Enlightenment Through Bacon, via cycling

"An army marches on it's stomach." - Napoleon (supposedly)

Around 2007, I found myself going through a dramatic period in my life, involving the dissolution of one relationship (the death of my parents) and the commencement of another (my engagement to a lady) all within a period of months.  I've found my mind wandering back to this unique time in my life recently: how it felt, what I was thinking, what I did to deal with it. What I did then is what I do now -- I go for a bike ride. But back then it was on a much grander scale to befit the size of the emotions I had to deal with.

I went biking. Not just up over the GWB to New Jersey, or a hard day-long push to Montauk. I purchased a custom folding touring bike, geared up, flew out to San Francisco, and attempted to ride my way back home. Starting at the end of August, I was aiming to be home for Thanksgiving.  The idea of "Lagom" guided me -- enough is as good as a feast -- so when I got about 2/3 of the way home,  I hopped a train at Carbondale Illinois and made my way home to NYC via Chicago. I had no regrets about ditching then, and looking back, I'm glad I did end it there.  It was the right thing to do.

I kept a blog. It was a really good tool to keep my friends and family up to date on what was going on with me, in whatever amount they were wanting to consume. It gave me a sense of purpose to bee-line to a public library in every town I hit up, and made me think about all the new stimuli that was bombarding my senses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I reread the blog last week from start to finish (as well as the private handwritten journal I kept as a companion piece, which I wrote about all the darkness and sadness that was also with me at the time.) I realized "ah, this is why I bothered with all this -- it was a message in a bottle to myself, in case I ever found myself in similar dire straights: here is a road map." Not so much a map across the nation by bike, but a road map to just....feeling my feelings. And eatin'.

I realized last week that before my bike trip, food was nice but not particularly central to my life. After the trip, I would go on to culinary school, work in restaurants, start a knish business, and in later years bring all this focus into changing my diet fo' real. But it was the new idea of eating and thinking about that really got introduced to me on this trip.

Because an army marches on it's stomach, a cross-country cyclist rides on bacon. Starting in Colorado and stretching through Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, I took a secondary route that may have been a big deal 50 years ago, but the coming of the interstates had rendered this 2-4 lane ribbon very off the beaten path. The small towns I'd visit rarely had more than one restaurant, and when there was one, it was some riff on a diner. Even if I was hungry, my stomach would be tight from riding all day -- however in the morning,  a heavy breakfast was always welcome.

Pancakes or waffles, and always bacon. I've eaten bacon most of my life, save for an ill-begotten time as a vegetarian and vegan, so it was comforting and familiar. However, because I was so hungry for that familiarity, I started to notice how different the bacon was. Not just different from the industrial thin-sliced stuff I was used to, but how the bacon actually differed from town to town as I pedalled across this great land of ours. Levels of smokiness, the different flavors of smokiness, saltiness, fatiness and level of marbling, thick or thin, fresh or embalmed. It was like my mouth gained it's own eyes, ears and nose on top of the ones I already had.

Then there was the encounter with a rye bread in Colorado. I wrote a piece about it that was published an a hyperlocal publication called the Grand Street News, here's an excerpt...

It took a loaf of bread in Ordway, Colorado, to make me realize that I missed the Lower East Side. After hitting the local library for internet access, I ventured into the only grocery in this small town to stock up on the fuel of a bike tour—lunch meats, bananas, sports drinks, chocolate, peanut butter, and bread. In the bread aisle, alongside the Wonder and various square loaves, was a plastic-bagged oval loaf with "JEWISH RYE" across its front. I may have doubled the Jewish population of Ordway that day. My parents and I have gotten rye bread countless times from Moishe's on Grand Street, but never thought of it as specifically "Jewish"—Eastern European, maybe, Lower East Side, definitely, but "Jewish?” Is there any other kind of rye? Perhaps Presbyterian? That rye made me feel far from home.

And from there, how could you not go the full Woody Allen?

Bagels are a universal travesty in all the hotel breakfasts I encountered across the country, but it was in Missouri that I found a "Kosher pickle," sold in an individual baggy. Opening it, the oddly yellow brine spilled out and stained the sides of the sink. One bite and I was an extra thousand miles away from Essex Street. I live in a place with arguably the best pickles and bagels in the world, and here I am hunched over a hotel sink with yellow-stained hands and a limp, mushy pickle.

My bike tour of personal transition was bookended by two memorable meals, for two very different reasons. When I arrived in San Francisco, I was greeted by a cousin I don't see often enough and her kids. She's a serious vegetarian, and they took me to a well regarded upscale vegetarian restaurant on the bay. The food itself was good, but most notable was how far in contrast it would sit to just about everything else I would eat on the rest of the trip. A vegetarian meal and/or a meal that costs more than $10 was just not something you encountered on most of the route I plied past western California.

The other meal was at the town I hopped a train, Carbondale, Illinois. This was the very first college town I was rolling through since San Francisco (hence services like a bike shop and an Amtrak station.) For dinner, I went to a pizza joint but skipped the pizza -- I had spaghetti and meatballs. In some of the larger towns I passed through, you'd get the occasional crappy pizza joint, but pasta was usually hidden. Here, this was the first pizza place that had pretensions to being "Italian". The spaghetti and meatballs was strictly in the lens of Chef Boy-r-dee, and I immensely enjoyed it. I always considered the Italian-American food that some call Italian food to simply be American food, but that afternoon in Carbondale, Illinois, I felt like I was at a little out-of-the-way cafe in Naples or Rome, eating authentically with the locals. When pizzeria spag n' balls become that intense, you know your perspective has been shifted enough and it's time to go home and see how different things will look now.
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Next week, weigh in. Not sure what to expect....a tiny little gain or....a big wopper of a gain? He he.
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WEEKLY AVERAGE:2451

Didn't work this week, not completely by choice but hell, I needed the time off to just be. Unfortunately, being tossed into so much unstructured time made it harder to keep the reigns on the eating, but looking at these entries, it could have been much worse. Friday, I tumbled hard and Saturday was a bit of an eating mess, but Sunday I was able to pull back and feel a bit normal. Glad to be going back to work on Monday.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2265

SLEPT: 8pm-3:30am, 7.5 hrs
Ikea with the youngest in the morning, solo trip to Costco in the afternoon, honoring MLK. Mindlessly ate some leftover nugget's of my kids meals, after the fact checked the label for calorie count and was shocked to find I grossly underestimated, blowing the budget. Only 65 cal, but still.

AM SNACK: 3:45 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9am, steel cut oatmeal, 410 cal

LUNCH: 12pm, falafel, tomato soup, health salad, pickles, 850 cal

PM SNACK: 2 pm, momma salad, pickle, 110 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, house salad with dressing on side, +/- 150 cal
Out with Edie for dinner, she had a slice of pepperoni pizza and bread, I ate the salad with 1/2 of the dressing it came with.

DINNER: 6:15pm, mahi mahi, asparagus, kimchi, 450 cal

EVENING SNACK: 6:45pm, 3 kid's chicken nuggets, 135 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 3275

SLEPT: 8pm-4:30am, 8.5 hrs
Good night sleep, with Lil' Edie curled up next to me. Is my sleep coming back to me? I sure hope so. Yep, I fell off the wagon today, but I'm not too concerned. Several factors came together at once: on top of not working this week to keep to a normal schedule, the huge snow storm shut down Edie's school early and the baby sitter needed to split so I took over the kids 4 hours early and had to skip out on plans to yogacize and other helpful me-centric things. Cooped up alone with 2 energetic and attention-requiring (but happy, healthy and lovely) kids was a bit much. Looking at the day's eating, I see where the worm turned -- the carby Graze Box snack was so delicious, I wolfed down the other 3, which meant that the train had left the station. I could have handled the carby snack at work, but at home while being on lock down with the kids, it was a mistake. A mistake not to be repeated. So even though I fell today, I learned something and have no worries that even if tomorrow isn't a clean day (and I suspect it won't be due to scheduling), I'll still be using some good discretion.

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, Fage whole yogurt with agave, almonds, vanilla, 310 cal

LUNCH: 12pm, sardine & avocado on whole wheat toast, steamed string beans, pickle, 585 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, "British BBQ" crackers from Graze Box, 220 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm korean chili rice crackers, fruity mango chutney and habas tapas from Graze Box, 320 cal

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, cashews, 160 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, cheetos, 300 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, peanut M&Ms, +/- 400 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, Stouffer's french bread pizzas, 820 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2240
SLEPT: 8pm-3:30am, 7.5 hrs
Technically I busted the budget, but close enough. This was a day out and about, visiting people and taking care o' bidnezz, far from a typical, orderly, scheduled day -- it could have gone a lot worse.

AM SNACK: 3:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 410 cal

PM SNACK: noon, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 1:15pm, 3 tacos, tossed salad, chips & guac, +/- 750 cal

PM SNACK: 7:45pm, cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, cheetos, 300 cal

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THURSDAY COUNT: 2025 cal

SLEPT: 9:30pm-4:15am, 6.75 hrs

Good weight session in the morning, out for chores, home for working around the house, then out for my first open yoga class in over 4 years. Kicked my ass and I peace-outed about half way through, but got a lot out of it. Considering a weekly practice, if I can somehow fit it in my schedule. 

AM SNACK: 4:45 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am,  fruit smoothie, 410

LUNCH: 1:45pm, chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, pickle, momma salad, 620 cal

EVENING SNACK: 5:30pm, cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 7:45pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, chips, diet coke, 675


1/2 brus= 175

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FRIDAY COUNT: x cal
SLEPT: 11:30pm - 5:30am, 6 hours
Plans fell through, too cold to ride, ended up wallowing on the couch with food n' tube. Haven't done this in years, actually felt good....to visit, though I wouldn't want to live there.

AM SNACK: 4:45 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2:  9:30am, Fage whole yogurt with agave, almonds, vanilla, 310 cal

OFF THE WAGON

Prison Loaf

In jail, loafin'

I've never been to prison, jail or local lock-up. However, there have been times in my life, years ago, where I would day dream and think, "Man, if I was in prison for a year or two, it would be a nice quiet respite from the chaos around me!" It would be a cinematic vision, me alone in a solitary steel and cement cubicle, with all the time in the world to relax, sleep, day dream, work out, watch TV and get myself together. I've read a few books about life 'inside', have had a pen-pal relationship with a person doing time, watched "Orange is the New Black" and have enjoyed plenty of prison-break movies.

If there is one factor that I did not account for in my prison-as-quiet-vacation scenario (other than, umm, overcrowded conditions, violence, loneliness, estrangement, and butt-rape) it's the food. Yeah, I read a book about the tradition of the last meal, where a person on death row gets to choose their last meal. (However, it's usually at the discretion, ability, budget and imagination of the prison cooks.) What caught my eye recently was a piece not about the last meal, not general prison food, but one specific item -- a food to control, a food to punish, a food that is being debated in the courts as potentially cruel and unusual: the prison loaf.

Every prison has it's own recipe, but in prison-terms it's referred to a "Nutraloaf", as a serving has all the calories and nutrients needed to live. It is a brick of common ingredients like meats, vegetables, starches and minimal fats and seasonings that are blended together, baked then served like a meatloaf. It is not designed to taste bad, but...not to taste like anything at all. Salt is usually minimized to maximize blandness.

A feast compaired to the loaf

This is not typical food served every day to a general prison population. It is a punitive food served to those who commit violence in prison, have used food or utensils as projectiles against others, or simply have not responded to any other method of keeping them in line. There are over 22 cases trying to ban this gastric form of discipline, and there is a precedent: Grue.

Grue was similar to Nutraloaf -- "a substance created by mashing meat, potatoes, oleo, syrup, vegetables, eggs, and seasoning into a paste and baking the mixture in a pan." It was banned in the 1970s as cruel and unusual. The key differences is that Nutraloaf is designed to not make you sick if you subsist on it for a period of time, and it is designed to be edible. Edible: not necessarily pleasure-inducing, but not disgusting either. It is designed to literally be "meh".

Just needs an artisinal prison loaf....

I definitely could see hipsters getting a chuckle, buying a slice of artisinal nutraloaf (either sustainably raised meat version or vegan versions) at Smorgasburg. One academic compiled a list of different nutraloaf recipes, all of which look pretty horrible. Here is the one that appealed to me most (least):

This recipe must be followed without substitution or variation in procedure. Any such change could effect the nutrient content.

• 2 oz Ground Beef Brown off in kettle and drain thoroughly
• 4 oz Canned, Chopped Spinach
• 4 oz Canned Carrots
• Diced 4 oz Vegetarian Beans Open and drain all vegetables well
• 4 oz Applesauce
• 1 oz Tomato Paste
• 1/2 cup Potato Flakes
• 1 cup Bread Crumbs
• 2 oz Dry Milk Powder
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder or Flakes

Combine beef and vegetables. Gradually blend in remaining ingredients until well combined. Mixture should be stiff but moist enough to spread. Each loaf should weigh 1 1/2 pounds precooked weight and be scaled to insure proper weight. Place mixture into a loaf pan that has been sprayed with pan release and lined with filter paper. Each loaf should bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit in convection/steam oven for approximately 40 minutes or until the loaf reaches 155 degrees internal temperature.

The absence of salt scares me. The glueiness from blending potato flakes, bread crumbs and milk powder makes me cringe. The teaspoon of garlic powder in such a large amount of food wont really give any garlic flavor, but will leave an odd generically metallic dried-spice note. No, I will not try to recreate this recipe for the sake of the blog.

My first thought of "cruel and unusual" food was what my pop referred to as my mom's "Puke Chicken". I don't know how she made it, but she would braise a chicken in some sort of wicked stew that was definitely reminiscent of vomit. Looking back with my c-school knowledge, there is no good reason to braise a chicken, when it is easier to roast, saute or pan-fry the damn thing. It was served with a kind of love I suppose, so technically it was not punishment and would not rise to the court's definition.

This generic braised chicken looks shockingly like my mom's, and my gorge is rising in reaction.....

Vegans who carry the party line would consider any animal-based food "cruel and unusual", and there have been isolated cases where government has agreed with them, attempting to ban foi gras here and there, but it's never really stuck. But let's not go down that rabbit hole for this post...

We'll, I'm sold. My friend in prison said he's incredibly uncomfortable because all the overly processed over-salted food (and lack of fresh veg) he's been fed has made him bloated and stiff. I think the thought of prison food 3x a day 7 days a week would make me incredibly depressed, bloated, and horrible all around -- and that's assuming I don't get the loaf. I guess I need to make (steal?) a few million before going to prison so I can afford one of those Club Med-style low-security lock ups, I imagine the loaf there would be actual foi gras.
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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2460

Slipping a bit, but I'm ok with it -- there is pressure coming from outside myself, but it's not a permanent situation. I may have to accept that I may add a pound or three this month, but the framework is here to get back on the horse sooner than later.

Hit the food hard again this weekend, and next week I'm off from work. Not my choice, but well needed. A little concerned how I'll navigate, without the regularness of a fixed schedule at a desk. Well, I did it 7 months ago for quite a while before I formally reentered the work force, so hopefully it'll be  a duck to water...

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MONDAY COUNT: 2360

SLEPT: 10pm-4am, 6 hrs
Very underslept over the weekend due to life events, so this meager 6 hours was actually really refreshing. Lifted weights and got a lot of chores done around the house before attending to family needs.

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, butternut squash soup, health salad, pickles, 860 cal

PM SNACK: 4 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5:30 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:15pm, mahi mahi, asparagus, kimchi, 440 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, cheetos, cashews, +/- 300 cal
Fell off a little due to new schedule. Early week is now a little bit more high pressure, later in the week lower pressure. Daughter was snacking on cheetos, she left one on the floor, and mindlessly I picked it up and popped it in my mouth instead of throwing it out -- that was all it took to shoot up cravings. After a small bowl, I acknowledged what was happening and ate a small handful of cashews, which while not as tasty as cheetos, extinguished the cravings that could have lead to a 1000+ cal gorging.

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2230

SLEPT: 9:30pm-5:30am, 8 hrs
Though I technically slept 8 hrs, it was with a kicky, rolling-about 4 year old, so I'd subtract 1 to 2 hours in quality from that number! Pressurized evening, so rather than cook, I heated up some comfort food, which fortunately came in close to budget -- not that it didn't set off cravings for savory snacks and sugar, but not so much that I couldn't resist.

AM SNACK: 6 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage yogurt with agave, vanilla, almonds, 310 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken meat balls, steamed string beans, jodhpur lentils, pickles, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 4 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5:30 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:15pm, Stouffers French Bread pizzas, 860

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2340

SLEPT: 9pm-5am, 8 hrs
Again, technically 8 hours, but due to toddler restlessness and a drop of insomnia in the middle of the night, closer to 6.5-7. Fell off a little in the evening, but was happy to confirm the satiating power of nuts after getting a little revved up by the tiny portion of cheetos at the bottom of the bag.

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 410 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, grilled curry chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, sofrito black beans, pickles, 650 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5:30 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, roasted salted cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm, 8:15pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, cheetos and a handful of cashews, +/- 300 cal

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THURSDAY COUNT: 2095

SLEPT: 10pm-4am, 6 hrs
Good weight lift in the morning, productive. A good friend visited me for lunch, I did the food, pic-nic style at a local public atrium in midtown. Did bring a poppa salad to work, but it tasted a little funny, so I tossed it.

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, Fage yogurt with agave, vanilla, almonds, 310 cal

LUNCH: 1:15pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, health salad, roasted brussels, pickles, 12oz diet coke, 740 cal
My friend is a diet coke-head, it was nice to share that with her as she shared my food (I made double of everything.)

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, diet coke, 735

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BIKE CREDIT: 600
FRIDAY COUNT: 3275

SLEPT: 11:30pm-2:30am, 3 hrs
x

AM SNACK: 3 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 5am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 6:30am, fruit smoothie, 410 cal

BREAKFAST 3: 8:45am, Hertiage O's with 2% milk, 100mg caffeine 300 cal

BIKE SNACK: 10:30am, granola bar, 305 cal

BIKE SNACK: 11am, digestive cookies, 1040 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, pickle, 60 cal

PM SNACK:4:15pm, cheetos, 300 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, fish n' chips, some chicken finger, a little ice cream and chocolate muffin, +/- 1000 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, cheetos, +/- 300 cal

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WEEKEND REPORT

5000+ calorie days, in need of comfort, and in the food I found it. Don't want to make a regular habit of weekends like this, hopefully I'll be back next weekend, we'll see.

Drill Down: Juicing Part 2

A little over a month ago I drilled down into juicing, but an article entitled, "Kale? Juicing? Trouble Ahead" popped up recently that caught my attention and thought deserved a full think-through. It was a piece supposedly about the dark side of juicing...

Imagine my shock, then, at my last physical, when my doctor told me I had hypothyroidism, common in women over 40. When I got home I looked up the condition on the Internet and found a list of foods to avoid. Kale, which I juiced every morning, tops the list, followed by broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and collard greens — the cruciferous vegetables I consumed in large quantities because they are thought to prevent cancer, which runs in my family. And flax — as in the seeds — high in omega 3’s, that I sprinkled on cereal and blended in strawberry almond milk smoothies. Also forbidden: almonds and strawberries, not to mention soy, peaches, peanuts, corn, radishes, rutabaga and spinach.

First of all, this is an opinion piece, not backed up by any research or citations. This lady is consulting Jenny McCarthy's University of Stupid: the internet. I did my own internet thinkin' and didn't find any reference to dietary recommendations in the treatment of a serious condition that will literally make you fat and stupid regardless of what you eat because of a lack of certain hormones. There is a an effective treatment for this condition: synthetic hormones, not cutting out friggin' broccoli and cabbage.

I do believe (and act upon) a diet that is more vegetables then not and as little grain and sugar as I can tolerate will lead to optimal health in general - the past year and a half has demonstrated that to me in real terms. That's in general: specifically, I do not believe diet will cure cancer or, say, reverse a friggin' thyroid condition. Though I juice kale every day and despise both it's taste and it's aura of saintliness (kale chips, FTW!), I don't think my hypothalamus is in any danger because this nutty lady says so.

Cure cancer? Fix my endocrine system? Fneh! I just want beeeutiful hair!

And then, as if my world was not sufficiently rocked, I went to the dentist, who said I had five cavities and asked if I snacked on candy and sodas all day long. I was insulted. Indignant. What did he take me for? No, I answered. I don’t eat sugar and drink only fresh vegetable juices — no longer kale, of course, but carrot and celery, which I’m still allowed. And filtered water with lemon.
“You’d be better off with chocolate and cola,” he said. Apparently the natural sugars in fruit and vegetable juices can cause decay, and lemon, though high in vitamin C and bioflavonoids which may prevent cancer, had eroded the enamel that protected my teeth.
I argued that I always brushed afterward. “Worst thing you can do,” he said. “That’s when the teeth are most vulnerable. Always wait half an hour after eating or drinking anything before brushing your teeth. And don’t brush more than twice daily. You’re destroying what little enamel you have left.”

If you scrub and beat up any material, then grind it in corrosive liquids and acids on a regular basis, of course it's gonna wear out. Though I haven't posted about it yet, my dental routine has become as disciplined as my diet -- and I knew instinctively to brush either way before meals or an hour or so after, it just feels right....and doesn't interfere with taste.

I just joyously ate a salad, now I will joyously brush my teeth.

Her fear of fluoride, however, urrrg, sorry, she's an idiot Jenny McCarthyite. My dad taught college chemistry most of his career, but he started as a researcher, and was involved in a lot of fluoride trials as a young chemist. Whenever he'd hear about people protesting fluoridation, he'd just shake his head and get sad. When asked what he was thinking, he'd usually mutter some variation of, "you can't cure stupid" or "just because you believe something, doesn't make it factual."

I considered my dilemma as I opened the fridge and took out the milk my husband puts in his coffee. Not soy, rice or almond milk — but dairy, from a cow. 

Soy is just "unnatural" as dairy, but she rightly surmises that soy is known to mess with hormones when taken in large quantities. I believe the author doesn't really understand moderation and balance, and assumes anything that is harmful in huge amounts must be harmful in minuscule amounts, too. I'm sure her dairy is reduced fat-free awful tasting chalk-water. Compared to full-fat dairy in moderation, fat-free dairy in large quantities is said to be poison by comparison, which would both make this author's head explode and perhaps will make for a future blog post.

It's your right to filter your own water, home school your kids, isolate yourself in a shack in the wilderness, but it is NOT your right to dictate public health issues based on pseudo-science, religion or "feelings".

When I was preparing for my first and only (so far) cross country bike ride in 2006, there was part of me that questioned, "Is this too much? Am I in over my head? Is this really necessary? Is this weird?" I don't remember how I came upon it, but I encountered the concept of "lagom". It's a Swedish word that cuts to the heart of perhaps why those of the Nordic peninsula seem happier than us, even when they're chronically depressed. There is no single equivalent English word, but it means "just the right amount", "in moderation", "in balance", "perfect-simple", "optimal" and "suitable."

The one translation that really rang my bell was: "Enough is as good as a feast." With that, my questions about my bike ride was settled. I'd take it day by day, and when I had enough, I'd come home." In yellow reflective tape, I put the word "LAGOM" in big capitals on my rear trailer. It took a month and I only made it from San Francisco to Carbondale, Illinois, but it was enough, and I was happy ending it then, and I have no regrets now. This lady, with her unyielding quest for health through diet, is seriously lacking in lagom, in balance, in knowing the limitations of what can and can not be done through diet.

My Intercontinental Hooptie, how I miss thee...

As I was juicing my fruit & veg this morning, Betsy asked me if I read the piece about how unhealthy juicing kale is. Ugg, in the media cloud, if you don't drill down, everything is both wonderfully healthy and horrible for you, too. How did this nitwit get published in the opinion pages of the NY Times? Or perhaps the proper question is, when am I gonna get MY New York Times opinion piece? There needs to be balance!

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If you read through my food diaries addended to these posts, you know I partake in the Evil Clown, aka McDonalds, or as my daughter calls it, "Egg McDonalds" as it is of no interest to her unless its an Egg McMuffin. Though I stopped eating a Quarter Pounder as a weekly treat a while ago, I'm still quite fond of the food....in very limited quantities.

While the Supersize Me doc showed what McDonalds would do to you if you ate it for every meal for a month (hint: you get fat), recently a high school science teacher ate nothing but McDonalds for THREE months.....but the twist was he and his students did the numbers on the food, and balanced his diet in terms of calories and macro nutrients. So he actually lost weight and reduced his cholesterol.

In reality, Morgan Spurlock did as many Americans do when they eat fast food: he gorged on whatever struck his fancy, free of thought or mindfulness. It is this teacher who is the out-lier, not Spurlock. Moral of the story: if your going to eat nothing but McDonalds and survive, you need the education of a professional scientist, the free labor of students under your wing, start exercising on a regular basis from nil, and the serious willpower of a hardcore dieter. Still, free McD's for three months...

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WEEKLY AVERAGE (4 day): 2011

On one hand, this is the first stretch of 4 days I kept to a strict budget without bending the edges anywhere. On the other hand, Friday afternoon through Sunday morning was a food-gorgefest of the likes I have not committed since the first days of trying to limit my bottomless eating. I know why and what's happening, this is a transitionary period and don't fear for the numbers on the scale in a few weeks.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2110

SLEPT: 9:30pm-3:45am, 6.25 hr
Didn't feel like it, but got a lift in this morning -- due to weather complications, couldn't do a 2nd lift last week, so I was due.

AM SNACK: 4 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 410

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, tomato soup sauce, health salad, +/-540 cal
Ugg. I think I may be out of tomato soup. Which begs the question -- what soup next? I did butternut squash and tomato. Think I want another smoooove one....

PM SNACK: 3:15 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, chicken breast, asparagus, israel cous cous, 700 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2050

SLEPT: 8pm-3am, 7 hrs
It doesn't happen too often, but at the end of the day when doing the math, found myself 250 cal below my minimum -- even with inaccuracies of the "science" of calorie counting, I probably ate too little. Plus riding to and from work in significantly sub-freezing weather didn't help, either. Cheetos to the rescue!

And unsurprisingly, after munching through those cheetos, I had the urge and desire to eat another bowl, or something sweet. I found myself looking through the cupboards while finishing up the dishes and had to consciously put myself to bed, giving myself permission to come back to the kitchen if I'm still hungry in 10 minutes. Of course, once I got into bed, I didn't even think about food again...

AM SNACK: 3:30 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am,  fage whole yogurt with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, sofrito black beans, 460 cal


PM SNACK: 1pm, mumbai masala crackers, 120 cal
From graze box. Interesting curry flavored mix of crispy chickpeas, cashews, peanuts and rice crackers.

PM SNACK: 3:15 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:15 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, grilled pork tenderloin, roasted brussel sprouts, kimchi,  400 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, cheetos, 300 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 1905

SLEPT: 8:45pm-3:45am, 7 hrs
Huh, third day in a row of keeping it high n' tight. Guess that rather than letting the stress of my life drive me to eat, I'm leveraging it to be more mindful of what I'm eating.

AM SNACK: 4 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am,  steel cut oatmeal, 410

NOON SNACK: 12pm, oat crackers with onion marmalade, 115 cal
From graze box. Holy crap, this was delicious. Short-bread (in texture, without sweetness in a good way) like crackers and a properly sweet onion spread, kinda like the caramelized onions I make for my knishes but more jammy.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, grilled pork tenderloin, roasted brussel sprouts, kimchi,  400 cal

PM SNACK: 3pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, roasted salted cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

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THURSDAY COUNT: 1980

SLEPT: 9pm-4am, 7 hrs

Woke up with pleasantly sore arms and midsection, so I didn't feel bad about just doing food prep and chores around the house at a relaxed pace while everyone slept. 

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am,  fage whole yogurt with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

AM SNACK: 11:30am, poppyseed pretzels & cinnamon honey almonds, 135 cal

From graze box. Impressively good, really well matched flavors of poppy and cinnamon, well balanced between sweet and savory and salty. That's 3 for 4 this week. I may have to switch from every other week to every week...

LUNCH: 12:45pm, 2 slices streetza

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:15pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, chips, diet coke, 675

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BIKE CREDIT: 530
FRIDAY COUNT: x

SLEPT: 11pm-2:45am, 3.75 hrs

Though I did not get enough sleep, I had both pushes and pulls that got me to ride. Push, in that tomorrow at 3am it'll be raining, and pull, I really needed to ride after not riding properly in more than a week and my stress levels at home not decreasing. Under control and productive, but a release is needed.

AM SNACK: 3 am, iced green tea, homemade granola bar, 100mg caffeine, 425 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am,   steel cut oatmeal, 410

AM SNACK: 11:15am, herby bread basket mix, 90 cal

From graze box. 4 out 4, really good. Little crackers, savory, flavors of garlic, basil and oregano intermingling, pizza-like enough to be enjoyable, but not too much to be cloying. Impressive.

PM SNACK: 12pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 12:45pm, bowl of dry frosted flakes and honey nut cheerios, +/- 400 cal

LUNCH: 1:30 pm, individual wood fired buffalo mozz pizza, water, +/- 800 cal

DINNER: 6pm, off the reservation....

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WEEKEND REPORT

I ate hard and heavy Friday afternoon through Saturday night, and my digestive system issued warnings Sunday morning which made the last day of the weekend much more reasonable. Major life events happened, the kind that usually don't happen more than once in a lifetime (twice if your unlucky), so for comfort I let my mouth do the leading. I'm writing this Monday morning, and am very happy to be eating to schedule again, so I'm not worried that this is the new regular or anything. You may notice the elements of reflection in the last few weeks, and that's about to be more pronounced for a bit.

As for what the hell I'm talking about, if I know you in meatspace, feel free to reach out to me. If our only contact is virtual, well, it's none of yo bidnezz.

Nut to the Nut

A wide selection of 'nuts.

The dietitian said I needed to reduce my daily calorie consumption from 2200-2350 to 2000-2200. Looking at what I eat, I was a little bit disturbed to find that most of what I ate was relatively nutrition-dense -- vegetables both raw and cooked, minimal grain and bread, barely any dairy, mostly lean chicken and fish, no sweets to speak of. The only glaring thing that was obvious to remove was my life-time habit of indulging in Fritos, and more recently Cheetos. It was a 300 calorie hit of processed yumminess that allowed me to feel indulged and undenied on a daily basis while actively losing weight. I excused it because it fit into my calorie budget. But now it didn't.

The Cheetos and Fritos had to go, if only because of the calories, but I also knew in my heart of hearts it's crap. It's the hyper-processed industrial product that I know to be part of the root of so many ills, and more importantly it's one of the few foods my kids always see me eat, and now indulge in with me. 

My first officially self-generated meme photo. -sniff- -sniff-, I knew I'd be a real blogger one day....

It's part of the grand American Puritan tradition to deny yo' self any sort of pleasure that could be linked to the deadly sins, like sex (LUST!), money (GREED!) and of course eating (GLUTTONY!) While by cutting out this one treat, it's probably not going to send me into a cycle of self-flagellation resulting with me being the middle-aged male king of Ana, I have to be wary of leaning on my self-control and will-power too much. It's THAT way of approaching things that prevented me from taking real action on getting control over my diet for so many years. 

It made me doubly concerned that for several days, my calorie count would come in more than a few hundred below my 2000 lower limit. After a couple of days of that, my will-power breaks -- not a good habit to get into. I briefly started reincorporating some 'tos to keep within in my new lower budget, but that didn't feel right. One night I was riding home on my bike, scarfing a bag of Cheetos to give me enough go-power to get home for a proper dinner. Sure, I was still in budget, but getting my bike gloves all cheesy and riding with one hand was just....stupid. The next week I did the same thing, but based on reading this piece in the blog section of the Times, replaced the rather unwieldy bag of 300 calories worth of cheetos with a single mouthful of 300 calories worth of roasted, salted almonds. CLICK

Consistent evidence for the health benefits of nuts has been accumulating since the early 1990s. Frequent nut consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of major chronic diseases, including heart and blood vessel disorders and Type 2 diabetes.

Just chronic disease? That's all well and good, but I got to slot these babies into a limited-calorie budget! I had already been harnessing the naturally calorie dense package of the nut into my nut-filled home made granola power-bars for my bike riding, and eating almonds twice a week, once as a condiment for yogurt, once as the filling in nut butter form in a sandwich. Could this ALSO be a solution to the Frito-sized hole in my diet? 

Snack-sized hole, hole-sized snacks, google image does not care one wit.

I guess I wasn't the only one experiencing the "CLICK", because the paper did a proper follow up in the Health section, siting more research and theories, specifically nuts as a way to lose weight. Yeah, nuts are full o' the EVIL fat, but...

But perhaps the most startling news is that nuts may help in maintaining a healthy weight. Research has found that people can snack on modest amounts of them without gaining pounds, and that nuts can even help in slimming down.
This dieting power is particularly hard to fathom when you consider that nuts pack 160 to 200 calories in each tiny ounce, not even a handful. And most of those calories come from fat. Ounce for ounce, cashews and pecans and walnuts are loaded with more calories than many of the processed foods being blamed for the surge in obesity. In the conventional wisdom, a dieter’s best friends are watery foods like celery and carrot sticks......

Nuts have several big things going for them, Dr. Mattes said. For starters, even a small amount can make you feel full. Scientists call this feeling satiety; it is a busy field in food research and marketing these days, given the way that snacking has become a sort of fourth meal, adding an estimated 580 calories to the average person’s daily consumption.
Why do nuts appease the appetite so well? Dr. Mattes pointed to several studies.
“They’re high in protein, and protein is satiating,” he said. “They’re high in fiber, and fiber is satiating. They’re rich in unsaturated fats, and there is some literature that suggests that has satiety value. They’re crunchy, and that would suggest just the mechanical aspect of chewing generates a satiety signal.”

I'm all cool with the less-processed-the-better and the thinking behind integrating more raw foods into our diets, but with a few notable exceptions, "dry roasting" a nut will be much more flavorful than a raw nut. It's easy to understand why -- it is dry roasted (roasted without any added oil) because those little buggers are already full o' oil -- they're self lubricated, and essentially deep fry in themselves when you bake them! And I don't care where you stand on the healthiness of deep fried food: as an American, it is your job to proclaim any deep-fried food as delicious!

And it gets better!

Nuts are also resistant to digestion, thanks to the tough walls of their cells. As much as one-fifth of the fat in nuts never gets absorbed by the body, Dr. Mattes estimated in a 2008 paper published by The Journal of Nutrition. He noted some weaker evidence that nuts may cause people to burn a little more energy as they simply sit around.
Even the fat that the body absorbs from nuts tends to be virtuous. It’s mostly unsaturated fat, with lesser amounts of the saturated type whose excessive consumption has been associated with heart disease.

To be fair, a problem with nuts is that they're so much like deep fried processed junk, they're easy to over eat and gorge on, negating their healthy aspects. Regardless, I think life gonna get slightly nuttier, now that I have this new tool to steer myself away from life-long Frito consumption.

I always wanted to be a nutty boy.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2751

Oof. Happy New Year indeed. Holiday eating. Reset, let's get back on track next week. Between time off from work, snow storms interrupting routine, a trip north to visit my brother and the chaos ripping through my non-blog life the past few weeks, I guess this could have been worse if I wasn't mindful enough to write it all down here.

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MONDAY COUNT: 1990

SLEPT: 10:30pm-6am, 7.5 hr
Half day at work, errands to run. Despite the schedule being thrown into turmoil, kept the food in check. Good work out in the morning. Surprised to find myself slightly sore when putting myself to bed.

AM SNACK: 6:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, steel cut oatmeal, 410

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, tomato soup, health salad, pickles, 760 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15 pm, momma salad, babaganoush, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4 pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

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TUESDAY COUNT: 3030

SLEPT: 10pm-4am, 6 hr
Decent work out this morning.

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9am, fage whole yogurt with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

AM SNACK: 9:30am, popcorn, diet coke, 500 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, pickles, momma salad, 610 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, slice of streetza, +/- 300 cal

PARTY EATS: 6:30pm, spagetti & meatballs, cookies, cheese n' crackers, 1 beer, +/- 1000 cal

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BIKE CREDIT: 825 cal
WEDNESDAY COUNT: 3385

SLEPT: 8pm-2am, 6 hr
Early up to ride in the cold, through Times Square. Nice head-clearing way to start the year. Not the best, food-wise, but not self-harming, either.

AM SNACK: 2:15am, M&Ms, cashews, iced green tea, 100 mg caffeine, +/- 200 cal

BIKE SNACK: 6am, granola bar, 350 cal

BREAKFAST: 9am, BLT on bagel, home fries, diet coke, +/- 800 cal

AM SNACK: 10:30am, large fistful of roasted, salted cashews, +/-500 cal

AM SNACK: 11:15am, bite of Edie's granola bar

LUNCH: 12:30pm, Stouffer's french bread pizzas, 860 cal

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, cashews and chocolate chips, +/- 500 cal

PARTY EATS: 3pm, queso & chips, gumbo over rice with mac n' cheese n' greens, cake & ice cream, 1 beer, +/- 1000 cal
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THURSDAY COUNT: 1905
SLEPT: 7:30pm - 6am, 10.5 hours
Intended to wake at 4 to lift, but woke up deeply tired, still sore from Tuesday's lift and beat up from yesterday's cold ride. Woke up feeling strong, so this was definitely the right thing to do.

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, steel cut oatmeal, 410

LUNCH: 1pm, berbere chicken, steamed string beans, Indian spinach n' cheese, pickles, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with bottled organic ranch dressing, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, diet coke, 435
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FRIDAY COUNT: 3445
SLEPT: 12am - 5:30am, 5.5 hours
Would have gone to sleep a little earlier and woken up at 4 for weights, but snow storm had the baby sitter sleep in the same space that I'd be lifting

AM SNACK: 6am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 8:45am, fage whole yogurt with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

AM SNACK: 11am, bowls of special k, bowl of raisin bran, with whole milk, +/- 650 cal
Quiet day in the office, hungry. Free food, too hungry. Ugg. Reminds me of childhood. They also had honey-nut cheerios and frosted flakes, which are just nasty. These were my ur-foods, so comforting...

PM SNACK: 2:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, pickles 170 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, BBQ pistachoes from graze box, 105 cal

PM SNACK; 3:45pm, cup of sugared cereal, +/- 300 cal

DINNER: 4:45pm, chicken burrito, chips & salsa, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookie, +/- 1000 cal

EVENING SNACK: 5:30pm, 3 slices of cold pizza, +/- 750 cal
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WEEKEND REPORT

SATURDAY COUNT: 3600
SLEPT: 8:30pm-5:30am, 9 hours

AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal
Had an extra juice pack due to the holidays.

BREAKFAST 2: 8am, WF breakfast bar small box, +/- 400 cal

AM SNACK: 11am, roasted salted cashews, 160 cal

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, mahi mahi, roasted brussels, whole wheat cous cous, kimchi, 830 cal

PM SNACK: 2pm, small bowl of cheesy poofs, +/- 150 cal

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, large bowl of chocolate chips and almonds, +/- 800 cal

DINNER: 6pm, sweet & sour chicken, pork fried rice, egg roll, diet coke, +/- 1000 cal

SUNDAY
SLEPT: 8:30pm - 2:45am, 6.25 hours

AM SNACK: 3am, iced green tea, small amount of chocolate chips, cashews and cheetos

AM SNACK: 6:30am, donut

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, sausage mcmuffin, hash browns, diet coke

LUNCH: 12:15pm, 1.5 bagels with cream cheese & hummus, water

DINNER: 4:15pm, quarter pounder, fries, diet coke

EVENING SNACK: 6:45pm, vanilla ice cream cone

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, slice of streetza

EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, cheese doodles