pounds and some toxins and perhaps revitalize myself. That's called a "reboot" by the filmmaker. And it appealed to me. Making fresh fruit and vegetable juices part of my regular diet also appealed to me.

The juicer I went with isn't the best kind of juicer, but it didn't cost hundreds of dollars and it's going to suit me just fine. I'm not even going to get into the types of juicers available; you can Google that yourself if you're interested.

My Breville juicer arrived yesterday, so the spouse and I made a trip to the supermarket for produce. We bought a slew of it: oranges, limes, apples, pears, cherries, carrots, spinach, kale, ginger, parsley, cilantro, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, beets, celery, cucumbers, bell peppers, and a watermelon (I'm probably forgetting something). My husband is not joining me on the juice fast, but I have a feeling he will benefit considerably just from having so many veggies around. I told him I'd cook for him but it would be mostly vegetables accompanied by simply prepared protein of some sort. He's cool with that.

I started off this morning with fruit juice. (There's a juice constantly in evidence in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead known as "Mean Green," but I'm working my way up to that one.) Breakfast  was juice made from an apple, a pear, haf a lime, and about a dozen cherries. It was delicious. Midmorning I had a carrot-kale-spinach-apple-ginger concoction and it too was tasty. It's something of a jolt to put all that bulk into the machine and end up with only two cups of juice. Makes you understand that the only way to get lots of phytonutrients and significant protein is by juicing, as no one could eat enough of the raw, fiber-filled veggies to ingest the amounts concentrated in the juice.

I'll be writing about my experience--the first time I've tried any kind of fast--here and cross-posting to View from the Loft. If you're at all interested, at least you can see how one person's juice fast goes.  

Do McDonald's hamburgers decompose?

According to one artist, the answer is no.

Sally Davies has kept a Happy Meal in her home for 6 months, with no noticeable change other than "it's hard as a rock." You can compare the photos yourself at the link.

McDonald's accuses Ms. Davies of fabricating the whole thing. Well, I don't know ... have you seen this video of the Bionic Burger? And the museum of ancient McD "food"?

 

Bodega!

Have I already posted this? If so, sorry. I just watched it again and had to put it up.

 

 

Michael Pollan's new rule

Michael Pollan has found a need to update his rules. The minimalist  set of rules: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The expanded set includes such things as "don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" and "don't eat anything with more than five ingredients on the label."

Pollan is an advocate for un-processed food, and one of the markers he used to identify highly processed foods was high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is not something the home cook can add to a recipe. It's manufactured using highly technical processes, and thus, when it appears on a food label, serves as a warning that the product has undergone intensive processing in a manufacturing plant.

But now that HFCS has been identified as a no-no, food companies are going back to sugar. Yet sugar is not a health food and is not particularly desirable. As Pollan says,

But to boast about your product not having high-fructose corn syrup as being some kind of virtue is really stretching it. And I think what we see here is another example of the food industry’s ingenuity in taking any critique of industrial food and turning it into the next marketing strategy. It’s a lot like the low-fat campaign, you know, which began as a government critique of food, you know, beginning with George McGovern in the ’70s saying we should eat less red meat because of heart disease. Whatever you think of the science of that, which turns out not to have been that good, it was a well-meaning campaign to improve the American diet. Industry came back and re-engineered the whole food system to have less fat in it and no fat in it. And that campaign sold a lot more food. And, in fact, since that campaign, we’ve been eating about 300 more calories a day, and we’re a lot fatter. So, you can’t—you just can’t underestimate their ability turn any critique into a way to sell food.

Too true.

As a result, Pollan has formulated a new rule: "Don't buy any food you've ever seen advertised":

And with all this new marketing based on these ideas, my new suggestion is, if you want to avoid all this, simply don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised. Ninety-four percent of ad budgets for food go to processed food. I mean, the broccoli growers don’t have money for ad budgets. So the real food is not being advertised. And that’s really all you need to know.

Amen.

Quick vegetarian meals, part one

This post is in response to a friend who asked for some fifteen-minute vegetarian recipes. I laughed and said, "Well, maybe 30-minute recipes ..." and she replied that even that would be helpful.

I was a vegetarian for nine or ten years, and believe me, it was no hardship (except, as my friend pointed out, in restaurants, which can be a problem in that you always end up having a pasta dish or the meatless pizza or some such). At the time I didn't object to soy-based meat substitutes, but today I'd balk at that, so I'm not going to include these in my menus or recipes.

Most vegetarians depend on legumes for much of their protein. I love beans, lentils, and split peas, and I relied on them for many of our meal plans. During my vegetarian years, I didn't have a pressure cooker, which was foolish of me. A pressure cooker makes fast work of dried beans, even if they're unsoaked.

But let's start at the beginning. (I want to state right here that my friend probably knows all this, and I'm just throwing it out there for anyone who hasn't stopped to consider these points.) I'm a believer in meal planning, and I plan meals covering one to two weeks. This simplifies grocery shopping, I never have to wonder "what's for dinner," and I don't rely on those nasty processed foods. I have all the ingredients I need to make dinner on a given night. It also ensures variety and gives me the advantage of being organized, so that I know I have to soak beans on Tuesday night for Wednesday's dinner. I'm not rigid about this stuff, but having a general plan works great for me.

So, the first thing to do is to plan your meals around your schedule. A busy day followed by an evening of work or social obligations is not the time for an elaborate dinner. Save that for weekends or whenever you have the luxury of time.

Second, I can't emphasize enough how much a pressure cooker can help. I can whip up split-pea soup in under half an hour, including chopping the veggies. In the smaller of my two pressure cookers, I make risottos whose taste cannot be differentiated from the time-consuming stove-top, constant-stirring-required version. Dried beans are cooked through very quickly compared to the hours of simmering they otherwise require, and they're far superior to canned beans (cooked dried garbanzo beans, in fact, seem like an entirely different vegetable from the canned variety). Vegetable broth is done in a matter of minutes.

The slow cooker (crock-pot) is also extremely valuable, especially for the working person. I had forgotten this handy tool until one summer when I had so much to do out in the garden that I never felt like cooking at the end of the day. Putting dinner in the slow cooker before noon meant that we were guaranteed a decent meal after the busiest (and grimiest!) of days. And it doesn't heat up the kitchen much, either. Among other conveniences, the crock-pot cooks previously soaked dried beans overnight so that they're ready for the next day's meal.

Next, let's consider the meal itself. Your meal should include protein, so if you're having, say, spaghetti with marinara sauce, it's a good idea not only to sprinkle your pasta with parmesan, but also to have a side salad that incorporates feta and chickpeas, or whatever cheese and bean varieties you like. To simplify putting a balanced meal together, it's helpful to have the following on hand:

• Washed salad greens. Either buy pre-washed salad greens, or wash the greens, spin them dry in a salad spinner, lay them on paper towels, roll them up in the toweling, and put them in a plastic bag. Don't add juicy veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers until you put the actual salad together, as they will cause wilting and sogginess.
• Cooked dried beans, or canned beans. These can be added to salads and pasta (and pasta salads!) and soups and casseroles ... you get the idea. Having a bean salad in the fridge is even better; use two or three kinds of beans for variety, throw in some scallions, tomato, bell pepper, sliced black olives, celery, or whatever, and toss with a vinaigrette, and you've got lunch or a dish to round out a dinner. Add cooked pasta for a great main dish salad.
• Hummus, if you like it. Spread it on a pita, topped with some fresh veggies and/or sprouts and some good yogurt, and you've got an instant lunch.
• Cheeses that you like. These can be shredded into salads, rice, pita sandwiches, quesadillas (I'll get to that), refried beans, vegetarian chili, etc. to complete the protein in a meal.
• Hard-cooked eggs. These add protein to a tossed salad, fit well in many pasta salads, and are good to eat out of hand or as deviled eggs. I love egg salad, which can be used to stuff a tomato as well as serving as a sandwich filling.
• Tofu, if you like it. I don't, but I wish I did. It can be used in all manner of dishes, including salads, soups, stir-fries, breakfast eggs or shakes, etc.
• Better Than Bouillon, vegetarian or mushroom type. This is somewhat expensive, but even a little really strengthens the taste of soups and stews. You can also make a good mushroom gravy using fresh mushrooms and the Bouillon.

Of course, I never had all these things on hand at all times, but having some of them, at least, does make things easier when time is at a premium.

Other things to consider:

• When you cook dried beans, cook more than you'll need, and freeze the rest in some of the cooking liquid for another recipe down the line. Toss cooked beans into salads, rice dishes, pasta, soup, etc. for a protein boost.

• Cook more rice than you need for a recipe, and plan to use it as fried rice in the next day or two (more on this to come).

• Freeze leftover soup, or dishes like lasagna or eggplant parmesan, in amounts suitable for lunch or for another dinner. The freezer is your friend!

• Make veggie stock when you have time and freeze it in amounts you're likely to use for your favorite recipes.

• Think about how to use one recipe two ways. For example, leftover vegetarian chili is great as a burrito filling (just simmer the excess liquid away) or even an omelet filling.

Neither of the above lists exhausts the possibilities, of course, but it should give you some ideas about planning, using ingredients efficiently, and so on.

Next up, I'll post some ideas and recipes for quick meals.

Wasted food

There's a whole blog out there devoted to the issue of wasted food: wastedfood.com.

This is not a trivial issue. Some estimates are that 40% or more of the food Americans buy is thrown out--more than $100 billion worth of food per year. Let's think about that for a moment. Consider, too, the packaging that goes into all that food we didn't actually need to buy, and the carbon footprint of the industrial food system that produced that unnecessary food. Worst of all, think about the 37 million or so people in this country who are "food insecure," who could surely use some of what the rest of us so cavalierly toss out.

I've always been unhappy about throwing food away. It just seems so wrong ... When I don't get around to canning or freezing my garden produce, the guilt is terrible--even if, as my daughter points out, it's not a total waste because it goes into the compost for next year's garden. Better, I suppose, than going to a landfill. I feel just as bad wasting whatever I've bought at the supermarket.

The freezer is indispensable in cutting down on waste. Yesterday I put two pint boxes of black bean soup in the freezer; we'd eaten leftovers for lunch a couple of times, but after two or three days one starts to worry about spoilage, so into the freezer it went. Putting leftovers in the freezer means that on any given day, I have a guaranteed no-fuss, just defrost-and-warm lunch.

When we have a large cut of meat, such as a roast, I plan for the leftovers even before I cook the roast. Roast beef sandwiches, beef-and-pasta salad, barbecued beef sandwiches, beef pot pie, roast beef hash: these are all possibilities, and rarely do I have to throw out meat.

With whole chickens, it's the same: I plan to use the leftovers for another meal (chicken divan, pot pie, etc.), and I make stock out of the carcass. Often I freeze the carcass until I have the time and inclination to make broth out of it.

I use whole grains, so I take care to store them in the freezer if I know I won't use them up before they become rancid. Whole cornmeal, steel-cut oats, whole-wheat flour and the like must be used within a few months, and I surely don't want to throw anything away, so once again, the freezer is the answer. I store nuts and seeds in the freezer as well.

One of the keys to not wasting food is to not buy too much food. Seems self-evident, and yet people do buy too much. Perhaps the large bag of salad, with its lower per-unit cost, is just too good to pass up, or there's a buy-one-get-one-free sale, but for whatever reason, Americans often buy more food than they can eat.

There's also another phenomenon at work, one I saw illustrated on the British show You Are What You Eat; people buy fruits and vegetables because they know they're "supposed" to, but then the produce doesn't get eaten. On the episode I saw, the woman of the house bought fruit galore, but the entire family, including her, passed it up in favor of cookies, donuts, chips, etc.

Late last fall I found myself with several lemons that were drying out and looking rather ill, so I juiced them all and made lemonade. I find myself doing more of this sort of thing as my horror of food waste grows. Apples, peaches, and pears can be sliced and the slices dried in the food dehydrator; berries can be frozen; overripe bananas can be frozen in their skins to be used in baked goods; citrus fruits can be juiced, and so on.

Anyway, pop over to wastedfood.com for some thought and discussion on this topic. It might serve as a reminder and an inspiration to all of us who have worried about food waste.  Oh, and check out this article in the Austin-American Statesman, too.

Does your pantry need an upgrade?

I had to laugh when I read this column by Mark Bittman (author of How to Cook Everything). I laughed because most of the changes he advises are changes I've come to slowly over the past two or three years, and I wondered if I'd have gotten to where I am, or my pantry is, sooner had I read this a few years ago.

Probably not. And that's why it might be futile to link to his advice: it seems that humans have to learn everything the hard way and take their own paths to their eventual destination. Nonetheless, I hope you'll read the article and take some of his admonishments to heart. It really will improve your cooking.

I won't lie to you: I don't live by all of the "rules" Bittman lays down. He says to throw out canned stock, but I do use it from time to time (organic only, of course). He has no use for dried basil, while I use it plentifully (others before him have said that dried basil is useless, but I don't find that to be true; naturally, I'd prefer fresh, but I can definitely taste basil even when it's the dried variety that goes into my spaghetti sauce). I'm also not going to stock up on anchovies (I don't like them) or fish sauce.

On the other hand, I couldn't agree more when he encourages the use of dried beans instead of canned, homemade salad dressing instead of the bottled variety, and homemade bread crumbs and croutons instead of packaged. And I haven't used bottled lemon juice in ages--it's quick and easy to cut a lemon in half and squeeze it through your fingers to filter out the seeds, so why bother with the inferior stuff?

So take a look and see whether your pantry needs an overhaul. I guarantee that making even a few of the changes Bittman recommends will make a difference in the taste of your (already fabulous I'm sure!) home-cooked meals.