Sugar Addendum

So now we know all sweet things are not created equal, and it's preferrable to eat certain sweet things over others.

But you know what you should definitely not use?

Agave nectar!  That's right!  That's stuff they sell in the health food store and advertise as purest, most natural form of sugar ever. 

Not so, according to this article, which I found via the amazing Local Foods in New Mexico.  Apparently, it the article is to be believed, agave nectar is actually agave carbohydrates processed into its sugary components.  Just like corn syrup.  It's the high fructose corn syrup of agave.  High Fructose Agave Syrup.  AND it has an even higher percentage of fructose than high fructose corn syrup.

Ugh.  This just goes to show how alienated we are from our food.  Distributors can just make up stories about the products they sell us and we'll believe them because what do we know about where are food comes from?  

I don't know what the solution is here.  But the problem is worth pointing out.  Again.

Also, don't buy agave nectar.   

Pour Some Sugar On Me

38. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature.
49. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
50. Avoid ingredients that lie to your body.


A lot can be inferred from these three tiny rules about our relationship to sweet things.  Artificial sweetners are out; nothing more accurately defines an ingredient that "lies to your body," than the chemical cocktail in a diet soda.  But it's also worthwhile to point out that, if you've been playing along, diet soda was nixed a long time ago for a lot of different reasons.  But Pollan goes through the trouble of condemning diet sodas and fat-free alternatives and the like, not simply because they're full of chemicals, but specifically because those chemicals lie to your body. 

Why?  It's simple.  That artificial sweetner in your tea, say, may have zero calories for your body to process, but your body is still processing it.  You put it in your body, now your body has to do something with it.  You don't have to be a biologist or a chemist to understand that - that's just logic.  But how is your body processing it?  I think it's safe to say we don't really know.  It may not be doing the same thing real sugar is doing, but it is doing something.  Multiple studies have proven a link between the consumption of diet sweeteners and obesity.  It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

But artifical sweeteners aren't the only thing on Pollan's bad list.   It turns out nature is actually pretty smart about understanding how much of a sugar rush our bodies can handle all at once.  That even goes for things like juice - as Pollan points out, fruit juice, once freed of all the pulpy, fibery goodness that surrounds it, is sugar that gets immediately absorbed by your system.  It's natural but it's not "as it's found in nature." 

And if juice is out, then regular old granulated sugar is definitely out.  Sugar is definitely processed.  It's highly processed.  So, what's left?  Honey, I guess?  Raw honey, to be specific? Maybe maple syrup?  I'm not totally sure how maple syrup comes out of the tree.  And I'm not totally sure if even those count.  I thinking the point that Pollan is trying to make is that nature makes sweet things sweet (like apples) and makes not-sweet things not sweet (like broccoli).   If God didn't sweeten it for you, don't freaking sweeten it!  That's right, no brown sugar in your broccoli stir-fry! 

I find this rule to be totally unfair, and flies in the face of thousands of years of culinary tradition.  So I get around this a little loophole: I'll use regular sugar in anything I cook myself.  I mean, Pollan said I could eat all the junk food I want, as long as I cook it myself.  Is he gonna take that back now?  Is it, "all the junk food I want as long as it's made with raw honey" now?  No.  I refuse.

But his point is well taken.  Don't use artificial sweeteners if you can use real sugar.  Actually, scratch that.  Don't use artificial sweeteners EVER.  Don't use sugar if you can use honey or maple syrup or fruit juice.  But don't just drink fruit juice, it's not as healthy as you think.  And don't sweeten with anything if you can get away with it.

It's Pronounced "Keen-wah."

42.  "The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead." 
43.  Avoid sugary and starchy food if you're concerned about your weight. 
44.  Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone-ground.


In case you've been wondering to yourself, WTF does a millet casserole look like?  It looks like this:

And this:

And since there seemed a lot of speculation in general about what on earth a millet casserole is, and why in God's name I would be inspired to make one, I thought the topic of millet and other lesser known grains merited a bit more discussion.

Millet is in my opinion, is a highly under-rated grain.  Often dismissed as birdseed, it's actually a nutrient rich whole grain packed with protein.  It's so good for you that I often find myself wondering, "what's the catch?"  It's way too delicious to be as good for you as it is; it's got a mild, bready flavor that I mentioned earlier makes a great base for a casserole.  I got turned on to millet, along with quinoa, buckwheat, kamut, barley, and farro last year, during the week and a half my friend Jenna somehow convinced me that it would be great to go on a macrobiotic diet.  I don't know how she convinced me of this; nothing about macrobiotics is in any way conducive to my lifestyle or tastes.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I think there's definitely something to the idea, but I just love bread and cheese way too much to adopt a largely vegan diet that relies heavily on whole grains.

And by whole grains, I don't mean whole grain like your bread is whole grain or like General Mills claims their cereal is "whole grain."  I mean, like the whole. grain.  The whole thing.  Apparently you don't just have to eat grains after they've been ground up into flour.  And apparently there are other grains besides wheat, rice and corn!  Who knew?  Before I went on my brief but informative macro-spree I was vaguely aware of such grains, but never considered them a viable option.

So the basic idea of macrobiotics (if I remember correctly, which I probably don't) is that you should eat leafy greans ALL THE TIME.  Just, like, all the time.  With every meal.  Tons.  And then you supplement with various vegetables and grains.  But whole grains; refined flour is kind of a no-no.  As are meats and other animal by-products.  But I did learn two important things from the experiment:  1) I really love leafy greens and 2) other grains exist besides wheat and rice.

These revelations proved to be important when starting this project because, as evidenced by the rules above, the Food Rules don't look too kindly on bread.  Definitely not white bread.  Number 42 speaks for itself; as for 43, I can't think of anything that says sugary and starchy better than a big, white baguette.  And what Pollan means when he says stick to grains that were traditionally stone ground is this:  if you had a mano and metate right now, and you ground those grains down yourself, would the flour make the bread you're eating now?  If you've got a piece of Wonderbread sitting in front of you, the answer is no.  You can't stone-grind white flour.  It's a whole process.  

I think if you were to really do the rules right, you might want to cut out bread all together.  I mean, when you think about just turning grain into flour is process, isn't it?  Of course, I can't get that hardcore.  Just sticking to whole wheat flour is a project in and of itself.  Sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs in the middle of the grocery store (the co-op, even), OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY PEOPLE HOW HARD IS IT TO GET A LOAF OF BREAD WITHOUT WHITE FLOUR WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD!?!?  


But I have been playing around with more whole grains under the basic philosophy that the whole-er, the better.  I made that millet bake last week.  I made a buttermilk farro salad this week:

For the recipe, click here.

Though, full disclosure: the faro is pearled, which means that some of the nutrient- and fiber-rich outer bran removed, like in white rice.  I'm not sure where things like that lie on the Food Rules continuum, but someone told me that grains that have had some of their goodness stripped away are still better for you than, say, whole wheat that's been turned into flour.  And at this point I feel so saturated with nutritional philosophies, I have no idea.  It probably depends on your definition of "good for you."  Anyway, pearled farro was what the co-op had, so pearled farro was what Leigh made.  And it was good. 

I'm getting off topic.  Moral of the story: whole grains unexplored healthy fun.  Even before I started this project, I rejoiced when I discovered all these new grains because, as much as love bread and pasta, everything eventually gets old.  So... next time you're feeling bored in the kitchen... try some millet?  And stop making fun of me for eating birdseed.

The Saddest Thing

51. Enjoy drinks that have been caffeinated by nature, not food science.
52. Have a glass of wine with dinner.

If I'm going to be completely honest, I would not have even considered this project, were it not for these two rules condoning the consumption of certain strong beverages.  Specifically, the coffee.  Limit myself to things caffeinated by nature?  No problem!  I don't care for Coke, and Red Bull terrifies me.  But Don't. Mess. With. My. Coffee.  I'll give up meat, I'll give up white flour, I'll give up delicious Morningstar Buffalo Wings.  But go without coffee?  I did that for the first 18 years of my life, and I don't care to do it again, thankyouverymuch.

And while I've never been a huge drinker, I've been taking full advantage of Pollan's encouragement to open the vino.  A glass of wine with dinner?  Don't mind if I do!  Normally, I'd refuse (extra calories - you know) but if my buddy MP says so... 

I've also, by extension, included beer in this line of logic.  No, Pollan doesn't specifically mention beer, and it doesn't really have any of the nutritive properties of red wine, but clearly alcohol is not verboten and if I'm drinking LOCAL beer... well, it's practically my duty. 

The only thing is, I fear my zealous embrace of the thumbs-up to wine and coffee isn't working for me. 

Oh.  It pains me to even type those words.

Okay, I know that the book is the Food Rules and not the Food Bible and that there are bound to be some things that don't work for everyone, and part of this journey is discovering what works for me.  But, man, it was SO much easier to say that not eating meat wasn't working for me.

But I've been feeling extremely emotionally volitile lately.  Except, "emotionally volitile" makes it sound so simple and sterile.  Here's the messy truth:  less than a year ago, I moved over a thousand miles away from the place I'd called home for the past ten years.  I violently shifted career paths; I started working three different jobs totaling a fifty-hour work-week if I'm lucky.  I'm exhausted, driven, exhilerated, terrified, focused, overwhelmed, lonely, confused, and determined, sometimes all in the same day.  Sometimes all in the same hour. 

And I don't think all the coffee and wine is helping.

Cutting down on the coffee is kind of a no-brainer.  There have already beens studies that have conclusively linked the consumption of caffeine to increased anxiety.  Wine and alcohol took me a little longer to figure out.  I mean, alcohol isn't a stimulant; it doesn't wind you up, it chills you out - and isn't that exactly what I need, to chill out? 

It's counter-intuitive to think about sitting back at the end of a rough shift with a glass of wine, or kicking back with a beer on the back porch on a Sunday and tell myself that, despite seeming like the best idea ever, this will actually stress you out more. 

But the fact is, alcohol and caffeine, no matter how benign they may seem, are still drugs.  And drugs affect your mood.  That's what they do.  That's what they're made to do.  So maybe, just maybe, when I'm not feeling in control of my emotions, I should cut out things that take that control away from me?  It's just a wacky idea. 

So, sorry, MP.  As much as it pains me to say it.  I think I've found a couple more of your rules that just don't work for me.

And in the meantime, a glass of sparkling mineral water mixed with muddled mint straight from my backyard is just as enjoyable on the back porch, and totally Food Rules-approved.

Spicy Success

46. Love your spices.
37. Sweeten and salt your food yourself.
82. Cook.

Unless you want to ask every server, barista, and counterperson at your favorite sandwich shop, "What is in this?  Is there any way I can see a complete list of ingredients?" (And - FYI - the answer to that question is almost always no), Rules 37 and 82 are pretty much unavoidable.  Still, when you live a busy life, you have to learn very quickly how to cook efficiently for yourself.  You need meals that are fast, simple, (link)utilize massive amounts of seasonal produce, that can be cooked in huge quantities and frozen easily for the weeks ahead.  It's rough and often deeply stressful tightrope to walk. 

Which is why I'm so extremely proud of the taco millet bake I made up last week: not only does it meet all the above requirements, it's also so rich in spices I don't even feel compelled to top it with cheese (a big feat for me - I want to add cheese to EVERYTHING).  This is the idea behind the "love your spices" philosophy, and an old standby in weight loss circles in general: if you spice your food properly, you won't have to slather it in so much fat and salt. 

I scavenged my recipe from a millet bake by Mark Bittman (who we've already established is awesome).  This is absolutely nothing like my taco bake, but it was the only thing I could find online with instructions for baking millet.  Millet is a lovely and undervalued food; it's a whole grain and loaded with all kinds of fiber and protein.  It's also got a very mild, bready flavor which I think makes it a great base for just about any kind of casserole. 
Unfortunately, since I just sort of made this dish up as I went along, I have nothing that bears any resemblence to a comprehendible recipe.  Instead, here's some detailed instructions for how you can make this casserole, if "you" are actually "me."  ...Which also serves as a pathetic peek into how Leigh functions in the kitchen.

1. Get out some ground meat from the freezer - you happen to grab a pound of lean, grassfed beef, but really any meat from a well-fed animal will do - and brown it.

2. While the ground beef is cooking, chop up every vegetable you can get your hands on; everything that you bought at the growers' market that weekend, plus some other stuff lying around that you did.  This could (and does) include red peppers, zucchini, summer squash, oyster mushrooms, and corn kernels.  Oh, and some organic black beans, because they're in your cupboard and why not? More protein.  Chop up an onion too, but set that aside to sautee with the millet.

3. Dump all the vegetables in a bowl with some tomato paste (note: it is difficult to find a can of tomato paste with just pure tomato puree and no weird stuff like sodium citrate, but not impossible) and nice big heap of cumin (probably a tablespoonish?) some salt, and some cayenne pepper if you want it spicy.  Mix it up so that all the vegetables are evenly coated.

4. Spread the veggies out on the bottom of a big casserole dish.... and then transfer to an even bigger casserole dish because there are a TON of veggies in there.  Layer the ground beef on top and set aside. 

5. Start sauteeing your onions in some oil until the onions are transucent.  Take out your millet, measure out a half a cup like in Bittman's recipe and then decide that a half a cup doesn't look like near enough, so just dump out all of it (probably another half a cup) into your pan and cook until the millet is golden brown and fragrant, just like Bittman says.

6. Layer the millet on top of the veggies and beef, and cover the top with a little more tomato puree, just for good measure.  Realize with all the extra millet, you have absolutely no idea how much liquid to add, so fill with vegetable broth until it covers the mixture by about an inch.  Hope that works. (It does.)

7. Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for... 20 minutes, maybe?  Half an hour?  Keep an eye on it, just to be safe, and bake until the millet is cooked.  It's obvious when it is - it changes color, and looks all puffy and delicious and edible.

8. Divide into individual portions, freeze and sprinkle with a little cilantro when served.  Congratulate yourself on NOT wasting precious time in the kitchen on an utter failure.  Good job!

Happy Independence Day

64. Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it 
65. Give some thought to where your food comes from.

Happy Independence Day, all.  It's late, and I'm just returning home from a spectacular barbecue with my family.  Chicken, corn on the cob, two different types of pasta salad, plenty of beer...

I'm not gonna lie, I broke a lot of rules.  We made "spiedies," which are essentially chicken kebabs with an italian marinade specific to my mom's hometown in upstate New York.  The marinade is dripping with more chemicals and preservatives than you can pronounce, but god are they good.  

But we also homemade vanilla ice cream topped with fresh berries made with my grandma's old, old school ice-cream maker, which we all took turns cranking until our arms fell off.  So I like to think that balances it out.

Remember these!?!?

It tasted like only fresh, homemade ice cream can taste, which is to say, heavenly, and totally worth the cramping biceps.  This is my grandma's classic recipe, to go with her classic ice cream maker.  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• 6 eggs
• 2 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 Tbsp. vanilla
• 2 pt. whipping cream
• 3 pt. half & half
• milk "to fill"

It came out a little melty, but still delicious.

INSTRUCTIONS

Beat the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla together, then mix in whipping cream and half & half until everything is incorporated.  Pour mixture into the ice cream maker.  Top off with milk until it is about three inches below the top of the container.  Put the top on the ice cream maker and fill the bucket around it with as much ice and rock salt (we used kosher salt) and crank until your arm falls off!  Seriously, crank until the ice cream is too stiff and the crank won't move.  Open it up, pull the paddles out, close it again, and cover the whole the with ice (we wrapped it up in a towel, too, to achieve maximum coldness) until you're ready to serve.

Very patriotic.

Happy 4th of July!

On Falling off the Wagon

83. Break the Rules Once in a While.

I totally fell off the wagon. Hard.

I mean, I don't mean to imply that I've spent the time last since last I wrote consumed in a hedonistic, Twinkie-fueled fury. I'm still doing the rules. I'm still plugging onward. But there's been a lot less devotion to the project and a lot more I'm-too-busy-to-make-this-from-scratch or I-don't-have-time-to-go-the-farmers-market, a bunch of oops-I-guess-I-shouldn't-have-eaten-that, a bit of oh-I-shouldn't-eh-forget-it and WAY too much well-it's-just-one-bite.

And there's clearly not been nearly enough writing.

If you want to analyze it, there are a lot of reasons you could give for why I've lost steam over past few weeks - I lost momentum while on vacation, my life suddenly got even busier (how is that possible?), I'm TIRED. But I don't want to analyze it, or make excuses for myself.  I want to spend some time actually thinking about what it means to fall off the wagon.

I've been a devoted wagon-faller-offer since I was thirteen years old, and I still don't really know how to deal with it.  The traditional wisdom is, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get back on the horse (it's a horse now, not a wagon - keep up).  Don't get discouraged.  I get that, but I can't help feel that this is a massive over-simplification of a complicated human quality; plus it's way easier in theory than in practice.  If it were that easy to just get back up and keep going, you probably wouldn't have fallen of the wagon in the first place.

The fact is, we live in a world of abundant choice; wherever choices and people exist, what will inevitably follow after are rules.  And it goes without saying that hand-in-hand with rule-making is rule-breaking.  So why do we do it?  How can we do it less?  How can we turn what is essentially an unavoidable, messy part of the human condition and turn it into a constructive, motivating experience?

Pollan even speaks a little to this issue in Food Rules.  "Our experience over the past few decades suggests," he says, "that dieting and worrying too much about nutrition have made us no healthier or slimmer."  This makes sense to me: nowhere in our society is our abundance of choice more evident than in our diet.  Like heavy, frustrating dominos, more choice leads to more rules leads to more falling off the wagon.  But it doesn't matter what your poison is - shopping, drinking, messing around on Facebook (guilty) - there's bound to be something you do way too much of, just because you can.

Pollan's solution is to break the rules once in a while, which is another way of saying, don't be too hard on yourself - don't get discouraged.

This is fine.  I see the wisdom in this.  Many a time I've fallen victim to the cycle of experiencing a burst of self-improving energy, followed by eventual failure, followed by, well, that didn't work, and a return to my previous vices with equal or greater intensity than before.

But at the same time, I have to wonder if capitulation to discouragement is the real demon here.  Don't be too hard on yourself when you mess up, is the sage advice nearly every diet plan ever created will tell you.  But why SHOULDN'T we be hard on ourselves?  Isn't the problem sort of that we cut ourselves too much slack already?  Isn't every time I go to the fridge to munch on a tiny piece of cake and think to myself, "This isn't a SNACK, it's just one bite," - isn't that a kind of unwarranted forgiveness?

Look - I'm not saying that we should all go around hating ourselves for our shortcomings.  But I am saying that when we continue to do things that make us hate ourselves, I doubt that we do so just because change is hard and we got discouraged.

Discouragement or frustration is not what causes falling of the wagon, nor what prevents us from getting back up.  It, like falling off in the first place, is a symptom of a larger issue.  And those excuses I had for falling off the Food Rules wagon?  Too busy, too tired, lost focus, etc. - those are symptoms too.

The issue at stake is Control.

We lose focus, get discouraged, fall off and refuse to get back on when we stop understanding that the choices that we make are ours to make.  So you ate those nachos and did tequila shooters when really shouldn't have - or you caved and watched America's Next Top Model when you swore you were going to get your laundry done (note: these situations are *totally not real* and have never happened to me.)  Don't think to yourself, "Oh, I'm just so weak." Think, "Why did you do that, Lei- er, anonymous person who is totally not me?  Why did you make that stupid choice?"

Because it was my choice.  The human being is an amazing creature, and there's very little one can't accomplish if one invests enough time and effort.  So if you're saying to yourself, "I'm too tired, too fat, too weak, too busy," the odds are, you just haven't made what you want enough of a priority.

And guess who has the control to make it a priority.

Is this too harsh?  I think I live a life of extreme expectation - of the world, and of myself.  I'll be the first to admit, I spend a large percentage of it feeling frustrated and disappointed - and I would not have it any other way.  When I think of all the things I want myself to be, and all things I want the world to be, I can't think of anything else to do but keep falling on my face over and over and over again to realize them.

So take what I have to say with a grain of salt, is all.

Maybe I am being to harsh.  Maybe I only say all this because the only time I get things accomplished is when I have the guts to be harsh with myself.  I'm all for breaking the rules - I'm just saying, break them on your terms.  I think that whenever we get overwhelmed, or give up, or set aside an important goal we meant to reach, it's because we feel like we have no control over the situation, like the deck is insurmountably stacked against us.  And that's simply untrue.  So I guess what I'm saying is don't be afraid to get mad at yourself once in a while.  Because you're right - you can do better.