Sugar, sugar (ah, honey, honey…)

My kid associates these with vacations, because that's when she gets them. Put down that phone, this isn't a case for Child Protective Services.

Though the information was apparently available in December, news stations with little else to say this morning were reporting that the Environmental Working Group released a report you can download from their web site about the sugar content of many breakfast cereals (with a list of the 10 worst, below).  They also recommend some of the best cereals including Cheerios, Kix, Mini-Wheats and really really good stuff like Nature’s Path Puffs and granolas free of GMOs and pesticides.

How to judge sugar content: For every 4 grams of sugar listed on a food label, there’s 1 teaspoon of sugar.  Froot Loops has 12 grams of sugar per 1 cup serving (heaven help you if you’re filling the bowl to the rim before adding milk).  That’s a tablespoon of sugar per cup (because 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon — good to know!).  Although food labels count fruit sugars under that Sugars heading, there’s no fruit lurking in Froot Loops or many of the other cereals packing loads of refined sugar.  That means you are relying on fortification (added vitamins and minerals) for any nutrition.  Also, if the first or second ingredient is sugar, cane syrup, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, concentrated pear juice or the like, you’re going to be flying after eating the stuff.

When you consume a large dose of sugar, your body’s pancreas has to make a lot of insulin.  Insulin tells the cells in your body to go ahead and get all that sugar out of your bloodstream and into cells. When there’s so much sugar floating around in the bloodstream at once, the cells take up loads of glucose; sometimes a little too much.  During the time it takes to release a little bit back into the blood stream, your brain registers hunger.  

This usually coincides with the moment you’ve completed about an hour’s work, the whole day still ahead of you, and Candy Dish lady has just arrived with a couple dozen donuts for that snoozer of a meeting.  There isn’t a bookie in Vegas that would give odds against a 10 am meetup between you and that chocolate covered sweetie.

But you’re not really hungry in the morning and that crappy kid cereal is all you can stomach, or you just aren’t very organized and eating well takes too much work.  Nah.

If you’re rich, you can stop at Starbucks and they’ll make you a little oatmeal in a cardboard cup to take along with your jet fuel.  Take the extras (nuts and dried fruit, each in a 100 calorie package —  pass on the giant package of brown sugar and instead hit the cinnamon canister near the creamer stuff on the way out).  Eat the extras LATER as a snack.  This way you spread out 300 calories and your insulin will work in neat little spurts that will be extra good for your soul.

What?  You aren’t rich?  Me either.  Damn.  Well, anyway, here’s another way: Buy yourself some plain, bulk oatmeal (quick cooking rolled oats — about a buck a pound even at Whole Foods), a little jar of cinnamon, and a few of those little boxes of milk if you like that sort of thing.  It’s cheaper to buy a carton and leave it in the fridge at work, but if you forget to bring one on a Monday, it’s nice to have those little cartons on standby.  If you can find a cheap set of measuring cups at the 99 cent store, bring that too.  

1/2 cup of oatmeal to 1 cup water or milk.  Microwave for 2 minutes, hit with cinnamon instead of sugar.  Add a few raisins — a tablespoon! — if you’re feeling jaunty (or in need of potassium).  Bring a banana?  Still soothing, goes well with coffee, but it’s good for ya.  Also, while people will steal your granola bars after hours, they generally don’t go after the raw oatmeal.

Did I just say you can never have sugary cereal?  I did not.  Don’t have it daily, and maybe just do a half cup of the stuff with a bit of fruit or plain yogurt into which you have lobbed a teaspoon of all-fruit jam.  Allow yourself some balance in life or you’ll find yourself on your knees in someone else’s cubicle hunting for the marshmallows in some poor schlub’s Lucky Charms after every one else has gone home.

Worst offenders:

Kellogg’s Honey Smacks 55.6%
Post Golden Crisp 51.9%
Kellogg’s Froot Loops Marshmallow 48.3%

Plates and weight

Today’s news included a new study citing our ability to serve ourselves more or less food based on the contrast, or lack of contrast of the plate on which we serve ourselves.  The upshot?  The more contrast between the food and the plate the better.  The closer the plate resembles the color of the food, the more we serve ourselves.

Good Morning America did a swell test with this, finding that indeed, the more closely the food color matched the plate color, the more we served ourselves.  We tend to pour on a couple of extra ounces of food, which can quickly add up to additional pounds per year (joy).

This research is nothing new, however.  If you like reading about this sort of thing, check out the wonderful book, Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink.  Sounds like a diet book but it’s an beautifully written book (now cheap at $8 in mass market paperback!) about experiments showing that we respond with our eyes rather than our tummies a lot more than we think.  Glass size, tub size, plate size — it all makes a huge difference.  The experiments, along with Wansink’s jocular prose make for a surprisingly entertaining read.  The endless soup bowl experiment is hilarious, and the stale popcorn experiment is not to be missed.

Keep your dinner plates smaller than a charger (the huge plate that usually goes under a dinner plate and is more like a platter).  Blue provides the most contrast from food since there’s not a lot of blue food out there.  Or white, provided you get a little color in your eating life.

How long does food keep without electricity in the refrigerator and freezer?

I am not a time capsule!

Not as long as you think! The fridge must be maintained at 40°F  or below, the freezer at  0 °F or below.

Here is a helpful quote from your friends at the USDA:

Safe Refrigerator Temperature
For safety, it is important to verify the temperature of the refrigerator. Refrigerators should be set to maintain a temperature of 40 °F or below. Some refrigerators have built-in thermometers to measure their internal temperature. For those refrigerators without this feature, keep an appliance thermometer in the refrigerator to monitor the temperature. This can be critical in the event of a power outage. When the power goes back on, if the refrigerator is still 40 °F, the food is safe. Foods held at temperatures above 40 °F for more than 2 hours should not be consumed. Appliance thermometers are specifically designed to provide accuracy at cold temperatures. Be sure refrigerator/freezer doors are closed tightly at all times. Don’t open refrigerator/freezer doors more often than necessary and close them as soon as possible.

So while you’re at the hardware store buying a generator, go ahead and buy a fridge thermometer also.

While it’s expensive to throw away a week’s worth of groceries (or more if you load the freezer like a hoarder/Costco shopper/same thing), it’s a serious expense to endure the effects of foodborne illnesses like Salmonella, etc.  You might miss work or require hospitalization, ya see?

So, as the nutritionist saying goes, When In Doubt, Throw It Out.  There is no cute rhyme that recommends looking at the back of the fridge, eyeballing it, and going ahead anyway because you’ve done it in the past and nothing bad ever happened.  For every kid in my classes who has wiped the green fur off that old basket of strawberries or left yogurt in the bus overnight and lived to tell the tale, there’s a (smart!) friend who ate the leftover 5-day-old chicken burrito and developed a close relationship with the inside of their bathroom overnight.

Helpful links:

• All about refrigeration and food safety from foodsafety.gov
• History of refrigeration and more safety stuff (it’s the source of the above quote).
• Keeping food safe during an emergency, from the USDA. A gem from this link:

Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature. The refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened. A full freezer will hold the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed. (and you can buy dry ice…click link)

Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie!

It was rough last year not having pumpkin pie.  I was in the midst of discovering I’d likely been sick because of a gluten intolerance (correct = dang!), and had to live without it.  This year I decided to live big and make my first pie ever, and a pumpkin one at that.  I wanted a serious pumpkin pie, but with a totally rockin’ pie crust that didn’t even attempt to be a flaky regular one.  I love the crust from Hugo’s, and set out to duplicate it.

A quick Google search landed me at Gluten Free Goddess, Karina’s excellent web site featuring some great gluten free recipes (great in that they do not try to recreate glutenous counterparts but reinvent them entirely.  Try the Vegetarian Garden Loaf and be stunned, shocked and amazed.  This is now my mother-in-law’s go-to recipe, and everyone loves it — meat eaters, vegetarian, etc.).  Hugo’s pumpkin pie has a ridiculously good crust with pecans, coconut, and cinnamon.  Karina had already worked on imitating the crust, so I tried hers.  Not exact, but perfectly fab the first time out, and absurdly easy to make.

The pie was not absurdly easy, but the promise of one shined like a beacon.  Which is a good thing, because this bad boy proved a bit of work.  For the pie, I wanted the real thing: a custard pie made with eggs, cream and milk but flavored with pumpkin.  I turned to the most reliable source for this sort of recipe, America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.  The recipe calls for uniting a simmered pumpkin mix with a pre-baked crust.  The flavor was perfect, but after blasting the pumpkin mixture in the Cuisinart then simmering it, the recipe called for whipping eggs in the food processor before  adding the mixture slowly back into the Cuisinart for another round.

While this might have been an attempt not to soil every appliance in the kitchen, this method resulted eggs that were overbeaten (5 seconds, that’s all it took!) and the end mixture both overflowed the machine (a mess) and created a foamy pie that tasted great but was more like a pudding.  Overbeaten eggs won’t help a pie set (they usually give structure).  I highly recommend testing recipes before taking them anywhere for this sort of reason.  And of course, I was combining two recipes…

For the final round, I used the Cuisinart for the crust and the initial pumpkin mixture, but after simmering the mixture I added it to the slightly warmed bowl of my stand mixer containing my wire-whipped eggs.  (I warmed the bowl by adding warm water, letting it sit for a moment, then adding room-temp eggs).  The pie came out perfect and despite the extra bowl, created much less mess.

Also, because pumpkin pie batter is so thin, it’s easier to fill the pan or pie  half way, then once it’s on the oven rack, add the rest of the batter.  I have a

Kaiser LaForme springform (best pan, no leaks) but not overflowing the mix while pushing the damned thing into the oven was a challenge both times I made it.

This was a serious treat,  especially after I whipped the remaining cream to put over the top (a little sugar, a little vanilla, a few minutes with the stand mixer, Voila!).

Forgot to show a slice with whipped cream.  That’s because we were too busy eating it!

Blood sugar: Don’t kill the messenger

Doooooonuuuuuts. Not every day and not breakfast for the love of Homer!

Lately insulin regulation is getting a lot of play as the culprit for many diseases beyond diabetes, and rightly so: When insulin levels are not well regulated, you end up with too much glucose in the cells.  You need some blood sugar swimming around to provide you with energy, but too much damages arteries and contributes to any disease that relies on the health of blood’s superhighway.  We’re talking heart disease, eye disorders, kidney issues, and stroke; perhaps more.

Think you’ve got nothing to worry about?  According to the CDC, from 2005-8, 35% of Americans over 20 years of age tested pre-diabetic (65 or older?  Make that 50%), making for an estimated 79 million folks with pre-diabetes.  Whoa. That means your blood sugar might be a bit out of whack, chief.

So let’s break this all down:

What’s blood sugar?  It’s glucose that travels through the blood to cells to provide energy.  All carbohydrates that we digest and absorb (in other words, not fiber) end up as glucose.  Table sugar is glucose and fructose, lactose in milk is glucose and galactose.  Most starch is long chains of glucose molecules. It matters not, because it all goes to the liver, which cleverly converts galactose and fructose to glucose.

Glucose we don’t immediately need is stored in the liver and the muscles as glycogen (long chains of glucose — animal starch!), where it can be used later if blood glucose starts to run low.  Once we fill up those storage spaces, we turn the rest into fat (which is akin to when you’ve moved beyond all those stuffed drawers and bins and into full-blown off-site storage for all your stuff).  This of course, is when the body is behaving itself.

What is insulin?  It’s a very small protein made in the pancreas that directs cells to allow glucose to enter.  It’s a hormone because it’s made in one place and works in another place as a chemical messenger (“Let the glucose in!”).  When blood glucose runs low, (for example, in between meals or during strenuous exercise), the body uses the hormone glucagon to get glucose back into the bloodstream.  Thus insulin lowers blood sugar, glucagon raises it.

 So?  The more refined the carbohydrate (the less fiber, and literally the more mechanically small it is — for example mashed potatoes rather than whole ones), the faster glucose hits the bloodstream, and the more insulin your body will have to make to get that flood of glucose out of the blood stream.  When this occurs, it will cause your body will  make more cholesterol, which of course will raise your LDL levels.  The higher your LDL, the higher the risk of heart disease, stroke, eye diseases, and well, dementia possibly (see the L.A. Times link below).  Diets consistently high in glycemic load foods (those that enter the bloodstream more quickly) contribute to belly fat, which in turn predisposes you to heart disease.  Also, you usually end up taking in a whole lot of glucose with that flood of insulin, and before the glucagon can slam on the brakes, you’ve taken in enough to trigger…hunger.  Which will encourage overeating.  Sigh.

Never despair.  Soluble fiber (apples, oatmeal) and fat both slow down how fast glucose enters the blood, so good foods containing these will allow for smaller amounts of insulin to be used over time.  The American Diabetes Association has a handy list right here, though it ain’t brain surgery.  When you eat this way, it also means quite a few things to the body. When insulin is released more slowly, little cholesterol is made in the process.  You tend to stay fuller longer and you may end up eating less as a result.  You tend to consume foods that actually help lower your blood cholesterol (soluble fiber, ahem).  You lower your chances of wearing out your pancreas and or developing diabetes.  You may need to start wearing a satin cape you’re so good!

What is diabetes anyway?

Diabetes comes in two forms, Type 1 and Type 2.  Type one occurs when the body attacks cells in the pancreas that make insulin (it’s an autoimmune issue).  As a result, people with Type 1 diabetes make very little or no insulin, and must take insulin daily via injection.  Insulin is a protein that would be dismantled in the stomach, and this is why it can’t be taken as a pill.  Researchers have tried other stuff (snorting?!) but to no avail thus far.  The insulin pump has worked wonders.  Type 1 diabetes can happen at any age, but it more commonly occurs in younger people.  Luckily it’s only about 5% of diabetes cases, and hopefully stem cell research will help eliminate this form as a disease (provided no religious zealots halt research involving stem cells).

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, and there is a genetic link boys and girls.  Type 2 diabetes occurs when the cells stop listening to insulin when it comes a’knockin’.  When insulin comes along (“Let the glucose in!”) and the cells turns a deaf ear, glucose stays in the bloodstream.  The pancreas figures it needs more insulin, so it makes more and sends it along.  Sometimes the mob can get the cell to listen a little better, but you end up making loads of cholesterol.  Also, the glucose damages the cardiovascular system by causing inflammation.  This can cause damage to arteries as well as strain organs, and that’s how it encourages disease.

When a person is diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, the doctor will immediately ask the patient to lose weight and exercise.  The patient will find losing weight to be difficult.  The blood is flooded with glucose, but the cells have very little.  They are hungry, and they will tell you so all the time.  Meanwhile, you will be thirsty all of the time as well because the only way to get rid of all that glucose is to wash it out in your urine.  So you will drink and pee and be hungry.

Why the diet and exercise then?  Filled up fat cells won’t listen when insulin arrives because they don’t need the glucose.  The more you empty out those cells, the more closely the fat cells will be listening when insulin swings by with a little glucose pick-me-up.  When you exercise those muscles, they tend to prick up their ears when offered a source of energy, so they start listening too.  Non-diabetics, pre-diabetics: I’m talking to you too.

The good news: after a time, the hunger will dissipate and it will become easier to take the weight off and keep it off.  You will also, however, have to exercise consistently and work with a doctor or coach to help maintain good glucose levels.

And what if you don’t have diabetes?  Follow the above advice to lower the risk that you ever will.  Now go eat a vegetable.

The L.A. Times health section today has some great articles on managing diabetes.  They look at the possible link between diabetes/blood sugar and dementia, stem cell therapy (the future for Type 1 diabetes), having a diabetes coach to help maintain blood sugar, and a very informative one about little girl’s struggle to manage Type 1 diabetes.

The burning stove problem

We have been working on renovating our kitchen.  Apparently I, as an old broad, failed to realize somehow that the trend in stoves makes for appliances that look like glorified outdoor grills in an attempt to imitate restaurant stoves.  The only problem is that they are horrible looking (that’s why they keep them in the back — and why they have LARGE sinks to clean the grates, etc. — who needs huge iron grates?)  Also, get off my lawn!

Anyway, we looked, and to my astonished surprise, I went home and wanted to hug our perhaps 30 year old Caloric Prestige that came with our house years ago.  Oh yeah, its grates look like they’ve been through a nuclear armageddon, and the lady cleaned it will Brillo every week, but it cooks like a charm.  And it’s still better looking than the other stoves.  Also, I’m wary of those little buttons you push to make the oven work — they broke so easily on our fancy toaster-oven (lifespan: less than 6 months).  When I went back to the cheap-o Black and Decker toaster oven with dials (lifespan of the one before the fancy one: 15 years), my toasting world righted itself.

Off we went to Sav On Appliances in Burbank.  Would it be wrong to have bake sales to benefit our impending ownership of a 1950-something O’Keefe and Merritt, fully restored?

Late '40s Okeefe and Merritt: Hello my darling

The nice lady told us that the computers on the new stoves are located with those fancy push buttons, right where all of the moisture and heat gathers, killing them off in about 5-8 years.  The old stoves are just crazy cool, and everyone tells me they cook well.  My mother-in-law has a beauty.  It’s tempting.  We may have to visit Mr. Aikens in Inglewood to torture ourselves some more.

But for now, I’m going to hug the little stove I have cooked on just about nightly for years.  I underestimated you, old Caloric, and I may have your stove grates re-done yet you old bird!

You can recycle drink boxes and beverage cartons in L.A.!

The Bureau of Sanitation flyer

Just last week, after YEARS, it was announced that you can put your empty, dry drink boxes and milk cartons into the blue bin.  Hoorah!

The Carton Council, brought to you by the leading makers of aseptic packages (drink boxes) have worked with L.A. Bureau of Sanitation , who specify what drink receptacles can be recycled:

Refrigerated cartons such as milk, juice, cream, and egg substitutes that are found in the chilled sections of grocery stores, and non-refrigerated cartons such as juice boxes, soup and broth, soy milk, and wine cartons found on the shelves in grocery stores.

So when you’re stumbling around after the party, remember to get the wine box into the blue bin (Kathy Griffin’s Mom, I’m talkin’ to you).  I’ll go into my uber-geekly love of Tetra Pak (shout out to Ruben Rausing!) some other time.  You’re welcome.

Feeding hungry children this summer

Hi there, sorry to be away for so long…I never intend it!

I was riding along in my car yesterday wondering what kind of summer programs exist for children who, without the aid of school meals, face hunger and possibly malnutrition this summer.  I made a note in my head to look this up.  Unfortunately, my head is a very crowded and somewhat disorganized place, so I forgot.

Then this morning I saw an article in the L.A. Times about fewer qualified children participating in food programs during the summer because fewer summer programs were being offered at schools.  (here is the link: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-summer-meals-20110616,0,7728509.story)

Life is difficult enough with everyone out of work and struggling.  There are nearby parks and community centers in Los Angeles offering assistance and to make it easy (it isn’t terribly simple to find unless you know where to look), here are some places to go:

A listing of food service program locations in the Los Angeles area at nearby parks with telephone contact information, the times when lunch and snacks are served  to children ages 1-18 for FREE with NO PAPERWORK — just come and eat — from June 27-August 26, 2011: http://www.laparks.org/foodprogram/listArea.htm   Phone:  (818) 546-2383 or (818) 546-2384 Menus: http://www.laparks.org/foodprogram/index.htm

The L.A. Regional Food Bank also has programs for kids, seniors and other adults facing hunger, including programs to feed children over the weekends: http://www.lafoodbank.org/programs/programs-for-kids/kids-cafe.aspx

Community centers and other private entities that provide food services are reimbursed by the federal government through the USDA.  If you are looking for such a program and you do not live in Los Angeles, or you would like to start one of your own, please go to:

National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-3-HUNGRY or 1-877-8-HAMBRE

http://www.summerfood.usda.gov/

Julia Child and Avis DeVoto = great reading

Julia Child and Avis DeVoto became pen pals after Avis responded to Julia’s present of a French knife in response to Bernard DeVoto’s column on the subject.  Julia Child was not famous at the time, but an aspiring cook book author, and Avis was, as she would always be, the great supporter of those around her in Boston and beyond.  Julia Child was quite an adventurous sort, which I think came across even as she cooked on TV.  She was also quite a bit more intelligent and interesting than her public image (“Save the liver!”) would suggest.  The big surprise of this epistolary book, however, is not Julia but Avis.  Avis was a grand facilitator, a truly passionate supporter of other people’s artistic ability, and editor, a keeper of the house, a parent, a cook, and a woman who had to persevere on  her own following the sudden death of her husband.  She is given credit for finding a publishing home for Julia’s book, but seeing the process in detail really emphasizes what an outstanding person Avis really was.

There’s a lot of food, a lot of politics, and a lot of goings on; they were every bit as busy as we say we are today, and every bit as interesting.  Joan Reardon does a great job editing these letters into an intimate portrait of two buoyant lives.

Fruit Season is a’comin’

If you want to eat more fruit, or get your kids to eat more fruit, put it where you can see it.  A pretty bowl with bananas, little clementines and apples is very inviting, and when the food is right in front of you, you’re more likely to eat it whether it’s good for you or not.  So keep the candy bars out of sight, and the fruit on the dining table.*

To keep fruits fresh, try putting out just enough for grabbing and leave the rest in the fridge.  We replenish daily after the grabbing and running are done for the day.

*and while you’re in the hammock, read Brian Wansink’s fantastic book, Mindless Eating, about experiments at Cornell proving this and other funny human tricks we play on ourselves.  Mr. Wansink is a terrific writer as well.