Sally’s Kitchen & Stuff

Just read an article off Lifehacker on sticking to a low-fat foods.

As a person who is completely healthy, fit, under on the optimal weight for height, and avoid low-fat foods like the plague, I have issues with that. People are always trying to stick some diet on a book or an article, and we blindly chase it, simply because it seems so easy - all I have to do is follow these rules (and avoid excercise) and I’ll be skinny! Hooray!

Well, life doesn’t really work like that. The problem with a "diet" is that it is FOOD-oriented, and that easily becomes food-obssessed. A healthy lifestyle isn’t food-oriented; it is action oriented. It comes from what you do, not what you eat. Ok, partially from what you eat. But definitely NOT a low-fat, low-cal diet. The thing is, sure, it’s "low-fat" but compared to what? A "low-fat" muffin you can get from the local bakery packs enough calories in it that you might as well have had bacon and eggs. Plus juice.

As much as it may "claim" to be healthy, as well as toting the "same great taste" as its more fattening version, low-fat foods simply don’t taste the same. Low-fat desserts also tend to contain more sugar, which effectively cancel out the low-fat benefit. As for diet-soda, aspartame is worse for you than sugar. Diet-soda, as much calories (0) as it contains, causes a person to eat more - you can’t fool your body with false signals (sweetness = quick energy) and expect it to act normally.

Instead of buying everything low-fat, try this instead.

• Avoid FAST-FOOD. Unless it’s sushi.
  Embrace the art of slow food. Lunch? Pack a sandwich. If you’re living in a decent sized city, sushi for lunch is very affordable (often fast food pricing affordable.) My boyfriend describes eating sushi as "running on premium gas instead of diesel."
• If the ingredients contain "mechanically separated" anything, don’t buy it.
  I’ll give you a mental picture: chicken meat sludge mixed with flour, MSG, and salt. Shaped into patties, covered in breadcrumbs and fried. What do you get? Chicken nuggets.
  Processed foods are generally higher in fat and sugar - it makes up for the lack of real food contained therein. Buy the real stuff. Skip the processed.
• On the humourous side: If the title of said food contains the word "food," and repeatedly assures you that despite all its repeated mechanical processes that it is still food, has problems. Did you know that processed cheese used to be called "Cheese food"? Ewwww.
• Some low-fat (or 0% fat!) foods might contain Olestra. Sure, it’s now "new and improved" but we have no idea what the long term effects are - it’s a 2 year old product!
• Use cooking sprays instead of greasing the pan with oil.
  It really makes no difference, taste-wise. You can get flavoured sprays such as butter, olive oil, or sesame oil to add flavour.
• Replace your 10"-12" plates with 7" plates. Use a real Chinese rice bowl (chinatown!) for noodles instead of those oversized ones from the mall.
  It’s really not what you eat, it’s how much you eat. We’re in the "supersize" era of more is better, so when you hit a family restaurant, those serving sizes are humongous! If you’re going out, eat HALF of what you order, and bag the rest. Better yet, when you order, ASK to bag half the meal. Most servers would be happy to do it for you.
• Stop associating "food" with "activity"
  "Candy" has nothing to do with "working behind a desk"
  "popcorn with loads of butter" has nothing to do with "watching a movie at home."
  "Eating a whole box of Oreos" has nothing to do with "watching Sex In the City."
  "Turkey" can be eaten any time during the year, so there’s no reason to overload at Thanksgiving.
  Snack if you feel hungry, not because you’re doing a certain activity!
• Use LOTS of spices.
  Spices enhance the taste of food without adding calories. Dig that spice rack out (who doesn’t have one? People just LOVE to give spice racks at Christmas time.) and start using it.
• Stop relying on the microwave oven to cook EVERYTHING.
  I’m not saying to ditch it entirely (I have) but microwaves make you lazy. It makes you reach for the frozen meals. It makes you eat processed microwave-able foods. If you grew up with it it’s hard to give it up, but I’ve been without it for the past two years, and really, nobody NEEDS a microwave.
• Drink a SMALL glass of red wine with your dinner if don’t have allergies. (for you guys who complained over my last food articles and my alcohol bashing - yes, red is allowed.)
  A little bit of red wine actually make you eat a little bit less. It MIGHT also speed up your basal metabolic rate. People who drink a glass of red a day tend to be leaner than ones who don’t.
• Adapt an active lifestyle.
  Move a little. Take the stairs. Take a dance class. Get into Stepmania. Walk your dog. Run your dog. Join a community sports team (that isn’t curling.) Go skating. Do something active and most of all, FUN.
• Don’t (bloody) starve yourself.
  I work with teenagers, and it’s scary how they think skipping a meal/eating only salad/drinking lots of diet pop is keeping the weight off. Eat. Eat. Eat! Eat breakfast. Have a snack. Eat lunch. Have a snack. Eat dinner. Have another snack. As long as the snacking involve high-fibre foods, and the meals involve 1/2 vegetables, it’s all good. EAT!
• Don’t go on a diet. Don’t count calories, fat intake, EVER.
  This is the golden rule of staying in shape for the normal person. If you’re HUGE, then yeah, a diet might help, but for the normal person (and ones who are just 10lbs overweight) and those of us who aren’t super-determined-stick-to-a-diet-like-glue types, there is no point in going on a diet. Why? There’s always a new diet. The Atkins diet. The south Beach diet. The carbs diet. Yada yada yada. Does it work? For some people. But most people who go on a diet fail. They don’t work.

Why do diets not work? It’s quite simple. It tells us what to eat. People (in our 20’s and up) have set preferences of what we like to eat, developed over our childhood, and if we’re continually told to eat something we don’t like, for days on end, for months on end, we’re either 1) going to get sick of it or 2) gain the weight right back afterwards as we go back to our favourite foods.

Counting calories is really hard to do - when you go over the world falls down on you. All of a sudden you’re "not sticking to your diet" and it’s very easy to just let it slip. It’s much easier to make little, permanent changes (you can’t go back to those 12" plates. Mwahahahahaha.) than going on a fad diet.

You can also check my other eating & excercise article.

Like this stainless steel strainer by Oxo. You don’t have to buy a $20 one, of course. I picked mine up at Canadian Tire for a measely $5. You can probably find one at a dollar store.

You can use it to

• strain homemade stock
• crush soft fruit (like mangos, bananas, papayas, etc.)
• sift flour and icing sugar
• drain pasta (who needs a colander?)
• Use as a catch-all when dumping that last bit of soup in the sink
• Steam veggies (in a pinch)

Have you ever done a menial task? One that takes way too many steps, way too much time, and offers little reward? Have you, in this instance, ask yourself if there’s a better way to do this task?

This question is how people invent/improve things. It springs from the desire to go from point A to point B in fewer, shorter steps. It’s built into us to want things done faster. The difference between creative, imaginative people and the ones who aren’t is the desire to ACT on this question.

So next time you do something that takes too long, find another way. A shortcut might be one thought away.