Week 8: Why Avoid Food Products That Make Health Claims?

After posting my goal for this week, my friend M commented that she thinks of foods making health food claims to be items like Goji berries and Noni juice. Foods that you wouldn't ordinarily eat except that they claim to cure what might ail you.  I don't have anything of this nature in my kitchen.  I don't even take vitamins, although my husband assures me that I should be taking supplements. The general care of my health is an entirely different dissertation altogether, based naturally in the family culture in which I was raised.

Pollan goes deeply into food engineering in Omnivore's Dilemma.  The ideas that remain with me from reading OD is when diet trends change, the industrial food complex processes and markets food in new ways to meet the specifics of that trend. Low fat, low carb, heart healthy, South beach Diet, and so on.  In Food Rules, he simply states that most items that make big health claims do so on their splashy colorful packaging.  Food that comes in splashy colorful packages is typically among the most processed.  And oftentimes based upon bad science.

Consider the trend and marketing of margarine. I remember this especially vividly during my childhood in the 1970's.  Margarine is made by adding hydrogen atoms to fat molecules to make them more saturated and thus reduce their melting temperature.  Some cubes of margarine can stand on your kitchen counter without melting or even softening up to temperatures of 98F.  Neither molds nor insects are attracted to margarine...because it isn't meant naturally to be a food. This frightens me. Additionally, the hydrogenation produces unhealthy trans fats which is the worst kind of fat we can ingest.  So despite the lower comparative cholesterol of margarine (compared to butter), some margarines are even worse for you than butter. And ultimately margarine is created in a lab. Do we really need to eat food that is created in a lab on a  daily basis? (I exclude the kitchens of Jose Andres, Wylie Dufresne and Grant Achatz in the lab category, although I certainly wouldn't eat in any of their restaurants daily.) For more information on the process and product of margarine, read Dane Roubos's The Margarine Hoax, originally published in Nexus Magazine, 1997. Read Dr. Martha Grogan's butter vs margarine comparison on the Mayo Clinic website.

So, when Pollan advises we steer clear of foods that make health claims, I will not be eating the following items in my kitchen right now: Diet Coke, Special K, Cheerios, Pam, Progresso Low Sodium Soup, etc. Naturally, as a result of this project I am not eating these items anyway. My husband has made no such comittment. He continues to happily munch his Cheerios in low fat milk every morning.

Week 8: Avoid Foods that Make Health Claims

As I turned the page in Food Rules; An Eater's Manual, I was hoping for a new challenge this week. I have stopped reading ahead basically because the project is no longer new, two months in.  So, here I am. No food that makes health claims.

Do my high fiber Wasa crackers count? They claim to have a lot of fiber and we all know what that does for your health.

Week 7: Cross Pollination. Iso Rabins (World Famous Forager) Cooks Dinner at Hatchi

Ok, so I have no plans for cross pollinating my blogs.  However, this week I ate at Hatchi with Iso Rabins in the kitchen. Iso Rabins is a well known and rapidly growing more famous forager. He cooks with foraged foods, runs an underground farmer's market in San Francisco, and even supplies customers with CFA (community foraged agriculture) boxes once a month.

I blogged about the meal here at FST.

I am curious to know what Michael Pollan thinks of Rabins. Not because of Rabins's approaches to eating healthily. Certainly foraged food can be as easily bastardized into something unhealthy as the most beautiful heirloom tomatoes from your farmer's market or zucchini from your garden. But I wonder what Pollan would think because of his thoughts and extensive writing on the industrial food complex.  Rabins is the anti-hero to the industrial food complex. He forages in parks, wild life areas, fields, meadows and waterways looking for ingredients to both feed people and make them more aware of all that is availably edible in their immediate and sometimes urban surroundings.

I also think we are all going to become foragers after the Armageddon/zombie invasion/population decreasing viral attack that is sure to come in the next century. We should learn the skill now or forever be denied fresh mushrooms. Maybe I should find out the location of truffle farms in the US so I can forage there after the apocalypse.

Week 7: Avoid Food A Third Grader Cannot Pronounce

Ok, I get it. I got it during weeks 2 and 3.  No multi-hyphenated long syllabic food supporting substances such as preservatives, emulsifiers, artificial colorings, sweeteners, acidity regulators, bulking agents, thickeners, stabilizers, humectants, etc etc ad infinitum.

Week 7 done. I have been eating real food.  Food I make at home, food that is still for the most part recognizable in its original state. A few exceptions: Wasa crackers. Not giving those up. They are  a filling breakfast or lunch with some cheese or fruit and have tons of fiber. Occasionally (like once or twice a month) I am going to use non-dairy creamer in my coffee or tea. Happened during week 7 because I had no access to half & half without waiting for rooms service and paying $10 for a cup of tea. I also ate one can of soup because a school I was working at gave me 20 minutes for lunch and I had a can in the car from 2009.

However, some things are balancing these occasional tendencies out. When ordering room service, I have started ordering veggie plates with some kind of potato on the side. Just as yummy as fish on some weird sauce or salad with mysterious dressing substances.

In the past three weeks I can count on one hand the number of times I have knowingly and deliberately eaten preservatives and additives and/or processed food items. (Not including the beloved Wasa cracker). This is a serious change in my dietary habits even though it feels like my lifestyle has not really changed one iota. FTW.

Week 6: Avoid Food Products Containing More Than 5 Ingredients

I am ending week five a day early. Today is Valentine's Day. I am going to make chocolate mousse for my husband from scratch using a recipe from White on Rice Couple's blog. I will eat my share, I will not feel guilty and I will not blog about it. Well, not really.

Week 6.  Avoid Food Products Containing More Than 5 Ingredients

The important caveat in rule 6 is that recipes with more than 5 ingredients don't count. So my lemon-rosemary-garlic roasted Rocky the Free Range chicken on a bed of baby potatoes, kale and Brussels sprouts doesn't count. Each ingredient only has one ingredient. Does that make sense? Of course it does. The Doritoes on the table at the Superbowl buffet last weekend. No go. An ingredient list longer than the indeces of an academic journal.

An interesting thing has happened to me as this project has progressed.  In my travels for work and trips to the grocery store I have started considering the items in the "middle aisles" a little (a lot) differently.  In lunchtimes of desperation, I used to enter a gas station mini-mart and look around for the most healthful thing to put in my mouth. A sandwich, a granola bar, etc.  At the grocery store I have always concentrated on the outside aisles; produce, butcher, dairy. Now I am even less inclined to enter the middle aisles with their splashy labels and bright plastic packaging.  The items in these aisles and in gas station mini-marts no longer really occur to me as viable food options.  I am planning ahead more successfully (for lunches and breakfasts on the go) and hence not getting stuck in the rut of fast food drive-through salads or the gas station mini-mart lesser of all evils.

However, I recognize that the aftermath of the zombie-infection/alien invasion/armageddon, all bets are off. I will be using Food Rules as torch fuel.

Week 5: Greek Yogurt Review

Week five was super easy for me. I think I only broke the rule twice, and neither time was at a meal per se. The first was at a staff meeting Monday, I ate half a cookie. It was my monthly imperative.  My second break from the rule was at the doctor's office Friday when they handed me a Valentine with a chocolate attached. Feeling sorry for myself for having a cervical lymph node sticking out much like one of Frankenstein's neck bolts, I gobbled the chocolate down like a starving man on a desert island. Nothing like mixing metaphors on Valentine's Sunday.

During the past few weeks I have discovered the joy of Greek-style yogurts with their active cultures and high protein count.  As I slurped these daily for breakfast wherever I happened to be, I jotted down my thoughts on post-its and stuck them to the inside of my planner. Yes, I use a physical planner. Despite having an internet addiction as bad or worse than most peoples', I still use a physical planner, spiral bound and made of paper.  It's classy. It has dog cartoons from the New Yorker.

What follows is the Greek-style yogurt break down.  I skipped the infamous Trader Joe's brand because it does not come in individual containers. Traveling somewhere different daily, I don't want to have to worry about refrigeration of the rest of the container, nor bringing an extra bowl, nor worrying about washing the container if I end up staying the night in a hotel room. Those of you greener than I can surely poke gigantic holes in this approach. Sorry, it is what it is right now in my life. Yogurt convenience wins over the greenness of bulk packaging.

Fage 2%: Creamy and thick. Extremely tart, at the tarter end of the tart continuum.  260 calories (really, probably a double serving container, but sometimes I eat the entire container anyway), 5g fat, 17 grams protein.  Not my favorite, but universally available.  And if you calculate that this is a double serving, you are really only getting 8.5 grams protein per serving. $1.99 for 7 ounces.

Voskos 0%:  Comparatively liquidy. 140 calories, 24 grams protein (wow), 0 fat, 9 grams carbs.  I wondered if the lack of creaminess is because there is zero fat, but I tried a couple other fat-free Greek-style without the same liquidity.  Live active cultures, the label does not say which ones.  However, no rBST, rBGH, or GMO. In other words, no hormones or steroids from dairy cows that have not been genetically modified.  Does the "no GMO" include the feed for the cows as well? Pollan would want to know.  The label states that there has been no proof that using these in cows harms people in small doses, but nevertheless Voskos has none. And despite the assertions that these ingredients have not been proved harmful to people in small doses, I still wonder what has caused cancer in more than half a dozen people close to me? I digress. $1.99 for 5.3 ounces.

Chobani 2%:  Not quite as thick as Fage, a little wetter but not as liquidy as Voskos.  130 calories, 17 grams protein, 3.5 grams fat, 7 grams carbs.  Five active cultures, although their website only refers to two.  I like Chobani, and sometimes you can get it for around a buck-twenty. Like Fage, it is pretty universally available.

Siggi's 2%: Siggi's is an Icelandic style yogurt, strained with high protein. I really like this one. It is extremely thick, almost as thick as a ricotta cheese. However, I have only seen it at Whole Foods.   100 calories, 17 grams protein, 0 fat, 6 carbohydrates.  At $2.49 it was at the pricey end for a 6 ounce container. I thought it was worth it. This and a piece of fruit still brings breakfast in at around three bucks.

Oikos 0%:  Middle of the road in terms of texture. Not as thick as Siggi's, not as runny as Voskos. Pretty similar to Chobani.  80 calories, 15 grams protein, 0 fat, 6 grams carbohydrate for 5.3 ounces.  Again, the emphasis here is on availability and price.  $1.29 and at both Whole Foods and Gelson's.

I eat my Greek yogurt with agave nectar, it is too tart for me to eat it plain. When at home, I add fruit. Bananas, berries, this week cara cara orange or blood orange segments.

Why Greek yogurt? Why yogurt at all?

Week 5: Avoid Products That Have Some Form of Sugar in Top Three Ingredients

Pollan says that what complicates this are the many guises sugar hides behind in ingredient labels. Be on the look out for barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetener, fruit juice concentrate, and so on and so forth.  Okie dokie.

Week 4: Organic Free-Range Hormone & Antibiotic Free Roast Chicken Don't Come Cheap

Mid-week in week 4 I needed a treat, as if the meal at Shiro and my upcoming DineLA meal at Petrossian weren't going to be enough. Wanting to check out the new butcher shop in the 'hood, I headed over to McCall's in Los Feliz.

A beautiful little butchery shop run by a friendly couple right next door to Mexico City. Parking was not a problem mid-afternoon.

All their furnishings are done by Cellar Door Studios in DTLA. Cellar Door takes reclaimed pieces and models them into furniture, frames, shelving, etc. Beautifully.

    

I grabbed a pricey but beautiful Ken Dor chicken from McCall's, pulled out one of my new and as yet unused Le Creuset and my ancient Martha Stewart cookbook and set to roasting a bird on a cold rainy day. I don't really use Martha's recipe, I just use it as a reminder for cooking times. I have been peeking at this exact same recipe a few times a year since college.

Nathan from McCall's had suggested instead of roasting my veg separate I place them under the bird. I just happened to have some new potatoes in the fridge.

And quite a few sprouts left on a branch of Brussels sprouts.

I prepped lemons from my tree for filling the cavity, rosemary and garlic.

And as you can see, I stuffed the rosemary and garlic under the skin.  Please do not remind me that my bird is upside down.

Potatoes, Brussels sprouts, shallot and garlic with some looping drizzles of olive oil and sea salt.

After roasting, the veg came out nicely caramelized around the edges.

And the bird came out beautifully brown and roasted. Really, it was delicious and worth the spendy price.  I am ashamed at myself for roasting the bird upside down. I have cooked exactly this method dozens of times, cooked no less than half a dozen Thanksgiving gobblers, and never ever cooked my bird upside down. Sigh.

Week 4: End to HFCS Week

Yup, not eating HFCS was harder than I thought. Progresso soups? HFCS. My ponzu sauce? HFCS.  Both out, the ponzu very painfully out.  I also skipped adding the thick sweet brown fish sauce that comes on the side of my pho during one extremely rainy afternoon last week, assuming rightly I am sure, HFCS.

I also posted the caveat at the beginning of this project that I would allow myself two meals a week as a respite to the week's rule. This week I allowed myself three meals.

Meal #1: Shiro hosted dinner.  I was hosted in an extremely gracious manner in return for some food photographing, I ate everything that was put in front of me including tastes of three different kinds of dessert.

Meal #2: DineLA dinner at Petrossian in West Hollywood.  My meal consisted of bellini with caviar and creme fraiche, black truffle mac & cheese, pork belly in a cheesy polenta, and a strawberry balsamic panna cotta. I see ample opportunity for HFCS to hide in all of those dishes.

Meal #3: Superbowl buffet.  Bratwurst, 1/2 a giant sugar cookies with the Saints fleur-de-lys on top, spicy-sweet salad dressing from a bottle. I am guessing they all had HFCS.

I am happy to kiss this week goodbye and unhappy to grudgingly acknowledge HFCS turns up literally everywhere you look. And since I was not particularly vigilant about my exercise regime, I plan to be doubly so this week with regard to the rule and the regime.

Week 4: HFCS Fail

Insomnia. 2:30 am xanax. 7:30 am 1st grade class. Hence, 7:15 am coffee at client school site.  Non-dairy powdered creamer, 2nd ingredient HFCS.

Two cups.