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    This mostly-raw blueberry pie is a snap to make and very versatile--the filling microwaves in a few minutes, and you don't even have to bake the zippy gingered graham cracker crust--perfect for a hot Fourth of July and all summer long.

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2000-calorie meals in pictures

Posted on December 23, 2014 by DebbieN

The New York Times has just posted a very clear picture-it chart of how people get to 2000 calories in a single meal, sometimes even a single dish, without realizing it when they eat out. Not just at Burger King, Denny’s or IHOP, either–some of the upscale chains’ ordinary dishes are just as devastating. If you’re having trouble figuring out your own diet, you might take a look and see What 2,000 Calories Looks Like.

One thing I like about the restaurant-by-restaurant feature is the breakdown of calories for each item in the meal, so you can see how you might do better while eating out.

One obvious takeaway–so to speak–is that fries, shakes, full dinner plates of pasta with cream sauce (or any sauce, really), and slices of cake as big as your head–topped with caramel goo!–are a bad deal for excess calories, lack of nutritional value, and are basically not really necessary.

The other obvious takeaway is that for things like sandwiches, burritos, burgers and similar protein-containing main dishes, you probably don’t want to be eating more than about 500 calories at lunch or maybe 600ish at dinner. Preferably 350-450, to give yourself some room for a salad or fruit. So the hoagies and double cheeseburgers at 900-1100 calories should really be split in two–maybe three. Share one with a friend unless you’re actually a linebacker in training. Or else get rid of the cheese, the excess meat, the bacon, the mayo-based sauces. Go back to a single burger with ketchup and mustard and a couple of pickle slices. And maybe you shouldn’t eat anything else with one of those but a plain apple or orange or some tomatoes or carrot sticks.

The other thing I like is the set of pictures at the bottom–whole days’ worth of decent food from home that are worth 2000 calories per day, and they look a whole lot better than what you get at the restaurants. For the same money or less, and with a microwave, maybe even in less time. A lot more vegetables and fruits, a decent amount of meat and fish and dairy, a lot less in the way of french fries, milkshakes, salad dressing, breadings, special sauces, burger buns and unlimited pasta.

Filed under: Eating out, Food Magazines, Food Politics, frugality, nutrition, shopping, unappetizing | Tagged: , , , | Comments Off on 2000-calorie meals in pictures

There’s something wrong when a veggie burger is worse for you than cheesecake

Posted on January 14, 2012 by DebbieN

Recently spotted in the Los Angeles Times Food Section “Dear SOS”

Veggie burgers from North Peak

Dear SOS: My family and I just got back from a trip to Traverse City, Mich., where I had the absolute best veggie burger I’ve ever had. Is there any way you could coax North Peak Brewery Co. to give up its recipe for its Black Bean and Portobello Mushroom Burger?

Dear —–: This burger even had some non-vegetarians going for it. The restaurant also sometimes serves it with provolone cheese and sliced avocado along with a dab of basil pesto aioli on toasted ciabatta rolls.

Total time: 1½ hours, plus cooling time Servings: 8

The recipe starts out with a 9-ingredient pico de gallo homework item–let’s just agree it’s basically salsa, and it gets mixed into the beans and other stuff at midpoint in the cooking process–which is long. One and a half hours? Yikes. But then check out the rest of the ingredients for the veggie burger itself:
Veggie burgers and assembly
  • 4 cups cooked black beans, from about 2½ (15-ounce) cans (drained)
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup molasses
  • 2 teaspoons salt, more to taste
  • 1 tablespoon cumin, more to taste
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for sautéing the burgers
  • 1/2 cup finely diced onion
  • 9 ounces portobello mushrooms, cut into ¼-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
  • 1 cup pico de gallo
  • 3 cups panko bread crumbs
  • Semolina flour for dusting
  • Sliced cheese, if desired
  • Sliced toasted ciabatta rolls

And then — guess the nutrition stats?

Each burger (without cheese or garnishes): 604 calories; 21 grams protein; 103 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams fiber; 13 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 16 grams sugar; 1,227 mg sodium.

Whoa. 604 calories for a single veggie burger. 103 grams of carbohydrate–more than a meal’s worth just by itself. Honey, molasses and panko turn what might have been a reasonable amount of carb from a serving of black beans into something that reminds me of the old sketch from Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on NPR: “Here’s my secret. I just add sugar to the same tired dinner and wow! suddenly everyone loves it!” … or words to that effect.

No doubt the honey and molasses also go a long way toward disguising the fact that each burger contains more than 1200 milligrams of sodium. Where’s that coming from, anyway? the canned beans–400  mg or so per serving. The added salt–a quarter-teaspoon or about 560 per serving. Breadcrumbs–more salt. Add a ciabatta roll and cheese and you’d be above 1500 mg easily.

At this point, despite their long laundry list of ingredients, the MorningStar Griller’s Vegan burgers I used to eat are looking a little more decent nutritionally–about 300 calories apiece and 280 or so mg. sodium. So if they could do it, why couldn’t you?

In theory, at least, you could make veggie burgers a little less dangerous and cheesecake-like if you just skipped the added syrups and salt, and cut the large excess of frying oil for the mushrooms and other sundries by simply microwaving them to precook. That is, choose a sensible recipe instead of something ridiculous.

Oh yeah. But then it would just be, you know, veggie burgers. Not keeping-up-with-the-chain-restaurants versions with the pumped-up sugar-salt-and-fat formulas. I ask again, is there any hope?

Filed under: Beans and legumes, cooking, Eating out, nutrition, Revised recipes, unappetizing | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

You want fries with that?

Posted on September 7, 2009 by DebbieN

You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to tomorrow at 8:35 a.m. That will be a good five minutes after the start of the parental summer relief program known best as Back to School. I’m counting down the minutes as we speak.

With the return to school, public debates over what children should eat and how parents should or shouldn’t step in have intensified. Obesity, the selling out of school cafeterias, new restrictions on sodas and junk food in said cafeterias, and the diet of choice at home are the topics of the day–all underlined with a sense of rising panic.

This year more than any other I can remember, reporters, bloggers, doctors, models, political figures, and just about everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon to report the ugly facts that were excused for years.

All the statistics are in–or pretty much so, and they boil down to this: We’re facing a tidal wave of blubber.

With it comes a tidal wave of early heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and more. How early? Physicians are seeing a rise in the diseases of middle age–something that, 20 years ago, had been successfully pushed back by an average of 10 years, from age 50 or so to age 60 and up for a first heart attack. We thought we were making progress. But for the past 10 to 15 years,  these diseases have started popping up in school children–Type II diabetes, kidney stones, high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure. No way should a 10-year-old be facing these threats.   No wonder parents and everyone else are panicked–the studies we have aren’t giving us a single, easy-to-deal-with  definitive  guide on how to stop the juggernaut. They mostly tell us that it keeps on rolling.

But the mystery of what to do really isn’t that mysterious. Take for example the responses to Frank Bruni’s recent article in the New York Times on feeding children. Some come from doctors on the front lines, others from nutritionists and fresh-food-in-schools activists, discussing different facets of the problem, but they come to a number of sensible recommendations you could probably have named yourself without much struggle.

The conclusions?

Sodas should be cut out altogether from children’s (and probably everyone’s) daily diet. Not just for calories (250ish for a 20-oz bottle–and why is it 20 0z these days? used to be 12 was the standard) but for sodium (about 100 mg per 12-oz can, whether full-cal or diet, 200+ for the 20-oz).

Fruit juices with a pretty picture on the box are nowhere near qualifying as actual fruit. Not even with added vitamin C.

And exercise time, including outdoor recess–something most schools have cut back in the past decades–makes a big difference that’s generally overlooked in the school lunch debates.

So far, no great surprises. But they do mention one more item, also no great surprise–fast food in the school cafeterias.  Nobody seems to have trouble zeroing in on french fries as the worst offender. Are they right or is this a replay of the cupcake wars? Is the french fry being unjustly accused, as the vendors claim?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Eating out, Food Politics, kid food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on You want fries with that?

Naked Lunch: Nutrition labeling law in effect for California Chain Restaurants

Posted on July 1, 2009 by DebbieN

California’s not the first state or municipality to require restaurants to declare their nutritional stats to customers, but as of today, the state will require chains with more than 20 in-state locations to post calories, carbs, sodium and fat information for each menu offering. The new law also bans sales of soda and junk foods to students at public schools–a big step toward reducing empty calories and sodium consumption among children and teens.

Patt Morrison of Pasadena-based public radio station KPCC interviewed the California Restaurant Association’s senior vice president for government affairs and the executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.

Surprisingly enough, the CRA’s representative said the association actually backs the legislation in its current form. When asked whether similar New York City legislation had had any effect so far, the CCPHA director said it had–chain restaurants had started reformulating popular high-calorie foods back downward. He also gave demographics: 89 percent of Democrats and 78 percent of Republicans polled said they were in favor of the new law. Most of the callers to the show also said they wanted or needed to know what was at the end of their forks.  A fascinating interview all the way around.

Filed under: DASH Diet, Eating out, Food Politics, kid food, nutrition | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Naked Lunch: Nutrition labeling law in effect for California Chain Restaurants

What’s in YOUR restaurant’s dumpster? David Kessler uncovers the addictive side of chain restaurant eating

Posted on April 27, 2009 by DebbieN

David Kessler, the FDA commissioner who fought to bring the cigarette and tobacco companies to heel in the 1990s–has taken on the next big fight by doing something you wouldn’t think a man that eminent needs to do: he’s gone dumpster diving in the parking lots behind the fast-food chain restaurants in California. In a suit, according to his wife.

What’s in the dumpsters? Kessler’s new book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, reveals a dirty secret. Kessler went in search of the nutrition labels on the boxes of food shipped to individual chain restaurants like Chili’s to find out what’s really in the food they serve and why people have so much trouble stopping at a normal portion and normal calorie intake when they make fast food a part of their lives.

He found the labels. Even ordinary-sounding foods were pumped abnormally, exaggeratedly, unconscionably high with fat, salt, and sugar. One appetizer–the Southwest Eggrolls–contained 910 calories, 57 grams of fat and 1,960 milligrams of sodium. Basically half a day’s calories for a normal healthy woman’s diet, about twice the recommended amount of fat if most of it was saturated, and nearly all of the recommended maximum for sodium.

Not really a big surprise–fat, salt and sugar are the three things most likely to provide a “quick hit” of satisfaction when you eat them, and all of them are cheap substitutes for actual flavor or (dare we dream) fresh ingredients you might otherwise expect in food. Most packaged snacks rely on at least one and usually all three–think Snickers; think Chees-Its; think just about any kind of vending machine item–fat, salt, sugar. It’s a hit.

But we know packaged snacks are junk food. We thought dinner at Chili’s — or Bennigan’s — or TGI Fridays — was an actual meal. It LOOKS like a meal. It looks like meat and vegetables and rice or potato. What Kessler discovered on the nutrition labels makes them seem more like giant-sized, glorified, salted, sugar-coated, oiled-up snack foods parading as meals.

That’s not a shocking kind of report anymore–the Center for Science in the Public Interest has been putting out shocker nutritional reports on all kinds of popular foods since it blasted into the headlines by calling fettucini Alfredo “a heart attack on a plate”. But since the CSPI Alfredo debacle, Americans have been swarming to fast food restaurants and sit-down chains in record numbers–not as a weekend jaunt but as a staple of their diet, reportedly eating out an average of 6 times a week.

Kessler ties these trends together with recent physiological research on fat, salt, and sugar consumption. Instead of satisfying hunger, the fat-salt-sugar combo acts as a stimulant, hitting up the dopamine receptors in the brain and triggering release of opiates as a “quick relief” response to eating the first bite of a fast food. Followed shortly, we would guess, by a let-down. And then a vicious cycle as the body suffers rapid hunger for more, even though you’ve just eaten.

So fat-salt-sugar really is a drug. Something we already knew,  but not in such detail. The fact that it’s being exploited not just in vending machine snack packs but in what we thought was real food, just restaurant-prepared, goes some way to explain why reports in the past year have clocked Americans eating 3800 calories a day.

The fact that that mass-prepared food has been manipulated to exaggerate the fat-salt-sugar content and encourage people to eat more than is reasonable in a chain restaurant sitting is even more insidious. The fact that high-class restaurants with big-name chefs are resorting to similar tactics–often unwittingly–to “boost flavor” and compete with chain food is just depressing.

Or in other words: Restaurant food is the new tobacco.

Filed under: books, Eating out, Food Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on What’s in YOUR restaurant’s dumpster? David Kessler uncovers the addictive side of chain restaurant eating