Phriday Phunn Quizz: Thursday Edition

Due to the holiday, we are presenting the Phriday Phunn Quizz a whole day early. I'm keeping busy by making two batches of ice cream for various social events we're attending, which after a few weeks of railing about sugar, and starting to rail about giving sweets to kids, makes me a big fat hypocrite the life of the party. Guess right and you'll enter the kingdom of heaven, but guess wrong and see how the kids around me will be after eating my ice cream.

This is the face of:

1. a pre-diabetic
2. Satan
3. a generation that grew up on much smaller portions
4. corporate imagineering

Family values include:

1. food and fun
2. lots of cheesecake
3. free-market Jesus
4. a super-sized combo bucket for $2.99

Well be back on Tuesday, with the monthly weigh-in and the state of the lard.

THE COUNT: 2230
A day out with Edie, kept to the budget. Lunch up with Grandma's on the UES at her favorite pizza joint. The house salad wasn't that great, and the dressing on the side that came with it was just vegetable oil with some dried herbs in it. I was given two containers, and I looked at the bottom - 2oz. That's four tablespoons, which is....400 calories of oil. And I was given two -- 800 calories of dressing. I poured one of them over the salad, but it could not hide the fact that was not that fresh, and I only ate half, with a lot of oil pooling on the bottom.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 375 cal

AM SNACK: 12pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 2:30pm, 2 slices pizza, house salad, diet coke, +/- 1000 cal

DINNER: 7:45pm, sardines & avocado on whole wheat toast, steamed string beans, baked red potatoes, 7oz diet sprite, 730 cal

Am I a Man, or a Garbage Can?

PJ O'Fudgenukkers, Brooklyn Style

One thing that calorie counting will teach you awfully fast: portions are stupid large. They've been large so long that we don't recognize them as large anymore. Look at the plates and bowls and cups from the my parents only 40-odd years ago, and they were noticeably smaller. Now that I'm a parent, those portions are now even growing larger, due to the "I am my own kid's garbage can" phenomenon....

THEY sit there, five little pasta shells, nestled in a shallow bath of melted butter and Parmesan: the remains of dinner for my toddler son and daughter. I cannot help myself. I reach over, grab the pink plastic bowl and scoop a bite into my mouth. At that moment, I realize something has gone terribly wrong.

The NY Time's Dining & Wine piece is all about the struggles of dads with little kids, vacuuming up their left over kiddie portions in the face of trying to keep a cap on their own eating. There are various quotes from what are referred to as "daddy bloggers", which gave me the kinda heebie-jeebies that a spoiled Jewish teenager from Long Island gets when someone off-handedly mentions JAPs.

Yeah, I'm a daddy blogger. Kiss my tuchus!

The piece is a fairly standard exploration of the challenges of living with and feeding a person with the tastes of a child -- sugar this, fried that, cheesy pleasey, and damn the cholesterol. To a certain extent, if you have an adult palate, your child will not always want to eat what you are eating but if you don't have a fully adult palate (and who does?), the temptation of high-calorie, high-taste food every day will be hard to turn away.

Even before I started counting and restricting my calories, I haven't been too tempted to eat Edie's foods, with the exception of the conveniently microwaved chicken nuggets. However today, I did act as Edie's trash can, but....it was a good thing, thanks to the restaurant I was in.

Today, me n' the kids spent the day in Brooklyn Bridge Park with a friend and her toddler, and she recommended a restaurant that she heard was kid-friendly, just up the street from the playground on the butt-end of Atlantic Avenue.

Come for the play-space, stay for kids leaving you alone while in the play space.

The Moxie Spot trumpets "Family, Fun & Food" on it's sign prominently, which immediately got me thinking of the Republican Convention currently going down in Florida. How much retrograde, religiously inclined insanity is defended in the name of "family, fun & food values"? To me, "family restaurant" is code for "crappy food, noisy room". But it looked near empty, so that was a plus.

Family Values runs on cheesecakes. Subservient, God-fearing cheesecakes.

Spacious, lots of wood, we ordered at the counter, they brought the food to us. A play area was near by, and a 2nd floor is a complete play area, too. Menu was standard fried stuff/pastas/pastries, with a healthy number of kids portions. The first thing I noticed was that the prices for everything, including the adult stuff, was kinda low for the neighborhood. Hmmm. The kids bopped at the coloring table, and when the food came, it was surprisingly good and...modestly portioned. Rather than sell you a standard jumbo burger for $12, here was what a burger usually was like 40 years ago, about half the size...for about half the price!

This past weekend in the Northfork, Edie begged us into submission was treated to ice cream every day because vacation days are "special days." It really annoyed me that one particular shop had no kid's size, just a "small" which was easily 12 oz, which is a large at a standard fancy-pants place in Manhattan. But here, my adult-sized burger & onion rings was pleasantly dinky, which allowed me to....hoover up most of the fries in Edie's kid's hot dog combo plate without the guilt wracking all the other "daddy bloggers" in the NY Times.

The place was quiet today, but I'd have to assume on the weekends the Moxie Spot is more jammed up than the "escort services" at the current Republican convention. Still, on a Daddy Blogger scale of one to five diapers, the Moxie Spot gets 4 1/2, discounted a half a diaper for the anemic pickle on my burger. Kids love pickles, but adults love good pickles.

Tomorrow, delving in to the dark heart of daddy blogging.

THE COUNT: 2,305
Last night was a struggle, got really hungry after I went to bed around 11pm. When I travelled around Europe as a student for a few months on a very limited budget, I went to bed hungry many nights, and when I got home my parents were happy/concerned with how thin I looked. The happy/concerned look of my long-gone parents got me through the night with out snacking.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, fruit smoothie, 350 cal

AM SNACK: 11am, momma salad, 90 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, burger, onion rings, fries, diet coke, +/- 1000 cal
Felt like a grand. Could be wrong, but don't think so. I think I may have to play with weighing a meal without counting, eating it, guessing the calories then doing the math.

DINNER: 6:45pm, grilled chicken breast, steamed green beans, baked potatoes, 7oz diet sprite,  840 cal

Lil' Debbie Gets Pwned

Gettin' the kids hooked.

I'm the pusher man. I teach culinary at a high school after school program in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I've been doing this for about three years now, about to start the fourth, it's a good gig while my main time is dominated with raising children. I do some recruiting in the cafeteria in September for an early October start. I set up a little table with the poster above, and present two trays of little brownie squares. One side is made by me, usually the day before, the other side is made by my evil counterpart, Lil' Debbie.

Bitch.

I have about 35 minutes while the student body eats a pre-packaged, pre-made, reheated, politically shaped,  and nutritionally regimented meal. They're shy at first, but once they've eaten and they see a few kids grab a few without paying, it rolls and all the brownies are gone before the end of the lunch period.

I sell them on the brownies to take the class. Taste them one after the other, and most either grunt "thanks!" and run away. Some linger, and give their opinions. Most prefer the home-made, but a few always say the Little Debbie is better, as it tastes like a brownie is supposed to taste - they've never had anything else. A few have a revelation -- they are tasting a real brownie for the first time, not an industrial simulacrum of the idea of a brownie, made with the cheapest possible ingredients and artificial additives and preservatives to deliver a brownie-like experience. It is those students that usually become my students. They usually have a predilection to be interested in food, but the brownie tweaks them.

Gimme chocolate NOW!

I also point to the cost vs. quality. Despite shelling out for top-of-the-line foo-foo organic ingredients for my brownies, it still actually comes out cheaper per brownie than Lil' Debdeb. I list my ingredients by what there is most of to least of, so the first ingredient is sugar. Lil Debbo has flour as first, but forms of sugar as #2, #4, #5 and #9. Who do you think has more sugar per bite? My brownie doesn't even have nine ingredients.

It's a cheap but efficient ploy -- most kids are already familiar with sweet, with chocolate, with moist and gooey. I teach 6 different sections of varying length and advancement during the whole school year, and only one of them actually gets a pastry class, where I teach various cookies, cakes, pies and tarts. However, the brownies usually come up when we cook a full meal for the whole school at Thanksgiving, or for the PTA, or for a once-a-year catering gig.

Speaking of pre-packaged, pre-made, reheated, politically shaped, and nutritionally regimented meals, the government of NYC recently tried to cancel a program that puts professional chefs in public schools to make from-scratch fresh food for the students instead of the trucked-in packaged crap from central commissaries. Why? Because the meals prepared might not meet new federal nutritional standards that are required to get certain federal lunch funds. Fortunately, the city reversed it's decision before school reconvened.

After Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, and other lawmakers urged the Education Department to figure out a way to keep Wellness in the Schools involved in devising and cooking meals, the department decided to allow the program to continue.

“We are working in collaboration with WITS on an alternative menu that will also meet the new U.S.D.A. regulations,” said Erin Hughes, a department spokeswoman. “The department always aims to work with our partners, and we value having an organization like WITS in our schools.”

It's sad that the level of bureaucracy is so thick that a major contender for mayor in the coming election has the opportunity to tweak the rank and file to make what should be simple matters work. I see the food the kids are eating at the high school in Red Hook, and it is god-awful. It might be nutritionally sound, but they are not eating a lot of it. It's not because there isn't enough sugar or candy coating or salt or frying to it -- it's because it's not fresh, it's been sitting around too long, and is made with crappy ingredients. Urgle burgle, I think I might have to spend a week blogging about school meals soon...

Urgle with side of burgle, steam gurgle, and a pint of durgle.

THE COUNT: 2360
The weekend was hard -- Greenport in the Northfork has become uncomfortably touristy, and after almost a decade of going their to visit every summer, I think this might have been the last time. A deciding factor is the wicked combination of an ice cream obsessed toddler and a one-block downtown with about five different flavors of ice cream shop. We justified feeding her ice cream every day with "being on vacation" and explained to her that eating ice cream more than once a day would make her "fat and sad", which she countered with "ice cream is yummy in my tummy!" -sigh- Then I said, "Girl, read my blog your just like your mother."

Pizza, lobster rolls, fries, a total lack of vegetables, it wasn't pretty. Saturday night we skipped the restaurants and I got a bag of baby carrots for dinner, as lunch was still weighing on me. Sunday I woke up to ride an organized century bike ride, and hungry me was met by a huge table of cakes and pastries at the start line. I gorged on a stupid amount, and while it gave me energy, I suspect it might have effected my mood for the worse. Who knows, there were a lot of other factors working. Something to keep in mind to pay attention to the next time I gorge on sugar.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, 7oz diet coke, 0 cal
Need to make green tea today, settled for a lesser eye opener.

BREAKFAST: 9am, fage full fat yogurt with honey, almonds, vanilla, 330 cal

LUNCH: 1:30pm, spicy beef patty, vegetable patty, 830 cal

DINNER: 7pm, broiled sole, steamed string beans, boiled corn, baby carrots, 14oz diet sprite, 730 cal
Tempted to cook up the potatoes that came from the CSA this evening, but had corn bought from a farm stand in the Northfork yesterday that had to be eaten. Nice problem to have.

EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, watermelon, 150 cal

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, peanuts & chocolate chips, 320 cal

Phriday Phun Quizz: More Sugah, honey!

Friday once again! Takin' the fambly out for an end of summer weekend away, so we'll continue to report from my stomach on Tuesday. Leaving in the morning, so I'm going to just try to aim to go to bed slightly hungry without recording the calories.

Here lies the Phriday Phun Quizz. Guess right and be rewarded by our Father Art, who is in heaven. Guess wrong and see what is wrong with them kids today.

Chris Crocker wants you to:

1. leave Big Food alone.
2. eat more sugar and grow up big and strong just like him.
3. buy his new porn video.
4. use him in a meme, any ol' meme.

This is an example of:

1. The Nanny State
2. Truth in Advertising
3. All of the above
4. None of the above

Paula Deen has got:

1. the Buttah
2. the Sugah
3. the Fattyfat
4. the chachas

These drinks represent:

1. the mixture of alcohol and sugar
2. drinks for children
3. crimes against civilized culture
4. dinner at Sigma Kappa Alpha

It's Sugar, It's Alcohol, It's Sugar Alcohol!

Ain't no party like a sugar-booze-caffeine party!

When I heard about sugar alcohols, my first thought was, "Ah! Now THAT is the product of the future!" Sugar and alcohol is quite a party combo. However, "sugar alcohol" is good if your party is full of senior citizens:

Sugar alcohols can produce a noticeable cooling sensation in the mouth when highly concentrated, for instance in sugar-free hard candy or chewing gum.

From the highly toxic single-carbon methanol to the food-friendly multi-carbon sorbitol, they're all sweet to the taste, and have fewer calories than sucrose's 4 cal/g.  They're not as sweet as sucrose, but can take the edge off the off flavors of artificial sweeteners. Sugar alcohols also don't cause tooth decay - sweet! But meh.

Sugar and alcohol have something in common: If sugar were to get in to a fight with alcohol, he'd slice his hand off and casually admit, "I am you father...."

"4-Luke-oh, you are a distillation of me, Darth Sucrose." Sorry.

They're both super-simple carbohydrates that the body needs to do little to get into the bloodstream. Sugar will rush in and give you fast energy, then a crash. Alcohol will rush in and get you drunk, then hang you over. When sugar undergoes the metabolic process known as fermentation, an environment is produced to allow yeast to go nutso and eat all the sugar. The yeasts belch & poo two new, simpler components: alcohol and CO2. Through distillation, any boring stuff like water is taken away and you're left with spirits.

Sugar is 4 cal/g, and even though alcohol is made directly from the sugars in the original sources like grains (vodka, beer), raw sugar plants (rum) and grapes (wine), it has 7cal/g. It's quite a different animal. Or is it?

Excess sugar can alter metabolism, raise blood pressure, skew the signaling of hormones and damage the liver — outcomes that sound suspiciously similar to what can happen after a person drinks too much alcohol. Schmidt, co-chair of UCSF’s Community Engagement and Health Policy program, noted on CNN: “When you think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense. Alcohol, after all, is simply the distillation of sugar. Where does vodka come from? Sugar.”

Alcohol is an acquired taste, but the pleasure from it's intoxicating effects is universal and timeless. Add some sugar to an alcoholic drink to mask the taste of the alcohol and make it taste like candy, and you got one wicked brew.

Sorority Breakfast.

As a middle-aged parent of two, I don't drink much anymore and don't know many people who drink much more than I do. Of course, back in college, I drank to keep up and I had one close friend who became a full-blown alcoholic after our university years wound down. Looking back on our time together, I remember him being much more enthusiastic about getting drinks than I, but what sticks out more is his over-arching love for potatoes in all their forms. We joked it was because of his Irish heritage, but perhaps he needed the simple starches to help quell an addiction to simple sugars, which would eventually be serviced with alcohol? Research seems to point to a relationship between sugar addiction sweet tooths and a prediliction to par-tay alcoholism.

More and more, I'm wondering why sugar isn't being consider a combination food/drug, like alcohol, and it's giving me the sadz.

Make that a sugar-free cupcake, dang it!

THE COUNT: 2450
Went over the budget, but it was a day on my feet, taking Edie to the Bronx Zoo, so I'm not going to beat myself up. There were many, many opportunities to indulge in french fries and ice cream at the zoo, and Edie didn't let me forget it.

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, kolon bloe, 300 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat bread, momma salad, chocolate covered espresso beanz, 7oz diet coke, 700 cal

PM SNACK: 1pm, small vegan chocolate chip cookie, +/- 50 cal
Friend and fellow kitchen experimenter offered me a cookie, I couldn't say, "sorry, I'm on a strict diet, so I'm going to be a sourpuss and a dark cloud of unfun and refuse your delicious cookie."

DINNER: 7pm, whole wheat spag with turkey meatballs, tomato sauce, parm and steamed string beans with butter, 1160 cal

PM SNACK: 9:30pm, popcorn, 240 cal

Diabetes, Diabeetus, let's call the whole thing off

Nazis getting you down? I'll be your buddy!

My poppa and his family escaped from Austria in the late 1930's, one of the last Jewish families to leave before it became impossible. Dad never spoke much about Vienna. Even when we visited his hometown when he was an old man, other than some vivid memories of "NO JEWS" painted on park benches in yellow, he didn't have much to say about the place....except for the bakeries. A Viennese sacher torte sent his childhood heart spinning, the cream puffs and cakes and confections made him all a-twitter decades before twittering became a thing. He had the most wonderful memories of a bakery on every corner, each turning out more fantastic temptations than the next. Unfortunately, his spinning childhood heart also sent his adult insulin levels spinning, too.

My father had adult-onset Type 2 diabetes in his later years, starting when I was a teen. He credited his life-long sweet tooth for his high blood sugar, and he managed his disease well, with a focus becoming of his scientific training. He eliminated all candy and junk food, he acquired a stationary bicycle and spent a regular number of hours on it five days a week. I remember seeing my parents while on vacation from college. I'd be going out at night and my mom would be bed in her housecoat and my dad pedalling away on his stationary bike. She'd be watching TV and he'd be reading a book on a stand attached to his handle bars. They made it work.

Later in life when their exercise routine got too dull, they resorted into learning all the dance moves of Kid n' Play.

So in these past few weeks of reading and writing about sugar, I was thinking that underlining the relationship between sugar and diabetes would be a no-brainer. Except that my "common sense" assumption is, uh, wrong.

The myth that sugar causes diabetes is commonly accepted by many people. Research has shown that it isn't true. Eating sugar has nothing to do with developing type 1 diabetes.
The biggest dietary risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes is simply eating too much and being overweight — your body doesn’t care if the extra food comes from cookies or beef, it is gaining weight that is the culprit.

The American Diabetes Association goes on to say that while sugar may make blood sugar spike and make you feel crazy n' wot-not (specially if you already have diabetes), that in itself will not cause diabetes. But if you constantly take in too much sugar or any carbohydrate, that'll put you in a direct path to "the sugah".

All the buttah just makes the sugah shoot through me fastah, honey!

The NY Times recently featured a piece about a new study that shows that the best way to prevent Type 2 diabetes in prediabetic people is bariatric surgery, yick!

Over the course of a roughly 15-year period, those who had one of three types of bariatric procedures were 80 percent less likely to develop the disease than people who tried losing weight with diet and exercise advice from their doctors.

The important take away here is twofold:

1. Most diabetes comes from being fat, and when you lose the chunk, you lose the diabetes.
2. Those who choose what McDonalds and Big Sugar would recommend (the freedomy choiciness of a balanced diet and exercise) to cure their diabetes overwhelmingly fail compared to those who cut up and splay their guts with expensive, risky, painful procedures. 

Sugar may not directly cause diabetes, but it's addictive qualities do directly cause obesity, which in turn directly causes diabetes. So sweet sugar, you're not quite off the hook.

The Last Word in Diabeetus.

Tomorrow, two tastes that go great together: sugar, alcohol and -gasp- sugar alcohols.

THE COUNT:2275
The day centered around lifting weights and cleaning up the house, then some good friends coming over with kids, making pizza for all, then walking the strollers through naps to enjoy some downtown parks. It left me tired and a bit frazzled, but all the more in love with my family.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, steel cut oatmeal, 375 cal

LUNCH: noon, home made margarita pizza, 14 oz diet coke, 830 cal
Every ingredient pre-scaled and mapped out, made it easy to whip out 4 pies of equal caloric content.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, half a vanilla ice cream cone, 100 cal
Didn't need this snack, but Edie did, and I had to eat along to prevent a huge ice cream mess on her face, hair and clothes. The whole cone was about 190 cal, and I probably ate about 1/2 of it.

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, 6" veggie burger sub, Doritos, soda water, 760 cal
Didn't want to cook, but didn't want the questionable calories of ordering in food, so I popped over to the local Subway for some peace, quiet and certainty.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, watermelon, 85 cal

Soda Ban: The Facts, Astroturfed

FROM MAH COLD DEAD HANDS!!

Big Soda has dropped some of their loose pocket change to set up a website to influence the voting public on a topic they can't actually vote on, so it's interesting to delve into what exactly they're getting at. Let's take a look at the "facts" as they see them, shall we?:

What beverages would be banned? The mayor is proposing a ban on the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages over 16 ounces in restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues, coffee shops, pizza shops, delis, food trucks or carts. This restriction would apply to both fountain and bottled beverages and include beverages like soda, sweetened coffee drinks and teas, juice drinks and sports drinks.

The correct answer is, "No beverages would be banned." It's a serving-size issue for the most caloric, nutritionally-void drinks. While juice and sports drink have a patina of nutritional value, the bottom line is they are as full of empty calories just like Mountain Spew and Croaka Cola.

I coulda been a contendah....for wacky pack copy-writing.

What beverages are exempt from the restriction? Diet sodas or any other calorie-free drink would be exempt from the restriction along with any drink that is at least half milk or half milk substitute.

So now it's a "restriction" and not a ban. Basically, the whole wide world of non-sugared drinks are unaffected. But if you're a sugar-addict (or a share holder in Big Sugar), that doesn't mean much.

Does the restriction apply to free refills at restaurants? No, it doesn’t. Consumers could refill a beverage at a restaurant as many times as they want.

So much for being a "ban" or much of "restriction", for that matter. There is also nothing stopping anyone from buying multiple sodas, not just freebies, but making this point fully clear would be too, uh, honest and factual.

Drink in the Freedom.

Does the restriction apply to beverages sold at grocery stores? This proposal would apply to all restaurants/food locations which require a health inspection report. People can still purchase sodas, juice drinks, sports drinks and sugar-sweetened teas in sizes larger than 16 ounces at the grocery store.

If you want to be a disgusting glutton that people stare at and cluck their tongues at, you still can be...at the grocery store.

Are sugar-sweetened beverages the cause of obesity? No, calories from all foods count. From 1999 to 2010, full-calorie soda sales declined 12.5% while obesity rates went up. According to the CDC, added sugars consumed from sugar sweetened beverages are down 39% thanks in part to more low- and zero-calorie choices. Restrictions that target a specific size of beverage will do nothing to change behaviors or teach people about a healthy lifestyle. Only education, diet and exercise can do that.

Oy. Sure, calories from all food count, but between the addictive nature of sugar and the fact that it is nutritionally void, it is sugar that is the most expendable, if we need to cut calories. Sales might be going down in sugared soda, but consumption of sugar is still up, due to our increase in all calories since the 70s.

The most galling statement here is "Restrictions that target a specific size of beverage will do nothing to change behaviors or teach people about a healthy lifestyle."  To say that rules, restrictions and laws do nothing to change behavior is a flat-out anti-gubbermint lie. "Only education, diet and exercise can do that," is just another variation of the McDonald's Defense: it's a personal responsibility, it's on you to care for yourself, we're just an innocent party over here. If our product sickens you, then stop using it. No addictive qualities here, no compulsion through repetitive media exposure, just move along, thank you!

No, continue eating 68 sugar packets. You will not get fat. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Will the beverage restriction have an impact on obesity rates in New York City? No. While New Yorkers would be limited to 16-ounce beverages, they would still be able to indulge in other high calorie foods. According to government data, sugar-sweetened beverages like sodas, juice drinks, sports drinks and teas account for only 7% of calories in the average American diet. With 93% of calories coming from other foods and beverages, it’s time to look at the bigger picture—diet and exercise.

That is one incredibly certain "no," when there is no test case or study, and throwing out random statistics that don't really bear any weight on the issue doesn't help. The assumption is that people will eat the same number of calories regardless of restrictions (because we are all wild animals with no sense of shame) so why bother.  I don't think the restrictions will impact NYC's obesity because it doesn't go far enough, but I really don't know. That the message, "these drinks are too large" will become a more normalized part of the noise cloud of culture is fantastic.

The bigger picture is not to put all the responsibility on the individual -- the bigger picture is to start targeting habits that are aided and abetted by non-individuals. Corporations may be "people", but they ain't individuals.

And they have a strict diet of Soylent Green.

Will I be able to vote on this proposal? No. The mayor is only required to get approval from the NYC Department of Health to make this restriction a reality. However, public hearings will be held. Join New Yorkers for Beverage Choices to stay up to date on all of the latest developments along with information on how you can make your voice heard.

This underlines the importance of this 16-oz restriction is to the Soda Industry: it is the tip of the spear, so let's shut this conversation down before they figure out perhaps unrestricted access to addicting high-profit products are not in the consumer's best interest. Well,  according to the latest news on the website, the public hearing happened, and the public spoke. And the public agrees with the "ban" was suppressed by the evil gubbermint bureaucracy:

“The one and only public hearing about the proposed ban came and went, and many businesses that would be impacted were unable to voice their opinions because of the inconvenient time and location – in Long Island City in the middle of the business day,” said Coalition spokesperson Eliot Hoff. “Whether or not city officials are listening to New Yorkers on this issue, we are still out on the streets educating people and businesses about the impact and encouraging them to stand up and make their opinions known.”

Stand up and make their opinions known, as long as it is in line with the bottom of line of Big Soda. Astroturfing at it's finest!

Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to another political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. The term is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.

 Tomorrow, we jump to the defense of sugar, dispelling the myth that sugar causes diabetes. FBIWC: Fair and Balanced.

THE COUNT: 2345
Took Edie up to Tarrytown to visit a friend, her kids and their suburban public pool. Eating was an afterthought, and I didn't object when she brought us to the Golden Arches -- I would know exactly how many calories I was taking in.

On the opposite end, the whole wheat pasta dish was again assembled from fresh CSA vegetables just picked from the ground this morning.

AM SNACK: 6:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, fruit smoothie, 350 cal

AM SNACK: 11am, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 3:45pm, quarter pounder, fries, diet coke, 890 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, whole wheat fusilli with tomato, eggplant, pepper & herbs, +/-800 cal
Did measure this meal, but didn't feel like finishing it. Measured out at 985, bringing to the upper limit of my budget...

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, dark chocolate, 160 cal

Big Food is the New Big Tobacco

Man exhaling after a good suck on a cigarette. Or a Smoke Monster, what evs

In Sunday's NY Times, there was an article on the front page of the business section that detailed a class of high powered lawyers who spent their careers targeting Big Tobacco quite successfully. Now that the Smoke Monster has been more or less defeated, they've set there sights on a new monster:

“There was nothing scary on (the can of Pam cooking spray), just this innocuous word, ‘propellant,’ ” said Ms. Sturges, a hairdresser from Los Gatos, Calif. After digging deeper, she learned that “propellant” included petroleum gas, propane and butane. “I’d been spraying that on muffin tins to make muffins for my grandchildren — oh my God!”

The lawyers are going after Big Food, but not for the reasons I assumed. It's not that Big Food is promoting unhealthy food for maximum profitability at the expense of public health -- that may be immoral and evil, but not illegal...yet. They are going after mislabeling. As my dad said, "Hey, cyanide is all natural." There are no set standards to call something "all natural" or "healthy", so when something is promoted as such, even subtly, when it really isn't, that may be actionable.

Big Food's new mascot, Devilly Foodstein

The article points out that Big Tobacco wriggled out of years and years of lawsuits because it pulled the McDonald's Defense -- smoking was a personal choice, and who are we to interfere with one's personal rights? Only when the clutter was pushed aside and the science was taken seriously, it was finally acknowledged that Big Tobacco's product was making people addicted & sick, run up huge medical bills and -ahem- killed them. The government and justice system turned and made things a bit righter. Not fast enough to help my mom's life-long cigarette habit that  killed her before she could meet my children, but what-evs, B.T.

Consumers are increasingly conscious of their eating habits as rates of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and other health problems rise. State and local governments are also becoming alarmed at the escalating costs of caring for people with those diseases and are putting pressure on food companies.

Smoking was a "personal choice", but man does not make choices in a vacuum, and those who profit from influencing choice bear responsibility. Perhaps when enough people die from the food habits that will be reclassified as addiction-fortified and under the pointed influence of Big Food for their profit at our expense. I hope I'm not being too shrill, I'm gettin' all Chris Crocker on ya.

Please!! Leave Big Food aloooone!

In local  news, NYC's Mayor Bloomberg has been pushing a "soda ban", which is so gentle that it doesn't actually ban any soda at all.  But Big Money is at stake, so at even the hint that public opinion might be shifting from "personal responsibility" to "societal responsibility", the representatives of Big Money will come at us, pretending to be our friends, defenders of freedom, choice, babies and AMURIKAH! Big Soda put together a website with everything you need to know, so let's (cue DJ sound) BREAKITDOOOOWN!

Don’t let Mayor Bloomberg ban beverages over 16 ounces in NYC
Mayor Bloomberg is proposing to ban sales of sugar-sweetened beverages over 16 ounces in New York City. Fountain and bottled beverages over 16 ounces could no longer be sold in restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues, coffee shops, food trucks and street carts.
According to the mayor, New Yorkers need help deciding what size beverage is appropriate.  

If this now, what’s next?

The scare-title is wrong. It should read

Don't let Mayor Bloomberg ban sugar-loaded beverages over 16 ounces per single cup in NYC's inspected eating establishments

That's right, there is NOTHING stopping anyone from ordering TWO 16 ounce beverages. Or ten for that matter. It only effects businesses that need inspections from the Department of Health, so you can still get your 2 liter bottles of pop from the supermarket.

New Yorkers (and all Americans) need help deciding what size beverage is appropriate. Many are eating too much, we're getting fatter, and sugared soda is nutritionally vacant. When sugared beverages originally hit the market, the typical bottle was 7 ounces. Why is 20oz the new standard? Is it because people wanted more "freedom", or is it because agricultural policy made sugar cheap and vegetables expensive, that sugar is addicting and there is more profit in selling larger and larger quantities? People do not want  to be fat, get diabetes and rot their teeth. Is guzzling large quantities of soda more important than health?

Bloomberg's smoking ban has been a raging success. Bars and drinking establishments that predicted dire consequences ate their words when

1. smokers just smoked outside in all weather, because they're addicts and 
2. people who hated having to share air with smokers and make their clothing and skin stink now spend more time and spend more money in those establishments.

When Fran Drescher is elected Governor, I'll cede the point.

I have close friends who are against the "soda ban", decrying the "nanny state". I guess if you believe any sort of gun control is nanny-state, any sort of illegalization of hard drugs is nanny-state, any laws pertaining to the consumption of alcohol is nanny-state, then fine, I can't fault your consistency.

Such unilateral thinking blinds us to the shades of gray and the value of gradual positive outcomes. An actual soda ban would be a real attack on freedom of choice. Being forced to buy two 16 oz cups instead of one 32oz Mega-Jug when sitting down for a movie? Please. It's more likely you'll feel gluttonous, and that's a good thing. It is not a slippery slope, it is an adjustment in favor of our health vs. an industry's wealth.

We need light-handed guidance to direct us to habits that will add up to the greater good for everyone. Less obesity will help promote lower medical costs for all, at perhaps less profit for Big Soda. Just as a 7 ounce bottle was once the accepted normal standard put out by the soda industry, now it is in the hands of those elected to represent us and our interests to help establish a new normal standard.

Tomorrow, we delve into the "facts" as presented by Big Soda...

THE COUNT: 2345
Weekend eating went relatively well. Saturday was a day trip up to Connecticut to visit family, centering on a nice semi-home cooked meal with a lot of salad and corn. Sunday was a bike trip with the toddler to Staten Island for a big Polish festival, involving perogies, bigos, keilbasa and stuffed cabbage. I ate well, maybe a little too much, but no binging. Went to sleep feeling slightly hungry Sunday night, so I must have done something right.

Today is the first of four weeks of Edie out of day camp, before her preschool starts. Milli slept while we did the laundry, lifted weights and did misc. chores. I pulled out the old weight set my dad bought me when I was a teen, took off all the weights and had Edie do "lifts" in tandem with me, it was incredibly cute.

The main adventure of the day was a subway out to Coney Island to ride the Wonder Wheel. Couldn't take the kids to Coney without a hot dog! Fortunately, Nathan's has all it's nutritional info on line.

AM SNACK: 8:15am am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, steel cut oatmeal, water, 375 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, hot dog with kraut, onions and mustard, deep fried potatoes, diet coke, 800 cal

I normally would have had two hot dogs, but that would have destroyed the budget. A dog is only 300 cal -- it's the fries, at it's smallest, is a whopping 500. The biggest size, with cheese, is about 1,200 cal, well over half my daily budget.

PM SNACK: 2:45pm, momma salad, 120 cal

DINNER: 6:15pm, broiled sole, steamed string beans, multigrain rice mix, pickle, 7oz diet sprite, 840 325 cal
Something went funky, the wild rice/brown rice/wheat berry mix required more water and less salt than I eyeballed, came out funky. I had to eyeball it because the 117g/415 cal (+100 cal for a tbsp of butter) was all that was left in the package, and I was too tired to do the correct math. Funny how light the meal becomes when it's just fish and beans.

DINNER pt 2: 7pm, slice of pizza, +/- 300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, homemade vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, 400 cal

An indulgence, after chores, a day out with both kids, a failed dinner, grocery shopping and coming to a halt, finally, at 9. Still kept in budget, though -- almost felt like a binge, as this was a satisfying portion size!

Phriday Phun Quizz, Sweeeet Edition

"Crank Up Hunger" would be more precise.

Woke up at 5am, road the bike deep into Rockland Country, then came back, tallying about 105 miles. I was trying to eat conservatively but with an eye to keep moving, but I still came to the edge of  "bonk" while returning via the West Side bike path.

In endurance sports such as cycling and running, hitting the wall or the bonk describes a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by sudden fatigue and loss of energy. Milder instances can be remedied by brief rest and the ingestion of food or drinks containing carbohydrates. 

I tried to stay away from too much sugar (which is good for quick energy) and use some longer lasting fats and starches, but when I was bonking, the sugary Gatorade brought me back in 10 minutes or so. Lovely sugar.

My calorie-counting cyclometer credited me more than a full day's calorie budget, and took full advantage with a day of pizza, Chinese, hot dogs and crap. Gotta live!

For those new to FBIWC, the Phriday Phun Quizz is a direct rip off loving tribute to my favorite bike blog, Bikesnob NYC. Enjoy you quiz: get it right and see a nice young scientist tell you why we love sugar, but be careful, if you click and get it wrong, you'll see a kid who has bigger worries than just too much sugar.

Fat kids are to cake as:

1. Fitty Cent is to video models.
2. Republicans are to repealing the social safety net.
3. Monkeys are to hurling poop.
4. mutant zombie cakes are to fat kids.

That girl is:

1. Poison
2. Sugar
3. High Fructose Corn Syrup
4. All of the above

One hit is all it takes to:

1. get addicted.
2. be incredibly cheesy.
3. get addicted to cheese.
4. be liable for assault & battery.

This woman is:

1. addicted to donuts.
2. cocaine-addled.
3. the life of the donut party.
4. all of the above.

TOTAL CONSUMED:4245
BIKE CREDIT: - 2444
THE COUNT: 1800

BREAKFAST: 4:45am, whole wheat pancakes, banana, iced tea, 430 cal

BIKE SNACK: 7:15am, clif bar, 240 cal

BIKE SNACK: 8:15am, whole wheat bagel with creamcheese, gatorade, 530 cal

BIKE SNACK: 11:15am, fritos, gatorade, chocolate chip cookies, 615 cal

BIKE SNACK: 1:30pm, slice of pizza, 20oz diet coke, +/- 300 cal

BIKE SNACK: 4:45pm hot dog, gatorade, +/- 380 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, 8oz chocolate milk, 250 cal

DINNER: 8pm, chicken & broc, por fried rice, egg roll, wonton soup, 14oz diet sprite, +/- 1,500

Now We're Cookin' with SUGAR!

My go-to guide on cooking jokes, puns, crass metaphors, and frivolous recipes.

I like to cook, I've had training and have worked in the periphery of the food industry for a few years now and now I've been having fun with a small food start up bubbling up in my home kitchen. I've made a wide variety of foods for friends and family in my kitchen, everything from pizza and burgers to Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon (with beef stock made from scratch) and modern fusion reinterpretation of the TV Dinner for a Madmen dinner party. The one thing that all the people I've fed seem to have in common is: the one thing they seem to remember the most, compliment me the most on, and request for the future is for me to stop cooking my desserts.

I've been ragging on sugar the last few days -- the Sugar Lobby is full of lies, sugar has real toxic effects on the body, sugar acts like hardcore opiates to addict us. Though it hardly balances it out, sugar is an incredibly powerful member of the culinary toolkit.

Big Sugar is full o' sh@t when it comes to it's defense of the harm sugar inflicts upon us. But they are pretty damn spot-on when it comes to the culinary wonders of the stuff:

1. Interacts with molecules of protein or starch during baking and cooking process.
2. Act as a tenderizer by absorbing water and inhibiting flour gluten development, as well as delaying starch gelatinization.
3. Incorporates air into shortening in the creaming process.
4. Caramelizes under heat, to provide cooked and baked foods with pleasing color and aroma.
5. Speeds the growth of yeast by providing nourishment.
6. Serves as a whipping aid to stabilize beaten egg foams.
7. Delays coagulation of egg proteins in custards.
8. Regulates the gelling of fruit jellies and preserves.
9. Helps to prevent spoilage of jellies and preserves.
10. Improves the appearance and tenderness of canned fruits.
11. Delays discoloration of the surface of frozen fresh fruits.
12. Enables a wide variety of candies through varying degrees of recrystallization.
13. Controls the reformation of crystals through inversion (breakdown to fructose and glucose).
14. Enhances the smoothness and flavor of ice cream.

That's not even to mention that we are genetically programmed to like how it tastes and like the food it is added to. A lot of this list deals with sweet food and baked goods, and kinda buries the lede with #4.

4. Caramelizes under heat, to provide cooked and baked foods with pleasing color and aroma.

It's all about  Dr. Maillard & his rockin' reaction:

The Maillard reaction...results from a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar, usually requiring heat. Vitally important in the preparation or presentation of many types of food, hundreds of different flavor compounds are created. These compounds, in turn, break down to form yet more new flavor compounds, and so on. Each type of food has a very distinctive set of flavor compounds that are formed during the Maillard reaction. 

It's why caramelized onions are so delicious. It's why a properly cooked piece of meat is heavenly (and brown.) Cooking makes food safer, but it becomes more palatable in large part because of Maillard. Whatever food you can name, it can be made more delicious with the Maillard Reaction. And with out the presence of sugar, either naturally occurring or added, it would not exist.

In making duck-faces, these three ladies attempt the "Mallard Reaction"

It's important to note that the Maillard Reaction happens in in food that is cooked that has sugar in it, whether is added or naturally occuring. No, you really shouldn't candy your steak to get good browning. Onions are actually naturally full of sugar, the cooking just eliminates the sharpness that hides it. Big Sugar ain't sellin' steak n' onions, so it's a bit misleading, perhaps even maleficent, according to my wife and her 50¢ words.

Reviewing the last 7 days, I see where I'm getting my daily doses o' sugar, sugah.

• Fruit -- My fruit smoothies have no added sugar, but they are high in fructose, regardless. A banana here, some watermelon there.
• Green tea -- I brew it myself, 1/4 cup of sugar to an entire gallon. Very mildly sweet.
• Junk food -- though greatly restricted to meet the calorie budget, some cookies, chocolate chips and ice cream are sneaking through.
• Weekend binging -- 'nuff said.

So where do I go from here? Though I've reduced my sugar consumption greatly, it seems I've hit a plateau. Last night, I was 100 calories short of my minimum daily consumption, so I had a cup of chocolate milk which brought me to my maximum daily consumption. I paid close attention to the effect it had on me, and it did what I feared: I almost instantly felt a little bit more relaxed, the edge came off. I also stopped being hungry, and my tummy was nicely coated. Addict enjoying a hit, or a hungry guy getting satiated?

Addict enjoying a hit one moment, soon after a hungry gal getting satiated when plan A didn't pan out.

I don't think anything but something sweet would have satisfied me, so I suspect the latter, particularly because after the chocolate milk....I wanted more. The taste primed the pump for more, which is junky behavior.

Though my daughter and her friends enjoyed the from scratch goldfish crackers, mini-knishes, triangular PBJs and fresh pasta I've made them, the thing they go ga-ga for is the ice creams, the cupcakes, the fresh lemonade and cookies. A family member recently went out of his way to retrieve some home-made ice cream sandwiches (made with thin slices of brownies for cookies) to present as dessert in a meal he was serving to a date. If I cook something to my wife's exact desire like mango quinoa salad or grilled cheese with aged cheddar, fresh tomato and hearty peasant bread, she'll be quite happy. If I cook something sweet to my wife's exact desire like cookie n' creme ice cream or fudge brownies, I have to keep them stored in a locked mini fridge to prevent her from losing control and scarfing the whole batch in one sitting. Mama, we're all crazy now!!

F-you, Quiet Riot!

Tomorrow, we wind down with some jokes, but after hitting up these larger sugar topics, next week I'mma gonna let you finish, but there are a bunch of more specific sweet topics I'm gonna drill down into. Tah!

THE COUNT: 2200

Woke up at 5:30, as I have two big bike rides in the next two days (weather allowing), and want to get to bed early tonight to prevent tiredness from messing me up like last week. Had to struggle a bit to avoid eating breakfast too early, which really messed up my budget last Friday. Got to sleep early, preventing me from searching out sugar in the evening.

AM SNACK: 6am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, kolon bloe with whole milk, 295 cal

LUNCH: noon, Stouffer's French Bread pizzas, 7oz diet coke, 740 cal

PM SNACK: 2pm, momma salad, 200 cal

DINNER: 6:15 pm, broiled sole with butter, roasted brussels, baked potatoes, pickle, 7oz diet sprite, 940 cal

Sugar: Puttin' the Junk in Junkfood

Every time I get aroused, I want cupcakes. Must be sugar addiction.

Over the winter, I woke up in the middle of the night with a knife in my back. Perhaps my wife was finally getting me back for all the times I snuck chicken stock into her "vegetarian" meals, or maybe all the times I told her what a great "singer" Katy Perry is, but there was no knife there. I took some toilet time, sat in the kitchen, but it only got worse, so bad that I had to vomit from the pain. From waking up to entering a cab to take me to the emergency room was about 15 minutes.

It took another 3 minutes from the front desk to being laid on a gurney and a doctor jabbing me in my tummy area. "This hurt?" she asked. It did not, all the pain was behind my front. She said it was not my appendix, probably kidney stones, and,  "Just wait a sec, you're really gonna enjoy this." I didn't know what she was talking about, all I knew was that I was about to Quatto right then and there...

Before the drugs.

Though I'm needle-phobic, I did not notice the nurse slipping a syringe in my arm and leaving it there. I didn't notice that the pain slipped away and I started levitating off the gurney. I did notice that the low drop-ceiling with water-stained acoustic tiles started reminding me of cumulus clouds on a sunny day, seeing clouds shaped like animals and Charlie Brown and...

Some time after they put me on morphine, I got scanned in a big beeping tube and confirmed I had a kidney stone. After about 3 hours of feeling on top of the world and sending my wife giddy text messages, they unhooked me, gave me a prescription for a butt-load of oxycodones, and sent me on my way. When the fresh air hit my face upon walking out of the hospital, the buzz was gone, maybe 5 minutes after being unhooked from the drip.

I started feeling achy in the afternoon, and popped an oxy. I felt that buzz for about 20 minutes, watched some TV from the couch then...fell asleep. Woke up groggy, disoriented and deep in a cloud.

Too much oxy, feel like a generic clip art cartoon.

That was the event that inspired me to reexamine my health and perhaps revise my diet, which lead me to the reboot of this blog. It has also inspired me to look fondly over my kidney stone experience. Because that morphine drip was SWEET. It was  like a switch, one second in hell, the next I'm over the clouds and the happiest I've ever been. When it stops, I'm dropped back to earth with out a hangover or aftereffect....except that I really want to go back there.

I now appreciate why the junkies hang out in Tompkins Square, chasing that feeling and ruining their lives in the process. If your life sucks, you want to get back there. You want to live there. Fortunately, my life is pretty good, my wife & children ground me, I'm loved by my friends (right, friends? cough cough) and lead a relatively stable middle-class life. Still, if I wasn't so needle-phobic and had access to morphine in my medicine cabinet, it would be near impossible not to fool around with it. Occasionally when the subject comes up, I go into a reverie about how nice being in the morphine cloud is. When I'm on my death bed, I want my wife & children and close friends and....morphine to usher me out. I am addicted. One hit was all it took.

One hit is all it takes...

This past Sunday evening, I was content with myself -- I had eaten a relatively reasonable amount. Though I do not count calories on the weekend, I'm learning what +/- 2200 daily calories feel like, and I felt like I was close to it. However, I was hungry, not crazy hungry, just the normal nagging hunger. I walk into the kitchen to look for a light snack. On the top shelf are the sweets, which have been collecting over the past month or so. I grab a handful of chocolate chips, no more than 100 calories or so, reasonable. I sit for a few minutes, and my hunger kicks me the gut. Crap. Gotta eat more. I avoid the sugar, and eat a hot dog and a pickle. I sit down in front of the tube. Crap again. I do gotta eat more, but my gut is just wanting one thing. And it ain't more processed lips & butt holes, it's the siren song of the top shelf.

A lovely world-trotting friend brought back a box of ornate, intricate Japanese chocolates. It is gone. I ate it. It was delicious. My hunger fades. I feel a bit guilty, but I tell myself two things:

1. It's the weekend, I'm allowed to slip a little
2. I have to think this through, this sugar thing.

I can't help but think that the box of chocolates was morphine, and the top shelf of my pantry was the medicine cabinet. Am I addicted to sugar?

Addiction is so preeetteeeee....

Addiction: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

Is it in my head, is this psychological? Is it just that my will power that is failing me? (Big Sugar rep: "Yes! End blog entry now!") Can I actually be addicted to a food stuff, just like an addiction to morphine?!

Researchers say that sugar and the taste of sweet is said to stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites, the same chemicals activated in the brain by the ingestion of heroin and morphine.

Oh crap. I guess that's why it's "junk"food. The science is not in dispute (though like with Fox News and climate change, you can always find an outlying scientist to muddy the debate or simply ignore it.) Sugar IS addicting. Big Sugar will quibble with how much sugar is safe in a diet, but regardless, it is real.

Hello, my name is Fatty and I am a sugar addict. So what is a short, pat way to break sugar addiction? After a bunch of Internet thinkin', I've concluded there is none. Just like addiction to alcohol or narcotics, the common wisdom is predicated on the depth of your addiction. Any where from consumption restrictions for mild cases all the way to full-blown rehab for the daily bingers.

Tomorrow, a review of my own sugar consumption, why sugar is culinarily important, and what I'm gonna do about it.

THE COUNT:2355

Lifted weights in the morning, felt good. Took Milli to the Brooklyn Museum of Art while it rained as the central part of the day. Ate well.

AM SNACK: 8:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, steel cut oatmeal, water, 375 cal

LUNCH: 12:15pm, chicken sausages, steamed string beans with butter, whole wheat ritz crackers, pickle, 7oz diet coke,  600 cal

PM SNACK: 3pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 6pm, Pasta a la Fatty, 7oz diet sprite, 1005 cal
After eating this huge bowl of food, felt like about 1000 calories, which I seem to say a lot. But this time I had all the weights written down, and it came to pretty much 1000 with rounding errors. I shall use the 95 calories to celebrate! With out going into details, this was just some pasta thrown together to use  a bunch of yesterday's CSA veg. 4oz whole wheat fusilli 4oz chopped shrimp, a saute of onion, eggplant, garlic, heirloom tomato and fresh basil. Sauteed in 1 tbsp of peanut oil, finished with 30g parm and 1 tbsp of good olive oil. Pulled no punches, very satisfying. The light cook on the tomato helped them get softer and juicer to make an awesome sauce with a huge fresh flava.

EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, 1 cup chocolate milk, 250 cal
Ugg, after all this writing about sugar, this did not go down without thought or the full appreciation of gut-pulling attraction of the 100 calories in the chocolate syrup. Felt the urge to eat more sugar, but didn't want to bust my budget and feel like an a-hole about it.

Sugar: Wondrous Natural Toxic Poison

The (Internet) Thinker

I did some Internet thinkin' and I got to the bottom of what the deal with sugar is. Did you know that sugar is naturally sweet? I was amazed to find that:

• More and more people choose natural foods - sugar has been a part of the human diet for over 2,000 years.
• Sugar is not a major source of increased calories - sugar's contribution to obesity is being overstated.
• Sugar is not empty calories - sugar makes healthful foods taste good which leads to increased intakes of key vitamins and minerals.

Sugar is a wondrous natural food! Then why did 60 minutes do this in depth piece about sugar being incredibly toxic and harmful to our health?

Sugar is toxic poison! Sugar is a wondrous natural toxic poison!

That sugar girl no, sugar, is poison.

OK, let's go back and continue to borrow slightly dated African-American lingo and culture for our amusement and bring in THE REMIX!!!! - breakitdowwwwn!!

• More and more people choose natural foods - sugar has been a part of the human diet for over 2,000 years.

Of all the claims of Big Sugar, this is the silliest. People have been choosing rape, racism and religious persecution for over 2,000 years, too (Cue the "traditional marriage" crowd). Their list of criticism of all the marketed artificial sweeteners are not really criticism, they just spit out  a bunch of chemistry jargon in hopes the reader is reminded of the high school chem class they struggled through. My dad was a chemist, and even waaaay back in the 80s and 90s, when he'd see a claim of "all natural" on a foodstuff that was clearly unhealthy, he'd scoff, and say things like, "Cyanide is also all natural."

That girl sugar is all-natural poison.

• Sugar is not a major source of increased calories - sugar's contribution to obesity is being overstated.

A bunch of figures are thrown out here. If you simply equate an 18.6% of your calories from sugar in 1970 going down to 17% in 2005 as a good thing, you have to ignore that our total calorie consumption went up by a whopping, gut-busting, moob-mobilizing*, ass-blasting 25% during that same period. Despite the 1.6% decline in consumption in relation to other food, we're still eating A HUGE AMOUNT MORE SUGAR. Without digging out a calculator, that's at least 20% more sugar in our diets in real amounts.

Amazingly, table sugar consumption has decreased by a whopping 39% since 1980 (now I know why the Domino plant closed across the river from my home.) Not sugar - TABLE sugar. High fructose corn syrup, anyone?

Guess which sweetener took off around 1980?

Then off to the McDonald's Defense: sugar is fine in a balanced diet, or simply, it's on you, buddy.

Dietary interventions that recommend reducing individual ingredients will only continue to obscure the real issue: if Americans continue to consume more calories – no matter the source – than they burn, weight gain is inevitable. Continually eating too much food and sedentary lifestyles are the major contributing factors to increasing rates of obesity – not sugars intake.

They're right, if this statement had no context. In the context of promotional material for refined sugar, it implies sugar bears no responsibility, it's FOOD'S fault, not sugar. Thing is, sugar IS food, and we eat too much of it. We eat too much fat and protein, too. But being that added sugar is just empty, non-nutritive calories, of course we should cut those more than more healthful sources of nutrition, right?

• Sugar is not empty calories - sugar makes healthful foods taste good which leads to increased intakes of key vitamins and minerals. 

Sugar is good because it makes us want to eat more food! Ummm, more good food? Sugar is so smart that it discriminates? Or is that people's responsibility? Unfortunately, sugar also makes unhealthful foods taste good.  Capitalism favors the cheaper foods that make the biggest profits, so in reality sugar leads to less consumption of more expensive whole foods, fruit, vegetables and key vitamins and minerals that have not been artificially reinstated. 

The main argument here is that kids like sweet foods, and when healthier foods stop being sweet, they don't eat them. I say GREAT, they need to eat less, fat little buggers. Unfortunately, take away the sugar and then they go for the cheap sugared junk food, regardless of nutritional content. Well, let's tax the sh#t out of sugar, and when their lunch money can't cover $5 chocolate bars over the school meal, the argument will be moot.

This doughnut is $25? Must give a stock-photography O-face right....NOW!

They deride anti-sugar folk like me with, "the assertion that a food is less healthy just because it contains sugar is misleading and not science based." How about this: it IS science based that the human body can live, thrive and be at maximum healthy from birth to death with out ever consuming one iota of refined sugar. FACT. No protein? You'll get awfully sick. No fat? You'll get hella sick. No salt from the moment you are born? You'll die. No refined sugar? No problem. (You do need sugar to live, but the body produces it from all the other food you take in. We are our own refineries.)

Tomorrow, we'll look into some of the talk about why sugar is poison, and my struggle with meth sugar addiction, which according to Big Sugar, does not exist and that's ridiculous, shut up and keep buying sugar....

*Doing an image search for "moob" was perhaps one of the most disturbing things I'll do this week.

THE COUNT:2210

I was going to skip my regular Tuesday fast food today, but Milli had a slightly pink eye and the only appointment I could get at the pediatrician left me in midtown at lunch time. He only had an irritation, not a communicable virus, and I took some rabbit food on the road with me to try to balance things a little.

A little sore from yesterday's weights, and I was hungry most of the day. This is how we transform ourselves, day in day out of mild discomfort, right?

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9am, fruit smoothie, 365 cal

AM SNACK: 11:15am, baby carrots, 80 cal

LUNCH: 12:15pm, vegetable patty, jerk chicken patty, 740 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 7oz diet coke, 0 cal

DINNER: 7pm, 2.5 slices pizza, +/- 1000 cal

Picnic in the backyard with kids and friends. Wine was served, as was my homemade ice cream. Easily could have doubled the calorie count with those two things. Unfortunately after eating the pizza, still hungry, as I have been most of the day....which is a good thing.