My Worst Foods

News, journalism, the blogosphere, whatever passes for the dissemination of information via the Internet circa 2014 seems to have devolved into two potent styles of infotainment: the quiz, and the listicle. To show you that FBIWC ain't too proud to get down n' dirty, I'm proud to build our first listicle: the worst foods....eva!

I tapped in "worst foods in the world" into the internet's brain, and came up with enough listicles to keep me busy for days weeks, no, months. In no particular order or importance, the Internet seems to agree that the very worst foods are very specific fast food dishes, whose horribleness are easily quantified by the measure of their fat, salt, sugar and calorie counts. Bigger the, uh, worser. Seeming without much rhyme or reason outside the math, the world's worst burger actually has more of all those counts than the world's worst meal, which also features a burger. (Though admittedly, the "world's wost mall treat" does look exactly like the world's worst mall treat.

When food porn becomes food bukkake. Food torture porn? Food S&M? Find it at your local mall's Cinnabun.

If you go beyond the mind-numbing listicles of actual individual items for sale, patterns emerge.  The Listicles of the Internet seem to agree, in no particular order, the biggest threats to your health and nutrition are:

• Soda (sugar)
• Diet Soda (chemicals, acid)
• Cereal (sugar, simple carbs)
• Artificial sweeteners (chemicals, hormone disruptor)
• Shelf stable condiments (sugar, salt, chemicals)
• Swordfish, Tuna, other big fish (mercury, environment)
• Processed meat (Fat, salt, environment)
• Bagels (calories, simple carbs)
• Doughnuts (sugar, simple carbs, fat)
• Processed baked goods (sugar, simple carbs, fat, salt)
• Dairy (fat, hormones, environment)
• Deep fried food (fat, salt)
• Bacon (salt, fat, preservatives)
• Frozen meals (calories, salt, fat)
• Potato chips (simple carbs, fat)
• Low fat foods (sugar, salt, chemicals)
• Margarine (fat)
• Ice Cream (fat, sugar)
• Corn Chips (simple carbs, salt, GMOs)

This list could go on, ending only when the Internet ends. After seeing things pop up on these lists that I consider healthy in the right circumstances (pizza can be made at home with whole grains and healthy and properly portioned ingredients, ice cream is surprisingly low-glycemic due to fats blunting the sugar spike), I knew black could become white and good become evil if I looked close enough. To a certain degree, the lists calling out the numbers of specific fast food dishes are a little more honest and not as open to interpretation or agenda.

Speaking of agenda: unsurprisingly, the douchenozzles at Fox News interpret "Worst Foods in the World" as the most culturally repugnant foods from around the world to Western eyes, such as cod sperm in Japan, dried rat in China and horse milk in Mongolia. Food that westerners eat that could potentially be hurting them? Think of the advertisers, man!

Anyway, as some of you may know, before I came to the clarity of this weekly blog a couple of years ago or so, I kept a food diary blog for about five years, posting pretty much daily. It's not very compelling reading, as it's not written for the reader, but just me mulling over the idea of taking food seriously in copious detail, without much knowledge behind it. (Unlike today. Right? Umm, right?)  However, it has left me a record of exactly what I ate when I was more of a fatty boom batty. The memory recedes, but the blog remains. What were my worst foods back in the day?

I read the first month of entries -- I was consulting a nutritionist at the time who herself was just finding her way, and rather than write a food diary on paper, I decided to write a blog with my thoughts. Headaches were common. Upset stomach and digestive issues were common. In the first month I started noticing the relationship of these issues to the timing of certain foods. Clearly, I had one big baddy...

Oh, YOU again?

Sugar. Holy crap, it was sugar, no doubt. I was eating 2-3 deserts a day, morning, noon and night, and when I felt "healthy" I'd swap out my morning dessert with....a bagel, a nice big lump of white flour that would pretty much effect my blood sugar in a similar way. When I tried to deny myself some sweets, my cravings would kick in big time and bring me back to the trough. Funny, a through line in these early writings were a concern about blood pressure and salt, probably advised to cut the salt, but looking back that was way off the mark. It was the excess calories and weight driving my blood pressure, not salt, though I'm sure it didn't help.

Outside of my occasional poppa salads even back then, I ate out most meals, felt insecure in the kitchen, and kept myself fully fueled on the treadmill where sugar would make me hungry, and the hunger would drive me to more sugar. Funny how writing obsessively about everything that went in my mouth  over 7 years ago felt so foggy and mysterious in the moment, but looks so glaringly obvious and simple today.

Me, the other day.

Skipping over those early years, the culinary school training, the years in restaurants, the culinary teaching and the rededicating to my health after a scare a couple of years ago, what are my worst foods today?

• Cheetos: I've drilled down on this food stuff before, and it's definitely the last hardcore food addiction that I just can't kick, holding on to it almost out of sentimentality. This is the essence of hyper processed chemically-tuned food-type product that plays on our desire for savory/salty/crunchy.  Nutritionally void. I keep in in check by measuring it out and not eating it every day, but the demon is there in view.
• Weekend sweets: When I stop measuring and recording my food intake on the weekends, sweets come raging back. It's not as it's been a year or two ago -- the compulsion to get as much in as possible subsided after the first couple of weekends, as I was clearly making myself sick enough to almost miss work on Mondays. The monthly 5 lb bags of M&Ms from Costco have gone by the wayside, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss them. Sweets now tend to be very social (I got kids, after all) or homemade. Just as a recovered alcoholic is always just one drink away from being a drunk again, I feel the pull and temptation of sweets every day, I've just gotten better at managing them.
• Weekend Diet Coke: Unlike the first two, I find myself indulging in Ye Olde D.C. only once or so a weekend, in a quantity below 20oz. I'm very careful with my caffeine consumption, and am confident I don't miss it during the week. It's just a strong emotional connection -- my dad drank it in large quantities every day, and the sense memory makes me feel just a little bit in his presence. 
• Subway hero: My weekly fast food convenience. It's actually nearly vegan, as I always get the soy patty and no cheese, a small echo of my vegan days. (The bread has some animal by-product in it, never mind the yoga mat chemicals.) Occasionally eaten alone, sometimes with a diet drink and chips, it's pretty not good, but between the rare fast-food limited calories (about 450-600 depending on chips), and it's non-compulsive nature, I can give myself a pass.
• Post ride gorges: Hmmmm. After I ride 115 miles and I'm on the couch, Seamless brings me things like bricks of Chinese food and pints of ice cream. Life is for living, and I ain't a monk. If I'm in calorie deficit and I just spent a day potentially revving up my metabolism, I'm gonna revisit the fun of the diet that kept me fat and in a fog for so many years. I am not living a life of denial and hunger, and as long as it's a visit and not an extended stay, my "worst foods" are not going to do too much damage in the short, mid or long term.

In short, listicles of "worst foods in the world" have a grain of truth in them, but really, anything can be put on a list depending on the point of view. Rather than get lost in the noise of a hyped-up media less interested in explaining science than shouting headlines to get your attention, get educated and make your own personal list. Also, Fox News is unremittingly horrible.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2763

Surprised by the high weekly average, felt like it was a good eating week. Calories aren't the only measurement of good nutrition, I suppose -- more important where they are coming from, and there were no sugar-freak outs this week.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2350

SLEPT: 8:15pm - 4:15am, 8 hrs
Still feeling in sleep deficit mode from the weekend, but had to get chores done.

AM SNACK: 4:30am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 400 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, falafel with hummus, health salad, Fairway tomato basil soup, pickles, 720 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, momma salad, Grazebox seed mix, 290 cal

DINNER: 6:15pm: Hake, asparagus, poppa salad with Italian, 380

EVENING SNACK: 6:45pm, cheetos, 400 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2460

SLEPT: 8:30pm - 4:30am, 8 hrs
Cooked up a big pot of black beans in the morning.

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

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, vanilla and almonds, 500 cal cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, mushroom masala, pickles, 620 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, Grazebox popcorn , 230 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, sautéed chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 650 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, homemade popcorn, +/- 300 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2555

SLEPT: 9:30pm - 5am,  7.5 hrs
Popcorn made my belly feel a little funny this morning, but not in a 'ate too much' way.

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

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

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 400 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, grilled chicken breast, brussel sprouts, black beans, pickles, 645 cal

PM SNACK: 2:45pm, momma salad, Grazebox gazpacho crackers, 170 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 180 cal

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, cashews, 340 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm: shirataki noodles with shrimp, shitake mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, cheetos, 300 cal

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THURSDAY COUNT: 2910

SLEPT: 10pm - 4am, nap at work 2:15-3:15, 7 hrs
Decent weight lift in, suprised how little of a pull up I can do now that I lift once a week instead of 2.

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

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

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, vanilla and almonds, 500 cal cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, chicken sausage, quinoa, roasted broccoli, pickles, 660 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, Grazebox pistachios , 200 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, poppa salad, Italian dressng, 170 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, Costco Pizza, 700 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, cheetos, kind bar, 500 cal

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BIKE CREDIT: 650
FRIDAY COUNT: 3540

SLEPT: 9pm - 2:30am, 5.5 hrs
Nice early morning ride to Coney, left work early for a movie, then a snickle and a nice round of relaxing restorative yoga with the HVS. Nice way to kick off a holiday weekend.

AM SNACK: 3am, iced green tea, 100 mg caffeine, homemade granola bar, 280 cal

BIKE SNACK: 4:30am, granola bar, 280 cal

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

BREAKFAST 2: 9:15am, Fruit Smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, health salad, pickles, 610 cal

PM SNACK: 1:45 pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

MOOVIE SNACK: 3pm, 12oz diet coke, small popcorn, small baggie of snickle granola, +800 cal

SNICKLEDINNER:  5:30pm, seitan avocado burrito thing, water, +/- 500 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, 2 slices streetza, 800 cal