My kind of food–maybe
Wow.
You can eat tons of this stuff and not gain weight.
Only thing is, would you want to eat it? My reaction to most-reduced calorie food, or food that uses substitutes (carob, artificial sweetener, what-have-you) is that it’s unappetizing. Give me the real thing–just don’t give me too much of it.
I battle the bulge and stay reasonably on target while eating all the “real” foods. I use half and half in my coffee, butter and olive oil for cooking and sugar when preparing sweets. I grew up w/the Mediterranean diet and feel it is the best. I love my fruits and veggies, unspoiled by sauces. All that to say, I tell myself no hundreds of times a day and watch quantities of what I say yes to. I would have to be starving to eat any of the substitute things–not interested!
The serving sizes on a lot of things are ridiculous, but….
I saw a documentary on NHK about the manufacturing of konyaku in Japan, and was wondering when someone would try to market it in America. A lot of potential bucks to be made. It looks like a great option for vegetarians and vegans to explore.
I’m willing to try it, but I would never make something like that the base of my diet.
Thank you, Neo! Because of this post, I found out how to cook those bags of noodles in water!
I’d rather have real food, too. We gave up on margarine a couple of years ago – preferring real butter, real olive oil, real cream, real sugar. Just … in reasonable amounts of it. Real fresh or frozen vegetables, no processed and packaged fake stuff.
And as a sideline, my daughter and I are experimenting with making home made cheese. We just started on a wheel of homemade farmhouse cheddar that we put up about two months ago. A bit crumbly like feta, but a nice sharp cheddar flavor. It’s a follow-on to our other hobby – home brewing.
At my left hand this very evening is the most wonderful wine cooler of our own devising, made from homemade pineapple wine. Ice cubes, a spash of grapefruit juice and equal quantities of pineapple wine and mineral water.
It’s in the 90s today in Texas, with a tropical storm blowing in that may or may not bring us some rain, and an iced homemade wine cooler tastes darned good!
There’s gotta be something wrong with it.
What exactly are these wonder foods made from?
Also, I control portion size at home, so unless these experts expect that people are eating out all the time, let’s put the blame where it belongs–on the hand that rocks the fork.
Well, the noodles are made from a type of yam.
Reasonable quantities? Reasonable quantities? What are these reasonable quantities of which you speak, effendi?
Personally, I go for “food substitute”, like broccoli, which I like anyway, better with butter. It does help fill me up, so I might be eating these reasonable things. Just wouldn’t know ’em if I saw ’em.
Arctic Zero is made primarily of whey protein and gets its sweetness from organic monk fruit…
*insert sound of gagging here*
I’m with SgtMom (whom I now envy like crazy for her home cheesemaking): Real food in modest quantities. I’d rather have one small scoop of Ben and Jerry’s than an entire carton of Arctic Freeze.
Michael, broccoli is real food. With butter it’s even better! Throw in a little sauteed garlic and you have a real winner.
Random,
I could eat broccoli three times a day, or even with all five meals. (The Hobbit blood will out.) It’s only a food substitute when I am dieting and can’t have anything else.
Whey protein stimulates insulin release. That’s why the body builders use it. It is not for the rest of us, as it leads to more hunger, and insulin is a food storage hormone, not a calorie burning one. Syndrome X guys need to avoid milk and it’s permutations. Who knew that on this one thing, my late father would be right? I have the milk-fed gut to prove it that he was.
Asparagus is pretty wonderful, too, and garlic doesn’t hurt that, either. Also, if you stay in one location for three years or more, you can get your own asparagus bed going, and serve it two or three times a week, if you want it, and who would not?
Garlic, in general, does not belong in chocolate cake or ice cream. Beyond those, I have trouble thinking of much else that garlic does not improve.
Gross!
Cut the carbs, eat everything else.
Stay away from fruit, pasta and, most importantly, potatos.
“What we’re seeing here is a strategy that says Americans like to stuff their faces,” says food industry analyst Phil Lempert. “And these mean we don’t have to sacrifice.”
This is really what it’s about isn’t it. Americans are gluttons and see any kind of sacrifice as something to avoid at all costs. Pathetic. This is why we’re doomed.
I for one welcome our new insect overlords….
Thag Jones said : “This is really what it’s about isn’t it. Americans are gluttons and see any kind of sacrifice as something to avoid at all costs. Pathetic. ”
Michael Savage -who is banned from traveling to Britain-has been saying something similiar about how weak Americans have become.
Below is a link to “spaghetti” Squash, which can be used as a substitue to real spaghetti at the Park Seed company :
http://www.parkseed.com/gardening/PD/5675/
I’ve tried spaghetti squash and you’d have to be on LSD to enjoy it as a substitute for actual spaghetti. 😛 However, at least it’s not a weird manufactured fake food product. The thing with pasta is that you are supposed to eat a serving about the size of your fist, not the size of your biggest dinner plate. I know, it sounds like a ridiculously small amount, but you get used to smaller servings until you’d have a hard time finishing a restaurant serving that’s really enough food for a small family.
Like Fausta, Sgt. Mom, and various others, I think that product sounds rather gross. I’ve become very wary of any sort of food that has been over-processed to seem like something that it’s not.
I’ve never had an issue with my weight, but I’ve made a number of dietary changes since last fall, and I’m finding that when I’m good about sticking with the plan, I notice that the few extra inches I do accumulate from time to time just seem to melt away. The key point is to reduce exposure to refined carbohydrates (particularly refined flour and refined sugar) and to include more healthy fats in my diet. I try to eat as many vegetables as I can (which would be easy if I didn’t have to clean and prepare them myself), and fruits are good, too, but you have to be careful not to overdo it with fruits because too much fructose isn’t good for you, either. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not, once you get the hang of it. And if you stick with the plan most of the time (I manage it about 3/4 of the time), you can still take breaks and enjoy less healthy snacks on occasion.
The most important key for me is remembering that some foods I had learned to think of as bad (such as butter) aren’t really so bad at all, and they can be more satisfying than loading up on foods that really are bad (refined carbs).
It’s not the fat you eat that kills you; it’s the fat you carry. I grew up in New Zealand and we ate full-fat butter, cheese, lamb, pork and beef along with fresh vegetables and fruit. Maybe once a week we had fish and chips. Obesity was rare, except among the Maori, who ate too much bad PÄkehÄ (European) food.
Here in the US, so much obesity. I work in healthcare and it seems like I’m stuck in the land of 300lb lard butts. Shouldn’t they know better? But, as a late-blooming marathoner, I play and socialize with very fit people.
Some of them have come from very bad situations. My buddy M was a 300lb tub of lard at age 40 with a two pack/six pack a day habit. This morning he finished a 100 mile ultra-marathon at age 51. Could he have imagined his future, back before he decided to get in shape?
I failed a stress test 12 years ago. Not surprising. I’d given up smoking 15 years earlier and put on 50 lbs. A few years later I started walking 4 miles a day and the pounds melted away. Walking led to jogging led to running led to marathons and a whole new life-style.
I don’t worry about fat vs non-fat. I try to eat lots of different food and avoid processed food. But I don’t think that really matters very much. The rules a pretty simple- don’t eat too much crap and break a sweat most days a week.