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April 30, 2005
Carolina Barbecue Quorn
On a recent trip to my dad's house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I became re-infatuated with Carolina Barbecue Sauce. Traditionally, it is served on pork, in a ritual that is called a "Pig Pickin.'" This is often colloquially referred to as a "Barbecue," and in North Carolina, when one says that one will attend or host a "barbecue," one means that a pig will be publically roasted over a giant open pit or in a portable large fire throwing oven type of thing, and then its flesh will be slathered in a vinegar based barbeque sauce and served on paper plates with coleslaw, hushpuppies, and extraordinarily sweet iced tea. this lead to much confusion when I first arrived at college in the North and saw a poster for a "Hillel Barbecue!" It took a good few months before I found out that when Northerners say "Barbecue," what they mean is a "Cook-Out!" A "Cook-Out" involves cooking hamburgers and hot dogs, quite possibly all-beef hotdogs or even tofu pups, on a grill outdoors. You see my confusion.
Anyway, what makes North Carolina barbecue special is that it is vinegar based, not tomato based. It's therefore much lower in sugar and it's very salty and vinegary. I love salt and vinegar... pre-CR, I often thought that I was the person for whom the salt and vinegar potato chip was created. But I have never been a big fan of pork... at least not since I stopped eating ham biscuits as a child at church "Covered-dish Suppers" (that's the Southern word for potluck) so I've always wanted to create a vegetarian version of Carolina barbecue. I thought about doing it with tofu, till I found out that tofu seems to cause dementia, and I don't love NC bbq that much!
So I picked up some of that interesting and delicious fungus, Quorn, at Whole Foods today. Tonight I am cooking it for my mom with the Carolina Barbecue sauce I picked up in NC. I'll just take the Quorn tenders, microwave them, then sizzle them in a pot with Carolina BBQ sauce with some fresh tomatoes and green peppers, and a salad on the side. Yum!!!
Here's the crunch for today:
Food List : 4-30-05.FLS
DATE : 04/30/05
Num. Foods : 18
Food #1 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 1 cup
Food #2 : Olive oil 1 teaspoon
Food #3 : Grape juice 1 oz
Food #4 : Cottage Cheese Lowfat Light and Lively 1 cup
Food #5 : Kale, raw 200 g
Food #6 : Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, November thru May average 100 g
Food #7 : Milk, nonfat, fluid, without added vitamin A (fat free or skim) 120 calories (big latte)
Food #8 : Coffee, brewed, espresso, restaurant-prepared 1 skim latte's worth
Food #9 : Coffee, brewed, prepared with distilled water 1 Venti Coffee
Food #10 : Quorn 100 g
Food #11 : Sauce, barbecue sauce 35 cals
Food #12 : Peppers, sweet, green, raw 100 g
Food #13 : Lettuce, cos or romaine, raw 50 g
Food #14 : Mustard greens, raw 100 g
Food #15 : Arugula, raw 10 g
Food #16 : Flax oil 2 teaspoons
Food #17 : Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, white 9 oz
Food #18 : Salsa, med. chunky 4 tablespoons
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 1043.87__cal 52%
Protein 79.73__gm 145% RDA
Total Fat 30.58__gm 47%
Sat. Fat 11.23__gm 56%
Mono. Fat 8.72__gm 30%
Poly. Fat 7.93__gm 119%
Carbohydrate 79.49__gm 26%
Fiber 13.30__gm 44%
Cholesterol 106.94__mg 36%
Vit. A 22004.33__IU 440% RDA
Vit. B6 1.21__mg 76% RDA
Vit. B12 2.10__mcg 105% RDA
Vit. C 399.62__mg 666% RDA
Vit. E 5.22__mg 65% RDA
Thiamine 0.75__mg 68% RDA
Folacin 262.26__mcg 146% RDA
Riboflavin 2.50__mg 192% RDA
Niacin 10.63__mg 71% RDA
Panto. Acid 2.84__mg 57% SA
Calcium 1340.48__mg 112% RDA
Copper 1.44__mg 72% SA
Iron 7.14__mg 48% RDA
Magnesium 337.73__mg 121% RDA
Manganese 6.08__mg 203% SA
Phosphorus 1114.17__mg 93% RDA
Potassium 3297.63__mg 165% RDA
Selenium 55.28__mcg 101% RDA
Sodium 1786.27__mg 74% SA
Zinc 14.00__mg 117% RDA
Tyrosine 4.04__gm 420% RDA
Lysine 8.34__gm 1158% RDA
Phenylalanine 4.97__gm 518% RDA
Leucine 8.87__gm 923% RDA
Valine 5.96__gm 710% RDA
Methionine 2.87__gm 955% RDA
Cystine 1.67__gm 555% RDA
Tryptophan 1.32__gm 732% RDA
Threonine 4.77__gm 994% RDA
Isoleucine 5.53__gm 767% RDA
I also discovered something excellent today. You know how when you make a lot of salads with serious greens like kale, you can end up with a lot of tough stems? In recent past, I have cooked them in chicken broth with a touch of garlic and brewers yeast, and they're delicious! But today I was aching for some chips and salsa, so I ate "Stems and Salsa!" They're strong enough to stand up to being dipped, and you don't mind the toughness because you're expecting crunch in something you dip into salsa. Delicious! Especially the super-spicy stems.
Posted by april at 1:56 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 29, 2005
Light Soups -- No One Will Know They're Low Calorie
You've already heard my cauliflower soup, a very light soup that has almost no calories but tastes oddly buttery. We can't figure it out, but we love it. It's basically: a head of cauliflower, pureed in the food processor with chicken broth and garlic. Heat. Serve. Done. Call it "cream of cauliflower" -- no one will make you take a lie detector test.
I love this one: Cream of Tomato
1 can whole peeled tomatoes
1 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 cup vegetable or fat free organic chicken broth
dried basil
bring the broth to a boil and add tomatoes. Turn down the heat and gradually stir in the yogurt. Dust with basil and serve.
Roasted Red Pepper Soup
1 can whole peeled tomatoes
2 red peppers, roasted (do this yourself. if you don't know how, look back at March for instructions, or write me)
Tabasco or other Louisiana hot sauce
Chop the tomatoes and put in a pot. Stir in the red peppers, diced. Add hot sauce to taste. This is a good one, seems difficult and isn't. Serve super hot. Feel free to add plain yogurt for a "cream" variation.
Gazpachzo
This is a cold soup, and there are people who have a problem with cold soups. So be sure to find out before you serve it if your guests hate cold soups.
2 bell peppers
1 cucumber
1/4 red onion
2 cloves garlic
juice of one lemon
1/2 tablespoon tarragon vinegar, or white wine vinegar
1 container of spicy V-8, Bloody Mary Mix, or tomato juice
fresh tomatoes, diced
Blend bell peppers, garlic, cucumber and onion in the food processor. Stir into vegetable juice, add vinegar and lemon. Add tomatoes. You can also add, for variety: 1/2 teaspoon horseradish, some kind of Louisiana hot sauce, lime juice, avocado, olive oil, or vodka. Absolut pepper vodka is best... turns it into an edible Bloody Mary. Be careful who you serve this to... it may be a soup, but as it's cold, the alcohol doesn't cook off.
"Cream" of Mushroom
2 cans of chopped button mushrooms
1 cups plain fat free or lowfat soy milk
Dash soy sauce
Salt to taste
Heat the soy milk, stir in the mushrooms. Add sauce and salt to taste. Serve. You can chop up some green parts of scallions to sprinkle on top if you want.
Write me with any suggestions!
Posted by april at 1:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 28, 2005
But What Do I Feed My Boyfriend/Husband/Kids/Parents/Wife/Pets Who Don't Do CR?
It's a constant struggle. So many of my readers have written to tell me that they have no problem sticking to their own CR diet when alone, but that family mealtimes or holidays or dates are a problem.
It's not easy when the people around you don't approve of CR and don't want to eat your "rabbit food." I've come up with some suggestions for what to serve to the non-CR'd in your life, while minimzing the inconvenience to yourself.
1) Take whatever you're eating and throw it over pasta or rice for the non-CR'd. This is an easy thing to do with soups, stews, and sauces. Eat yours in a bowl, and make a pasta or rice dish out of theirs.
2) Throw a piece of meat or fish on the side for the non-CR'd. You can take my lasagna, bake a piece of chicken, feed yourself the lasagna alone and give the non-CR'd a piece of chicken with the lasagna as a hearty side dish.
3) Break the meal into courses, with a light soup or salad, such as my cauliflower soup. People feel like they've had a proper meal if it has a first course, entree and dessert. They don't have to know that the cauliflower soup you're all enjoying had 35 calories! I'll post some more super-light soup recipes asap.
4) Make desserts and use that as an opportunity to get some fruit into your diet. People are easily fooled by desserts. More recipes to follow.
5) Use lowfat and non-fat dairy to make creamy sauces. For example, fat-free riccota is a steal when it comes to low calorie, high calcium food. You could make a downright fluffy sauce for asparagus or broccoli with fat-free riccotta and garlic powder and salt. Fat free yogurt can be used to thicken soups and make them seem creamy, even when they're not, and they're a great source of calcium and protein.
6) Use ingredients that have sharp flavors, like olives, capers, canned artichokes in water, hearts of palm, roasted red peppers, etc. I call those ingredients "special effects" -- they make a dish seem fancy even when it's not!
7) If all else fails, leave your boyfriend and I'll set you up with a nice single CR'd fellow. I know a whole lot of great guys who would make someone a really nice boyfriend. They all have good jobs and know the difference between a macronutrient and a micronutrient. It's an amazing thing to date a boy who eats more exotic vegetables than you do. Try it and you'll like it.
Posted by april at 1:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 27, 2005
Yes, But Can I Still Drink Beer?
Or eat chocolate, or have the occasional hamburger at a summer cookout, or soft pretzel in New York, or hot dog at a baseball game?
Sure you can. But don't kid yourself about the calories.
One of my big challenges as I drop my calories lower and lower is the temptation to pretend that if I'm having a "night out," it's all the same so I can just eat anything. It's fine to eat less than perfect food some of the time, since it's really the average that counts. But don't pretend that your 1600 calorie dinner with drinks and dessert is a 700 calorie dinner.
If you drop your calories and maintain adequate nutrition, you're probably going to live longer. You'll certainly look and feel better, and you may find yourself laughing at macronutrient ratio jokes that were definitely not funny a year ago. But you're not going to have an easy time sticking to a lower calorie level if you're constantly throwing your body off by feeding it poison in the form of excess sugar, alcohol, carbs, and saturated fat. We all have different experiences... my CR is flexible enough to allow me to go out to dinner and eat like a normal, albeit small, person, yet I'm a faithful weigher of food at home. Other people find that if they don't maintain a consistent calorie level, they can't keep to their lower calorie targets.
I'm hitting the point where it's getting difficult... it's easy to maintain my calorie level and weight right at 105, which is where it's been since November. But when I try to drop below that, I get hungry! It takes more planning and more focus to go to lower calorie levels, yet I want to do that because I believe that greater longevity benefits will be the reward.
So I'm constantly experimenting, and deciding what I am and am not willing to give up. For instance: do I really need to drink a margarita, ever? No, I don't. Not even on the patio at my favorite Mexican place in spring with my friends and the fountains flowing and the salsa music playing while I eat salsa from a spoon instead of on a tortilla chip. Nope, not worth it. But give up wine? Never!
Desserts, I never liked much anyway. I mean, I enjoy a creme brulee from time to time, but I don't miss them when I don't have them. Beer with Aubrey de Grey however... that's a different story. I feel like my quality of life would be significantly diminished if I could not drink beer with Aubrey de Grey. We pick our battles.
So you can have anything you want... but you can't have everything you want and expect to reap the life and health extending benefits of CR.
Now about that beer...
Posted by april at 1:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 26, 2005
Quick and Easy Weekdays
You're probably thinking by now that all I ever think about is cooking. That's not entirely true... I think about how to raise money for the Mprize, how to convince people that they can take control over their lives and health by doing CR, and how to entertain my easily bored giant tabby cat. But I do spend a lot of time thinking about cooking, especially when I'm driving or flying on a plane or otherwise occupied with activities that don't take much focus. I really enjoy sharing my cooking ideas with others because I feel like by making CR friendly food easy and accessible, I might just help you and your loved ones live longer. We all have circumstances in our lives that make it difficult to eat right: family, work, stress, health problems, etc. So I try to make CR something that you can work into your life.
Quick and easy weekdays have become something of a speciality for me, since I have a job where I'm always on the go and frequently am gone from 5 am to 9 pm, so all my meals have to be eaten either at the office or on the road. I don't want to spend all weekend cooking (besides, I work a lot of weekends anyway) and I certainly don't want to come home from a long day and be faced with a giant culinary project. So I've developed some easy stand-bys that make packing a lunch bag and running out the door a ten minute affair.
First, my cottage cheese and yogurt concoctions are a staple of my lunch. Cottage cheese requires no preparation... just transfer from the container to a tupperware and go! You can even buy ready measured four ounce snack packs, though I try not to use that much excess packaging anymore because I feel certain that MR will find out about it and accuse me of destroying the environment. My yogurt concoction, with fresh lemon juice, garlic powder, half-salt and a spice or two, takes about three minutes to make up in the morning, and is delicious with chopped veggies as well. Those dishes provide both calcium and protein, two things that have to be present in a CR diet to maintain optimal health and long-term bone strength.
Meanwhile, I like to have a salad with my lunch, so I find weighing and chopping 100 g of kale is the quickest way to get great calcium, vitamin A and C, and a touch of iron, all with minimal hassle. Kale is a very substantial green, and I feel stuffed after eating 100 g of it. I laugh at the romaine on the office cafeteria salad bar now! $3.99/pound for that! As if! I sometimes add arugula to my kale salad, as well as tomatoes and chopped bell peppers, but on some days I'm so rushed that I just tear off the kale, measure and wash it, throw it in a tupperware, and go. Putting oil on my salad isn't so convenient if I'm tupperwaring at 5 am and eating lunch at noon, so I get my lunchtime fat from olives these days. I love olives, and I find them satisfying in a way that olive oil just isn't for me. They were such a forbidden food in the no-fat nineties... so I feel like I'm having a treat every time I eat ten or so on my salad.
Dinners when at the office can be heated up soups... my brewers yeast and frozen cruciferous vegetable soup is just as good tupperwared as "fresh." Also, I tend to get hungry for a little something sweet in the late afternoon and evening, so I'm thinking I will pack my megamuffins to eat at work. The danger is that my co-workers will find and consume them...
Here are some other suggestions from equally busy CR sisters:
-- microwave and chop eggwhites, then add to salads for extra protein
-- mix fat free ricotta with tapioca or cocoa powder and a touch of Splenda (or sucralose, which you can order from Warren) for a pudding like sweet snack
-- measure out ten grams of almonds or hazelnuts... enough so that you get some good fat and are satisfied, but not a whole bag that you might accidentally consume for an extra 800 calories
-- don't walk around eating carrots and celery unless you really like to. people will think you're a total poser.
Weekdays can be the easiest time to stay on the CR'd straight and narrow, once you find low calorie, nutrient dense foods that you really enjoy.
Posted by april at 1:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 25, 2005
Cooking with Wine
One of the habits that persists from my lowfat vegan days is cooking anything and everything in wine. I should also add that I enjoy drinking a glass of wine while doing the cooking... which probably adds to my lighthearted approach to cuisine. In any case, I learned to cook during a serious fat phobic phase of my life -- I used to try to eat fewer than 6 grams of fat a day! So I didn't use oil at all, instead doing all sauteeing, simmering, boiling, etc., in wine. I have never gotten over the way that garlic boiling in red wine makes the entire house smell good, or how vegetables baked in a dry white with a touch of salt and vinegar (I am a salt freak... you should have seen what MR had to go through to convince me to use half-salt. I think it was our first real argument...) taste so fresh and delicious. Everyone says that oil brings out the flavor in food, but I still prefer to cook in wine, and save my unsaturated fat for dishes like pesto, tapenade, and guacamole, where the fat is really the showcased ingredient.
Here are a few of my favorite simple recipes for cooking with wine. The variations are endless, so experiment!
The World's Most Excellent Summer Tomato Pasta or Not Sauce
This is so good. Do not use sub-optimal tomatoes, and I beg you, never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink. You'll taste it... trust me. You can make this dish with either a dry red or a dry white, and you'll get a very different outcome, but both are delicious. For the non-CR'd, serve over angel hair pasta. For the CR'd, serve over spaghetti squash, salad greens, or a plate of mixed steamed vegetables. You can also serve with a light salad of cannelini beans in balsamic vinegar with chopped green parts of scallions and diced red, yellow and green peppers. Or whatever. It's your life... serve it however you want to!
Tomato sauce:
tons of fresh tomatoes, the best you can buy, chopped but not too small
lots of garlic, fresh, minced (no garlic powder this time, friends)
fresh basil, chopped (not dried. I am not kidding.) -- just a few sprigs
a cup of dry white or dry red
simmer the minced garlic in about 1/4 cup of wine for about ten minutes, or until the house smells good. Stir in the tomatoes, and cover with remaining wine. Bring to a slow, rolling boil, and add the basil. Simmer until you take a little taste and you can taste strong basil and strong wine and strong tomato, all at once. Serve piping hot. Feel free to add a dash of half salt and pepper if you want, or to top with a very light dusting of fresh parmesean.
For a delicious salty variation, add pitted kalamata olives and a teaspoon of capers.
You will love me forever if you try this dish at the height of summer tomato season. If you simply must try it, but the tomatoes in your local market are bad, you can probably pull it off with grape tomatoes, or resort to whole peeled in a can. It won't be a total disaster, but it won't taste the same.
I've recently come to love seafood dishes cooked in wine. You've read about my scallops in white, and my shrimp with red pepper in red. Try this combo and see what you think, now that the asparagus is finally coming into season:
100 g ish of scallops
3 oz white wine
garlic, minced
about six stalks asparagus, chopped but not finely
Simmer the garlic ten minutes in the white wine, turning down the heat just as it starts to boil. Add in the asparagus and cook until light green, then stir in the scallops. Cook until not rubbery but not raw... consult your local fish fellow at the grocery store for further directions, as I am not sure how to describe this. Eat immediately, over pasta, spaghetti squash, or just in a shallow dish. Enjoy!
You're probably wondering by now if there's anything I won't cook in wine. Well, I'm sure there is, but I even enjoy wine-based desserts! Try this one:
1 pear, halved.
1/2 cup sweet red wine, like port (I haven't had port in ages... must remedy this situation)
Dash of cinnamon
Four semi-sweet organic chocolate pieces, just slightly larger than a chocolate chip.
Put the wine and the pear into a tiny shallow dish, the kind you might use to feed a cat (though please, not the same dish you use to feed your cat. That's somehow unappetizing.) Microwave on high for about five minutes, less if your microwave is very powerful. The pear should be pink and tender. Remove and cover with light dusting of cinnamon. Arrange the chocolate chunks on the four corners of the dish, as though you were a chef at a fancy restaurant. Take a bow when your guests cheer as though they were paying a lot of money for this. Be sure to refer them to my blog, and throw in a donation to the Mprize. It's the least you can do for all these quick and easy cooking tips.
Posted by april at 12:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 24, 2005
Boy Scout Soup
No, this soup is not made of Boy Scouts.
This is an idea that I got based on a description of how someone very close to me used to eat ramen noodles when he was in the Boy Scouts. As it turns out, they have Boy Scouts in Canada. Who knew? Anyway, the Canadian Boy Scouts used to eat ramen noodles with a few eggs cracked into the broth and some frozen peas thrown in. I guess they figured the green in the frozen peas somehow made it healthy, even though you could not find a more disgustingly high saturated fat preservative filled gak-worthy dish than ramen noodled with added egg.
But I was thinking... let's not throw out the protein with the ramen. Here's a fun and CR friendly variation on a former Boy Scout favorite:
2 cups free-range organic chicken broth
1 cup eggwhites
1/2 cup frozen peas
Boil the chicken broth, add the eggwhites, stirring as you go. Microwave the peas separately, then add to the mix. That took about five minutes, so use the extra time you have to figure out how you would make a CR friendly version of toasted marshmellows. And if you figure it out, write to me.
It has a vaguely eggdrop soup-esque feel, which you can accentuate if you choose by adding the green parts of chopped fresh scallions.
If you want to go CR nutrient dense nuts, throw in some brewers yeast.
Posted by april at 12:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 23, 2005
Vaguely Southwestern-ish CR Friendly Zoned Lunch
Try this:
50 g black beans, soaked overnight, cooked and drained (the 50 g is raw)
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 teaspoon fresh raw cilantro (or thereabouts)
1/2 jalepeno pepper, chopped and seeds removed (do not rub your eyes!)
or, a few canned jalepenos, chopped
1 tablespoon rice protein 55 calories and 7.5 g protein for my brand
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup eggwhites, cooked, chopped
mix it all together, serve hot.
That's 310 calories, 35 g protein, but almost no fat. The eggwhite is a cheap trick to up the protein, but it actually tastes good and adds some more solidness to the soup, making it more filling.
Serve this on the size: Lime Guacamole
Take however much avocado you need to Zone out the previously spent calories, and mash it up with the juice of one fresh lime. Throw in a touch of garlic powder and a dash of tabasco or whatever your favorite hot sauce is. Voila! Fat!
If you want to be really fancy, serve a dollop of the guacamole right on top of the soup. It's like the sour cream they put on black bean soup in restaurants, except better and better for you.
If you want to defeat the entire CR purpose of this dish, drink a giant frozen margarita with the meal.
Posted by april at 12:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
Stuffed Vegetables
I used to have a cookbook that described stuffing vegetables as follows:
"Stuffing vegetables is a time consuming and tedious process that yields delicious results."
Well, that's inspiring.
I find that stuffed vegetables make nice entrees for a CR meal, and they impress the CR'd and non-CR'd alike, which is of course the entire point of cooking. Some of my favorite quick and easy stuffed vegetables involve bell peppers, which stand up nicely in a baking dish and have such charming little hats when you cut off the tops to stuff, then replace them to cook and serve.
Another vegetable that stuffs well is yellow summer squash. These little critters can be cut in half lengthwise, then baked or microwaved until tender. Then scoop out the insides and mix with whatever stuffing you like. I suggest a stuffing of 1 oz goat cheese, 20 g chopped tomatoes, and 20 g chopped red peppers. Top with a shake of dried basil, if you feel like it, but don't feel like you have to. Then bake at about 325ish for about half an hour in a shallow foil lined baking dish. Serve hot.
Here's another variation on the stuffed vegetable theme, one that will make almost an entire meal. Cut whole eggplants in half lengthwise and microwave until gushy. Scoop out the insides (don't get crazy perfectionist on this... they won't scoop out as nicely as the squash), chop, and drain in a collander and cover with a light dusting of half salt to remove that bitter eggplant taste. Let stand while you chop some tomatoes, locate your dried oregano (it's somewhere on the spice rack, no doubt, or you can just use prepared Italian spices from a shaker that you can buy at the grocery store for $3 max) and open a can of tomato sauce. Open a bottle of dry-ish red wine and add about a fourth cup to the tomato sauce in a saucepan, heating gradually. Throw in some garlic if you like garlic. Stir in tomatoes and the reserved salted eggplant. Add the dried oregano (use your judgement on amounts, probably a teaspoon-ish) and pre-heat the oven to 325. Fill the eggplant husks with the tomato sauce mixture, bake for about half an hour or until hot all the way through. Test to make sure the bitterness has left the eggplant before serving... if it has not, cook a bit longer. Eggplants vary a lot in bitterness, so I can't give you an absolute. Enjoy a low calorie stuffed treat! You can use other veggies if you want... you get the idea.
The nice thing about making stuffed vegetables is that they give the CR'd plate a sense of balance, and they're great for presentation. It's too easy to get into the habit of eating heaps of varying sizes of vegetables and protein when you're at home alone... when company is over, especially non-CR'd company, it's good to show off how pretty our food is. You can serve a protein dish, like a piece of fish or a bean soup with rice protein, on the side. Colorful, tasty, filling CR friendly meal!
Posted by april at 12:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 21, 2005
Hazelnut Pesto
If you're a formerly fat phobic child of the no-fat nineties, you may well find it difficult to drizzle oil on top of everything. Yet the fact remains that we need to get healthy unsaturated fats, or else we will turn to stone or some such thing. Seriously, lots of veggie nutrients aren't absorbed properly without fat, and eating some fat is important to feeling full and satisfied. I also notice the difference in the texture of my skin and hair when I eat some unsaturated fat. This past winter, for the first time, I didn't have dry, cracking hands, even though I was my hands frequently. I also have a much shinier coat... I mean hair. Sorry, I've spent so much time with my cat that I'm getting confused.
But I still find that I'm not crazy about the taste of olive oil by itself on salads, so I try to find other ways to get my daily fat. Here's a great recipe that you can pack up to take with you next time you're invited to a dinner party... I promise it will be a hit.
Hazelnut pesto:
A bunch of fresh basil, washed
A lot of organic hazelnuts (however many you want)
Two fresh lemons -- the juice thereof
Several (2 or more) cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Dash of half salt
Got all that? Put it in the food processor and blend to taste. More basil for a more basil-y flavor, more nuts for more nutty. Be sure you use the juice of fresh lemons, not bottled juice. The nutritional crunch entirely depends on how much of each you use, but here's a sample:
Food List : hazelnut pesto.FLS
Num. Foods : 4
Food #1 : Nuts, filberts or hazelnuts, dried, unblanched 50 g
Food #2 : Oil, vegetable, olive juice of two lemons
Food #3 : Lemon juice, raw 1 tablespoon
Food #4 : Basil, fresh 50 g (that's a lot!)
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 473.72__cal 24%
Protein 8.15__gm 15% RDA
Total Fat 45.22__gm 70%
Sat. Fat 3.44__gm 17%
Mono. Fat 34.09__gm 118%
Poly. Fat 5.56__gm 83%
Carbohydrate 18.10__gm 6%
Fiber 5.38__gm 18%
Cholesterol 0.00__mg 0%
Vit. A 1984.70__IU 40% RDA
Vit. B6 0.42__mg 26% RDA
Vit. B12 0.00__mcg 0% RDA
Vit. C 53.66__mg 89% RDA
Vit. E 18.23__mg 228% RDA
Thiamine 0.29__mg 27% RDA
Folacin 80.28__mcg 45% RDA
Riboflavin 0.10__mg 8% RDA
Niacin 1.13__mg 8% RDA
Panto. Acid 0.79__mg 16% SA
Calcium 177.72__mg 15% RDA
Copper 0.93__mg 46% SA
Iron 3.25__mg 22% RDA
Magnesium 188.76__mg 67% RDA
Manganese 1.74__mg 58% SA
Phosphorus 196.26__mg 16% RDA
Potassium 572.54__mg 29% RDA
Selenium 5.05__mcg 9% RDA
Sodium 4.46__mg 0% SA
Zinc 1.67__mg 14% RDA
Tyrosine 0.27__gm 28% RDA
Lysine 0.27__gm 37% RDA
Phenylalanine 0.42__gm 44% RDA
Leucine 0.67__gm 70% RDA
Valine 0.41__gm 49% RDA
Methionine 0.10__gm 34% RDA
Cystine 0.13__gm 44% RDA
Tryptophan 0.13__gm 72% RDA
Threonine 0.29__gm 60% RDA
Isoleucine 0.35__gm 49% RDA
Remember, this is enough for several people to use as a dip or just eat straight. If serving to normal people, serve with bread or crackers. If serving to CR'd folk, serve with a spoon or celery or carrots.
And pat yourself on the head for eating your fat. You are officially a former fat phobe.
[PS -- sorry for the confusion yesterday... the 200 g lentils were cooked! That makes them 232 calories, according to DWIDP. Yikes! 600 calories of lentils! As if!!!]
Posted by april at 12:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 20, 2005
What Happens When a Non-CR'd Person Eats a Megamuffin?
He likes it, that's what happens!
I met one of my Mprize brothers for coffee and brainstorming this morning just outside Washington, DC. I had promised him some megamuffins (I think it's the Sherm's binging brownies that he's really after, but he'll have to wait awhile for a shipment of those) and I eagerly awaited his reaction. After all, my co-workers loved the megamuffins... VLC even said she liked mine better than MR's! but I hadn't fed them to a person who isn't used to my wild and wacky CR cooking.
The good news is, my Three Hundred brother is either a good actor, or he liked them. He did observe that you simply couldn't eat a ton of them at once, which I believe is a point in their favor. They're both nutrient dense and just plain dense! They're a great accompaniment to coffee, or if you prefer, whey powder mixed into kefir with a little hazelnut coffee stirred in for flavor.
For some reason I didn't have the sense to pack myself a megamuffin to eat on the road. That turned out to be a big mistake, because I left the house at 4 am and didn't get back until after 1 pm! I got to my 7:30 am meeting right on time, in spite of a brief panic when I realized that my cell phone had erased my entire address book so I couldn't call if I was stuck in traffic anyway. I tried to retrace my steps on the way back, but I got lost. Then I discovered that I must be wearing a sign that says "Give me bad directions," because I received not one, not two, but three sets of bad directions. Finally, I found a sign for 495 and kept following it until I hit the right road. I think I saw most of the DC suburbs today, but the weather was nice and the pretty trees are blooming. I do notice that CR makes it difficult to sit in a car for long periods of time... I used to have more padding! Oh well, small price to pay for a longer life.
Meanwhile, eating didn't go so well because I didn't want to eat breakfast at 3 am when I got up, and I neglected to pack a muffin for myself. I wasn't even hungry till about halfway home when I realized I was in serious low blood sugar trouble. I already felt bad enough for worrying MR by telling him that I was going to be driving in the wee hours of the morning (if you want someone to be concerned about your safety, date a fellow life-extensionist) and I hated the thought of making him worry that in addition to having very little sleep and driving, I was going about on an empty stomach! You know what he thinks of fasting. But I didn't want to stop and eat gak, and I knew that egghwhites and flax oil awaited me at home... when I finally arrived home! I had a delicious "lunch" of eggwhites and flax oil at about 2 pm, and then took a much needed nap! Dinner was a salad from the produce stand... I didn't feel like cooking. Lettuce, tomatoes, cottage cheese, a sprinkle of parmesean, several steamed beets, and a bite of tofu. For late night snack I had 200 g lentils, which had a lot of calories but were very enjoyable with just a dash of half-salt on top and a glass of red on the side. I had missed beans, and am now enjoying eating them in small amounts.
The moral of the story is: pack your own megamuffins. If not, you'll have to face the wrath of MR.
Posted by april at 8:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 19, 2005
Lentil Soup
Bean soups are a great lunch to pack and take with you to work. If you have access to a microwave, you can have a hot, yummy lunch, with minimal work and relatively low calories.
I've been avoiding bean soups since I started CR because they have comparatively more calories, and less protein, than the more protein dense foods like eggwhites and dairy products that I've been eating. I have such low calorie requirements that I really have to make every calorie maximally efficient. But ever since I learned about rice protein powder, which combines with the beans to form a complete protein and dramatically increases the grams of protein per calorie, I've been experimenting with bean soups again. Here's my latest -- just a variation on a soup I used to make frequently in my lowfat vegan days.
200 g lentils
1 cube vegetable broth
1 tablespoon rice protein powder
the juice of one lemon
one clove of garlic (garlic powder is fine)
Boil the lentils for about thirty minutes or until they're at a tenderness that you like. Drain and rinse. Add to prepared vegetable broth, stir in rice protein. Add lemon juice and garlic.
Eat or save for later.
You could add an infinite number of vegetables to this dish.
310 calories for a very large bowl of soup. You could cut out the vegetable broth if you thought that made it too high in salt. 25 g protein. No fat, so the Zonies among us will have to add some oil, which would probably be delicious in the soup. I'll be eating an arugula salad with olives along with the soup for lunch.
Black bean soup recipe to follow... watch out for jalepenos!
Posted by april at 7:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 18, 2005
Happy Birthday to My CR'd Mom!
My Mommy turns sixty tomorrow! April 19! Everybody wish her a happy birthday!
She's one of our newest converts to CR. She's also an Mprize donor at $20/month... a great way to contribute a lot of money in a way that you'll never miss!
Mom came over for dinner tonight to celebrate her birthday... we had a birthday event on Friday night at the Philly art museum too. Tonight she brought over baby spaghetti squash, and it was delicious! Spaghetti squash is a miraculous gourd, so delicious, and about a fourth of the calories of pasta. She bought tiny ones at the Asian produce store, and microwaved them for about five mins, then let them sit for ten before microwaving again for five. They were tender but not overcooked. We ate them with a vegetable stew on top of stewed tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, mushrooms, and onions. Fabulous! I just adore spaghetti squash. These were so little and cute, we used them like bowls. I had never seen any spaghetti squash so small!
Don't tell her, but I'm planning for her birthday tomorrow to bring over her coffee with the NY Times and a bouquet of her favorite flowers, tulips, first thing in the morning before she leaves for work. She teaches on Tuesday nights so we can't go out tomorrow -- that's why we did birthday today.
Not sure on the crunch for today because my mom brought over the night time veggies, but it was 827 before I got home, so with the veggies at dinner I'm guessing I hit 1100.
Stopped by the store tonight to pick up some supplies for a perfect CR day tomorrow... feeling very inspired to reach new heights of CR perfection. They were out of decent looking kale so I bought arugula for my lunch salad... but all they had was baby arugula. I always feel like I'm using child labor when I buy baby arugula... what happened to the arugula's mom?
Posted by april at 7:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Calcium Delivery Vehicle
Today has been a good CR day, which is a good thing, since I didn't do very well over the weekend.
I decided that if I stayed on the straight and narrow all day today I'd reward myself by printing out MR's most recent article and reading it before bed. This is one of my favorite treats, leftover from my days of obsessive archive searching.
I returned to one of my favorite calcium delivery vehicles, nonfat plain yogurt, today. I have a way of fixing it that makes it taste almost Indian. I take a cup of nonfat plain yogurt, add the juice of one half a lemon (don't use bottled lemon juice, it doesn't work) and stir in a shake of garlic powder and a shake of half-salt. It's also very good with a little curry or cumin or cayenne added. Then I often add a chopped vegetable, like today I put in a red bell pepper. A delicious, cool summer salad. It's great with cucumbers too.
I hope you decide to give the plain yogurt dish a try. It's a great way to jazz up some chopped cold veggies, and the yogurt is 110 calories per cup, with 40% of the RDA of calcium. Hard to beat that. Unless you're eating fat free ricotta, and who can do that every day?
I'll put in the crunch after dinner.
Posted by april at 3:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2005
Fast Days
There are almost as many ways to practice CR (Calorie Restriction) as there are CR practitioners. That's one thing that makes it fun... if you get tired of your routine, you can change it!
In the eternal quest to take my calories lower to achieve maximum longevity benefits, I've tried all sorts of experiments. I seem to consistently fail at keeping my calories low and measured when I go out, and I don't want to give up going out with my friends. So I thought I'd try a new strategy of just lowering my calories on normal days, then not worrying all that much about how many I eat when I go out.
Problem with that is, my normal day is already so low that I have trouble taking it lower. But then last week, when I had a fast day, I was reminded of how easy it is for me to fast, and how I enjoy the process both physically and mentally. So I'm thinking about incorporating regular fast days into my CR routine. Walford used to do this.
The last two days have been high calorie... on Friday night, I took my mom out to the art museum, where we ate cheese plates and crab cakes and drank pinot noir. Then on Saturday I met some friends in Center City for dinner and ate white bean soup, a clam and Chilean sea bass entree, and a piece of bread, along with several glasses of red wine. So two heavy calorie days. Today I'm detoxing... the only food I've had was a taste of my megamuffins, which miraculously turned out well! They're a bit more tart than MR's, no doubt because there are two entire limes in there! But they're quite passable.
I'm thinking these fast days might be good for my total calorie intake. I don't want to give up going out with my friends and eating "normally" on about a weekly basis, but I don't want to remain forever at my current calorie level. Combined with a weekly fast or near fast and a daily diet that's low in calories and great on nutrition, it just might work!
Posted by april at 10:13 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
At What Point Do We Declare This A Disaster?
That's what my mother said to me as we watched yellow goo flecked with green ooze down my kitchen wall. No, this is not an episode of Ghostbusters. This is what happened when I tried to make those famous treats, Sherm's Megamuffins.
The megamuffins are delicious treats that are engineered to have extremely good nutrition at a low calorie level. And did I mention that they're delicious? I was excited about making a batch, but also afraid. They have a whole lot of ingredients. I tend to cook with easy, simple ingredients, and I don't like to spend much time cooking. Still, I could make a batch of megamuffins and freeze enough for forty days! That's a long time, and worth the investment of an afternoon.
The problems began almost immediately. I hadn't been able to find guava, so MR had said to substitute papaya. But I couldn't get enough papaya out of the fruit (they're really hard, covered with inedible skin, and filled with seeds.) So I asked MR what to do, and he made some suggestions, all of which would require me to go back to the store, an activity for which I had neither time nor patience. But he said I could use limes... whole limes. So I chopped them up and put them in the food processor, along with the other blender ingredients, including a giant amount of endive.
Blend blend blend. First, the entire thing starts to overflow out the top of the food processor, leaving a giant mess on my kitchen cabinet. So I stopped blending, poured the messy mixture into a large bowl, and cleaned up the mess. Then I decided to blend it more slowly, with less liquid.
It was all going well, and I added the endive. Blend blend blend.
Then all of a sudden a horrible noise emanates from my food processor. Before I could hit stop, it had flung megamuffin wet ingredient mixture all over my kitchen. Oooze oooze oooze.
"At what point do we declare this a disaster?"
In the meantime, I ate an entire carton of "Just Strawberries," dried strawberries with no sugar added. There's some fruit. That was 225 calories.
I decided to refrigerate the mixture and return to the process tomorrow. It seemed that both me and the food processor needed a cooling off period.
Here's the recipe. It's Sherm's recipe engineered with lots of tweaks from MR, which is why it's called M Squared megamuffins.
Lots of people have safely made megamuffins. My results are not typical.
M2 Megamuffins
Large dry ingredients
2 boxes (454 g/1 lb) Ener-G rice bran
1 C dark rye flour
2 2/3 cup psyllium husk
1 cup wheat bran
3 T calcium-carbonate based “baking powder”
6 x 20 g scoops Jarrow whey protein powder
2/3 cup brewer's yeast
100 g raw almonds
89 g almond meal
Blender ingredients
3 T powdered cinnamon
1 T ginger
1 T nutmeg
1 T PURE sucralose
10 g NAC (N-acetylcysteine) powder
3 whole fresh eggs (flax-fed omega-3 preferred)
3 cups skim milk
300 g endive
340 g guava
240 g canned unsalted pumpkin
200 g whole orange
Large Pot or Bowl Wet ingredients
24 egg whites (3 x 250 mL cartons)
3 T olive oil or HOSO
3 T Reconstituted Z-Trim
800 Calories’ dried fruit (cranberries)
Sprinkle On Top
3/8 T K metabisulfite
Bake at 325F.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Put cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, sucralose, NAC, and whole eggs in blender. Cram as much of the endive, guava, and pumpkin into the thing as you can at a time and blend until very smooth. Sequentially dump into the separate large pot or bowl (NOT the one containing the dry ingredients!).
3. Throw the remaining Large Pot or Bowl Wet ingredients (OJ Concentrate, egg whites, olive oil or HOSO, Reconstituted Z-Trim, and dried cranberries) into the wet-ingredient Large Pot or Bowl. Mix thoroughly.
4. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly until you have a uniform mixture. This is hard work for about 5 minutes. Make sure there are no dry spots left.
5. Bake in preheated oven 325F.
6. Quickly distribute the now-rising dough evenly into two 10” x 14” baking pans. For maximal efficiency and minimal hassle, use baker’s parchment.
7. Sprinkle metabisulfite onto the surface of the muffins.
8. “Tent” the muffins: use enough tin foil to cover the sides of the pans, cutting a rectangular hole in the center of the foil to expose all but ~1-2” of the top surface. This minimizes excess browning while allowing for the cooking of the centers.
9. Cook in preheated oven for 110 minutes. If they don’t both fit on one level, swap them top-to-bottom in the oven after 50 minutes since it is always hotter at the top and you want both batches to get the same amount of heat.
12. Remove from oven, invert carefully out of the pan, and let stand until cool enough to touch (5-10 minutes) while covered with parchment.
13. Using a tape measure, cut into an appropriate number of slices. The analysis assumes 20 muffins, so each pan is cut in half one way and 5 (2.75”) the other.
14. Pack in zip-loc freezer bags to retain moisture. Keep refrigerated or frozen. I put them straight into the freezer. IMO, they’re best when frozen and then thawed, rather than fresh.
INGREDIENTS NOTES
* You can substitute other dried fruit for the cranberries, of course. I use a mixture of the readily-available oiled, sugared dried cranberries with 'Just Cranberries,' which are available at Whole Foods and elsewhere & as the name implies are dried cranberries -- period. This REALLY brings the Cal down, and because these things are at full volume, you would likely have a really hard time if you used these exclusively for 800 Calories. I typically use 21 g (75 Cal) of these, with the remainder the regular ones.
* Spices are a matter of personal preference. Dean has proposed (wisely, IMO) using 'pumpkin pie spice' instead. I still haven’t gotten around to ordering a sugar-free pumpkin pie spice.
* Other non-caloric sweeteners could be used in place of sucralose, but sucralose APPEARS to be the most well-documentedly safe noncaloric sweetener. NB that this is PURE sucralose, not 'Splenda' (which is 'cut' with maltodextrin). Sucralose is available from Warren Taylor < warren.taylor@earthlink.net >, although he is currently cutting it with cellulose: you’ll have to adjust the volume of sucralose you use accordingly, but at least it adds no empty Calories.
* I use eggs from flax-fed hens, to lower AA, cholesterol, and SaFA relative to what the analysis says. Alas, this DOES mean some extra DHA -- my only dietary source.
* I use commercial liquid egg whites rather than hand-separated egg whites -- MUCH less hassle.
* I use Ener-G brand sodium-free baking powder, which has the advantage of being loaded with Ca: this contributes over 500 mg of Ca per serving.
* I use baking parchment, after a tip from John Roberts, which REALLY reduces the hassle of extracting the muffins and cleaning up afterward, & avoids any evil gunk you might get off of the sides of the pan. Environmentally rather a poor option, alas :( -- although it can be re-used for many batches.
* The rice bran is probably the most important ingredient for nutrition, although its phytic acid does mean that the mineral bioavailability is reduced. Buy it in sealed containers if possible, to avoid peroxidation of the fats and loss of the tocotrienols. I buy Ener-G rice bran at a local health food store. You can easily get it by mail from their web site http://www.ener-g.com or 1-800-331-5222. Look under "flours" to find the rice bran product and buy the 8 oz (227g) size which costs less than $2!
* For the protein powder, use plain, unflavored, unsweetened stuff, and (to get the best nutritional bennies) use a concentrate rather than an isolate. I use Jarrow's American Whey (Unflavored/Natural), mostly because it meets the above criteria and I get it on the cheap; other reputable brands will do as well. NB that the scoop that comes with this brand is 23 g, whereas I use a 20 g scoop.
* I use the calcium carbonate-based baking powder from Ener-G, above, which boosts the Ca content without adding Na. K-based products are a good second best. If you have to use a sodium-based baking powder, that's OK, but DO try to find aluminum-free baking powder at the very least.
* NAC (N-acetylcysteine) powder is available from VRP < http://www.vrp.com > or IIRC LEF < http://www.lef.org >. K metabisulfite is available in home wine-making hobby stores, where they commonly just know it as “sufites.” On these, see:
http://lists.calorierestriction.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0108&L=crsociety&P=R5769
* HOSO: High-oleic sunflower oil. Similar fatty acid profile to olive oil, but with a taste more compatible with a muffin. True, pure, unrefined HOS is quite tasty but I haven’t been able to find it for years: some regular grocery stores carry refined HOSO, and Omega Nutrition makes an unrefined, blended oil mixed w/sesame and coconut oil, making the taste & fatty acid profile a little poorer than the real thing.
* Z-Trim: a fat substitute. See: < http://www.ztrim.com/about.html >. Gives the mouth feel with negligible Calories. I use it in vegetarian “gravy,” stews, and mixed spiced steamed vegetables.
Nutrient info isn't ready yet... the crunch I have is based on the older version. Will post when correct.
Posted by april at 9:08 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
April 16, 2005
Pretty Big Rock
Today I'm writing to tell you that I'm now a volunteer for the Mprize. Most of you know that for the last few months I've been working full-time as a fundraiser. Well, I decided that a big way I could maximize the money that goes into the Prize and life-extension research as a whole was to take what I've learned in my three months of full-time employment to become one of the most active Mprize volunteers. So I'm going back to my old job, and freeing up the money that was going to pay me. All the money that people donate goes directly into the Prize, so none of that ever goes to salaries, but a generous sponsorship donation had been given to fund my work. That donation funded an extremely speedy learning curve for me, and by working full-time for these months I've been able to set in motion (working with all the other dedicated volunteers) a series of events that I believe will generate considerable revenue for the Prize. While I'll be returning to my old job, I'll still be able to coordinate all the events we've planned to raise money for the Mprize, as well as keeping up my regular functions like recruiting Three Hundred members, corresponding with donors and potential donors, and writing grant applications when I find foundations that might be convinced to donate to the prize.
I'm very proud of what we've accomplished in the last several months. As most of you know, we've reached the $1 million mark with the signing on of Dr. William Haseltine of Human Genome Sciences fame. We've also doubled our number of Three Hundred members. The combined efforts of all of us working together have yielded tremendous results, and I feel like what I've learned during my full-time work prepares me to be an excellent volunteer fundraiser.
One thing that working with the other Mprize volunteers has made extremely clear to me is how efficiently an organization can run on all volunteer efforts. Some of us refer to ourselves as "full-time volunteers" because we spend so much time and energy on the Mprize. I've been reading this book called The Wisdom of Crowds that talks about how frequently, a group will know better than even the most expert of individuals. The Mprize works like that. Sure, some people have more time to devote, know more science, have more business skills, make up more entertaining metaphors, or have more computer skills, but everyone's opinion matters. From the moment I got involved I was amazed at how welcoming and friendly everyone was, even though I was so new to the life-extension world.
As I was doing strategic planning for the year, I started to realize that so much of what I was doing I could do as a volunteer, even while working hard at my other job. And then I started to think... if there was no need to pay me, then the money that would have gone to pay me could go more directly into the cause... that would be a great donation! In fact, that would be a larger donation than even my Three Hundred membership! At that point it seemed only right to point out that we could leverage even more funding for the Prize and the cause as a whole if I moved back to full-time volunteer status.
I'm still going to SENS in September, and we're working on something in spring of 06 that my bloggiefriends just might be interested in... more on that when it's nailed down! I won't be giving up hanging out with Aubrey de Grey and all my Mprize brothers.
Speaking of hanging out with Aubrey de Grey, I want you to put this date on your calendar: Sunday, August 7. April's 31st birthday party. Philadelphia. 1 pm - 7 pm. Aubrey de Grey and MR will both attend, and will sign autographs. CR food will be served. Conveniently located between NYC and DC. And yes, it will be a fundraiser. So bring your checkbooks and your own wineglass, plate, and silverware. (Someone in my immediate circle is a serious environmentalist, so I'm trying to mimimize the paper products. Besides, who wants to drink wine out of plastic? Certainly not I.) Anyway, come consume some resveratrol with me and MR and Aubrey. It will be a giant gathering of east coast life-extensionists, CR folk, and my random friends who will enjoy gawking at all of you. Seriously, you'd better show up. I'll be serving megamuffins!
But back to my decision to go all-volunteer. One of my Mprize brothers commented that he sensed that doors were opening. I agree. The avalanche of new donors and Three Hundred members, the great press that Aubrey de Grey is receiving, the sudden tonge-tiedness of the naysayers... things are happening. I believe that my decision to stop getting paid for the Mprize work I do will free up resources to speed this process. We all throw whatever little stones we have into the pool, hoping that the ripples they create, when added to the little stones that every else throws into the pool, will have some effect. Well, the money it takes to pay me is a pretty big rock. I'm throwing it in.
Posted by april at 7:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 14, 2005
How Much Should We Exercise?
Even though I recognize that I can pick up the phone and call him anytime, I still get this little thrill every time MR comments on my blog. It's like a voice from on high. Remember that time he told off the people who were saying I was anorexic? That was definitely a "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" moment.
Anyway, in response to Willie's question re: exercise, MR says, "The archives are your friend." No, the archives are MY friend! No one loves the archives like I do. Even now that I can talk to the real MR, I still love to read his old posts. So I did a bit of archive searching for you, dear bloggiefriends.
He says:
So, in other words, being utterly, totally inactive is bad for you.
Surprise! And in fact, it's worse than being nonsedentary ("fit") and
overweight. OK, a LITTLE surprising -- but again, nothing to do with CR, which is (damn it) about Caloric intake, not body weight or % fat, as many studies document. This is like the many previous reports I keep hammering on, showing that eg being frankly deficient (~1/2 DRI) in folic acid increases risk of colon cancer, or that being frankly n3 deficient causes heart disease. It is a fallacy to jump from this fact to the idea that megadose folate, daily fish oil capsules, or a regular program of vigorous physical activity will do any better than these minimal standards. Indeed, in all 3 cases, there is evidence to the contrary.
Ie, it is quite consistent with the phenomenon I mentioned above: "There is a big jump between the flat-out couch potato and the modest walker; it's diminishing returns after that." Previous studies by Blair's group (ie, the Cooper Institute) show just this (eg (6)).
Here's the point: doing some exercise is good for you! But there's no advantage to becoming a power lifter of a marathon runner. From a longevity perepective, these are not nearly as good as practicing CR and exercising moderately, just enough to keep up cardio and bone health. A lot of people when they hear about CR think it's about being thin, and that you can get there by either eating less or exercising more. Not so. The CR effect seems to be caused by HOW MANY CALORIES YOU EAT. So if Blonde Girl runs five miles a day, lifts weights, and eats 1500 calories a day and weighs 102, and Redheaded Girl walks on the treadmill thirty minutes a day, does a few push-ups, and eats 1200 calories a day and weighs 102, Redheaded Girl is going to achieve lifespan extension benefits. Redheaded Girl and Blonde Girl are both "underweight" for their heights. Both enjoy eating large salads, and find men eating cheesesteaks unattractive. (It's a Philly thing, you might not understand.) But one of them will live longer than the other. Neither of them are likely to die of an early heart attack or type 2 diabetes or any of the diseases caused by obesity, but beyond obesity avoidance, the CR girl is getting the life-extension benefits.
Here's what MR actually does: he runs twenty minutes a day and does some kind of resistance training three times a week.
Here's why I am in trouble: I haven't started exercising again. I keep meaning to, but then I got sick with that horrible cold. So there, it's not my fault.
I used to love to walk four miles a day, and I walked them in an hour so I was going fast -- four miles an hour! Get it? Anyway, I moved and now the Starbucks is a lot closer... as in I don't have to walk two miles each way to get my coffee, so I haven't gotten my whole exercise thing together. There's a gym in my apartment complex and I love the treadmill and I used to lift weights (a lot, really, but now I would do less) and I really need to get back to exercising and if I don't my bones will turn into a little pile of bagel-like junk on the floor. I know, I know. I need to get a ferritin test too. I need to make sure I'm spelling that correctly too... Aubrey? (Aubrey de Grey, in addition to his brilliant work in reversing aging, is an excellent spell-checker.)
So... we should exercise some, but choose our exercises carefully so that we get the maximum benefit for cardio and bone health while burning the fewest calories. And we should focus on keeping our calories low!
MR and I have this argument about running every time he makes me run to catch a bus. First, it is my belief that if we would just leave TWO MINUTES EARLIER for the bus, we would not have to run, and then we could avoid this argument. That aside, the argument is about running. He likes running (well, he hates it, but he believes he should do it so he does it) because it's a quick and efficient way to get a cardio workout and it causes lots of pounding on the street so it's good for the bones or something like that. I think running is bad for you, and so I only run if a large wild animal is chasing me or if I'm likely to be abandoned in the middle of Calgary in winter if I don't catch a bus*. Running is bad for the knees, and I had shin splints in college and don't want to do that again. Walking really fast gives the same cardio benefits without the pounding on the knees. Skipping is also fun, but will get you odd looks as you skip happily down the street, unless you happen to be under the age of ten. Meanwhile, when I am exercising (which I promise I will do, today!) I lift weights, which is really good for your bones. I read a bunch of books about it by Miriam Nelson.
So there. I am not running. And could we possibly leave just a moment or two earlier for the bus?
*MR would never actually abandon me in the middle of Calgary in winter if we didn't catch the bus. We'd just have to stand there freezing until the next bus came by, and no doubt annoy other waiters-for-the-bus by snuggling "for warmth." Inches away from a freezing death and all...
Posted by april at 7:43 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
April 13, 2005
Corrections
Tall MR does not oppose me eating shellfish at all. He opposes me eating meat any more frequently than I already do.
Therefore, if I were to substitute shellfish for one of the places where I am currently eating some other kind of meat, that would be okay. I think.
And lacto-ovo vegetarians do much better in terms of longevity than people who eat meat *once a week.*
Posted by april at 7:19 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 12, 2005
MR vs. Oysters
Ah, it's always such fun when the two MR's in my life disagree.
Little MR wants me to eat shellfish. She says that's a great way to get zinc, B vitamins, and iron. You can read her post here. So I went out to the store and bought some canned clams and canned oysters. Wow, they really rocked out my DWIDP! I was excited.
Then I had occasion to speak with Tall MR. I asked him how he feels about me eating shellfish.
He's not for it. Here's what he says, paraphrased:
In general, it's better to get nutrients from food than from supplements. However, in terms of longevity, lacto-ovo vegetarians do much better than people who eat meat any more than once a month. When you're talking about nutrients that you get from vegetables, where they are surrounded by phytochemicals and such things that are very good for us and not easily isolated into supplement form, you're much better off eating your veggies rather than taking a supplement. But in the case of zinc in oysters, Tall MR says that I am adding meat to my diet where I don't really need it, as I'm already supplementing with zinc and there's not much more that I would want in an oyster. So he doesn't think I should eat oysters all that often. Occasionally, sure, but not often.
Meanwhile, I still have a can of oysters and a can of clams in my house, so I put 20 g of oysters in my night time stew tonight, and skipped my brewers yeast, which is somewhat redundant with the oysters. I figure I'll eat them up, as they're here. As for B vitamins, I picked up some shiitake mushrooms to help out with those and put 50 g into my evening soup. So my evening soup ended up very interesting and different. Here's the recipe:
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 bag frozen broccoli, cauliflower, carrots
1 can stewed tomatoes
20 g oysters
50 g shiitake mushrooms
1 teaspoon olive oil
Serve piping hot! Delicious!
In other news, fat-free ricotta is rocking my calcium world. I was reading the book, _High Calcium, Low Calorie_ that my friends who got married last month gave me, and it had tons of recipes using ricotta. At my grocery store I found a fat-free ricotta, and it has 60 calories per two tablespoons, with 30% of the RDA of calcium!!! That's amazing! 30% for 60 cals? Awesome! I may just start eating two tablespoons with my breakfast. It's delicious plain. I also have many recipes to try with it.
Here's today's crunch. I'm still super low appetite. Remember that "sugar" = calcium chewy, just as a place holder for the calories. The RDA's all reflect food, not supplements.
Food List : april12-05.FLS
DATE : 04/12/05
Num. Foods : 14
Food #1 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 1 cup
Food #2 : Oil, peanut, salad or cooking 1 tbsp
Food #3 : Mollusks, oyster, eastern, canned 20 g
Food #4 : Tomatoes, red, ripe, canned, stewed 1 can
Food #5 : Fat-free ricotta 2 tbsps
Food #6 : Soup, chicken broth cubes, dehydrated, prepared with water 1 cup
Food #7 : Broccoli, frozen, spears, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 cals
Food #8 : Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 cals
Food #9 : Carrots, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 cals
Food #10 : Cottage Cheese Lowfat Light and Lively 1 cup
Food #11 : Coffee, brewed, prepared with distilled water 8 oz
Food #12 : Mushrooms, shiitake, cooked, with salt 50 g
Food #13 : Grape juice, frozen concentrate, sweetened, diluted with 3 volume water, with added vitamin C 1.5 oz
Food #14 : Sugars, granulated 20 cals (calcium chewy)
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
P:F:C 34:32:34
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 777.29__cal 39%
Protein 65.84__gm 120% RDA
Total Fat 27.58__gm 42%
Sat. Fat 10.71__gm 54%
Mono. Fat 10.62__gm 37%
Poly. Fat 5.09__gm 76%
Carbohydrate 68.78__gm 23%
Fiber 15.65__gm 52%
Cholesterol 56.00__mg 19%
Vit. A 16759.65__IU 335% RDA
Vit. B6 0.59__mg 37% RDA
Vit. B12 5.82__mcg 291% RDA
Vit. C 134.39__mg 224% RDA
Vit. E 6.94__mg 87% RDA
Thiamine 0.41__mg 37% RDA
Folacin 144.46__mcg 80% RDA
Riboflavin 1.92__mg 148% RDA
Niacin 6.90__mg 46% RDA
Panto. Acid 3.64__mg 73% SA
Calcium 1136.82__mg 95% RDA
Copper 2.03__mg 102% SA
Iron 7.09__mg 47% RDA
Magnesium 194.17__mg 69% RDA
Manganese 1.70__mg 57% SA
Phosphorus 1173.26__mg 98% RDA
Potassium 2478.64__mg 124% RDA
Selenium 95.40__mcg 173% RDA
Sodium 3476.56__mg 145% SA
Zinc 23.84__mg 199% RDA
Tyrosine 3.12__gm 325% RDA
Lysine 5.49__gm 763% RDA
Phenylalanine 3.55__gm 370% RDA
Leucine 5.75__gm 599% RDA
Valine 4.24__gm 505% RDA
Methionine 1.90__gm 633% RDA
Cystine 1.02__gm 340% RDA
Tryptophan 0.89__gm 492% RDA
Threonine 2.87__gm 598% RDA
Isoleucine 3.38__gm 469% RDA
Very low calorie today. It's only 7:15 now so I may get hungry later and eat something else.
Posted by april at 4:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Psycho DWIDP/Applebees Weight Watchers Menu
Hello bloggiefriends,
Glad you enjoyed yesterday's rant. I had fun with it! Thanks for all your nice comments.
Yesterday was a fairly quiet day, nutritionally. I was having big problems with my nutritional software, but it seems to be working okay now. Still thinking about migrating to Mary's tool though.
I had to start calling olive and flax oil by some other name, because when I type in flax oil, no matter what else I've eaten that day, my percentage of carbs goes to 0. Now this seems unlikely... the Atkins people would have found out about it by now! So I'm calling oil peanut oil. Also, I'm calling my twenty calorie calcium supplement "sugar." It's not showing up in the nutritional crunch though, so the RDA on the calcium shown is the actual amount I got from food. Yea for ricotta! I need to talk to MR about the calories in Essential Mix, since I eat less than a scoop a day, just two teaspoons. I'll check with him -- thanks for the tip, Howard!
Here's the crunch for yesterday:
Food List : april1105.fls
DATE : 04/11/05
Num. Foods : 16
Food #1 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 1 cup
Food #2 : Oil, peanut, salad or cooking 3 teaspoons
Food #3 : Kale, raw 100 g
Food #4 : Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, November thru May average 200 g
Food #5 : Peppers, sweet, red, raw 100 g
Food #6 : Cottage Cheese Lowfat Light and Lively 1 cup
Food #7 : Lewis Labs 2 tablespoons
Food #8 : Soup, chicken broth cubes, dehydrated, prepared with water 1 cup
Food #9 : Broccoli, frozen, chopped, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 cals
Food #10 : Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 cals
Food #11 : Carrots, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 cals
Food #12 : Fat-free ricotta 2 tablespoons
Food #13 : Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, white 6 oz
Food #14 : Coffee, brewed, prepared with distilled water
8 oz caf, 8 oz decaf
Food #15 : Sugars, granulated (1 calcium chewy)
Food #16 : Nuts, filberts or hazelnuts, dried, unblanched 10 g
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
P:F:C = 27:31:42
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 1002.20__cal 50%
Protein 67.89__gm 123% RDA
Total Fat 34.58__gm 53%
Sat. Fat 10.47__gm 52%
Mono. Fat 15.40__gm 53%
Poly. Fat 6.84__gm 103%
Carbohydrate 84.59__gm 28%
Fiber 24.58__gm 82%
Cholesterol 40.56__mg 14%
Vit. A 31665.86__IU 633% RDA
Vit. B6 1.39__mg 87% RDA
Vit. B12 1.99__mcg 100% RDA
Vit. C 468.02__mg 780% RDA
Vit. E 10.61__mg 133% RDA
Thiamine 0.54__mg 49% RDA
Folacin 358.82__mcg 199% RDA
Riboflavin 1.99__mg 153% RDA
Niacin 6.83__mg 46% RDA
Panto. Acid 2.42__mg 48% SA
Calcium 1254.52__mg 105% RDA
Copper 1.08__mg 54% SA
Iron 7.48__mg 50% RDA
Magnesium 302.91__mg 108% RDA
Manganese 3.76__mg 125% SA
Phosphorus 1254.85__mg 105% RDA
Potassium 3243.50__mg 162% RDA
Selenium 83.82__mcg 152% RDA
Sodium 3237.55__mg 135% SA
Zinc 7.36__mg 61% RDA
Tyrosine 4.79__gm 499% RDA
Lysine 9.60__gm 1333% RDA
Phenylalanine 6.08__gm 633% RDA
Leucine 10.89__gm 1135% RDA
Valine 7.63__gm 908% RDA
Methionine 3.52__gm 1173% RDA
Cystine 1.81__gm 604% RDA
Tryptophan 1.79__gm 995% RDA
Threonine 5.46__gm 1137% RDA
Isoleucine 6.51__gm 904% RDA
My appetite has still been low, no doubt because though I'm feeling much better, I still haven't been out much, so I've been inactive. Once I'm all recovered, I'm going to get back to exercising. Tall MR is urging me to exercise, Little MR is urging me to get my B vitamins... I feel loved! :) One thing that I think changes in your perspective upon getting involved with CR folks is that you start to take advice and suggestions about diet and lifestyle as expressions of love and care, not as nagging or controlling. Everytime a CR brother or sister makes a suggestion to me, I feel like I've received a little present. It's how we care for each other.
On Sunday night, my mother decided that I absolutely had to be gotten out of the house. So we did some research on a place where we could go out to eat and still be sure of our calories. I discovered that the Applebees' Weight Watchers' menu had been expanded, and had some really good, low calorie choices. You can read about it for yourself here. I had the grilled chicken salad and the French onion soup. The onion soup was amazing! Hard to believe it had so few calories. The chicken salad was okay, though I think next time I'll order the shrimp. My mom ordered the chicken skillet, which she enjoyed. I was under 1000 for the day on Sunday, but I'm not sure of the crunch because I have only the calories, fat grams and carbs for the Applebees' food, not the entire nutrition info.
Okay, this is boring, sorry. You know what I ate for breakfast. I'll try to entertain you more soon.
Posted by april at 9:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 10, 2005
RANT: Spend More Money on Vegetables and Swimsuits
[WARNING: FIERCE POLEMIC FOLLOWS. Thin skinned folks should just skip this one. This will generate a lot of angry comments.]
My two favorite NPR shows are "Sound Money" and "Voices in the Family." My local NPR station, WHYY in Philadelphia, plays them on Sunday morning at 5 am and 6 am. This is not a problem for me because I'm up at 5 am anyway... never have been able to shake those union organizer hours. "Voices in the Family" is a local show by a family therapist named Dan Gottalieb, and I disagree with him a lot, but I really enjoy the show. I think I like it as much for his calm, soothing voice as for the content of the program.
This morning the show was about psychiatric medications for children. I'm not going to talk about that. (Huge sigh of relief from the crowd.)
What caught my attention was a statistic quoted that 40% of girls ages 8-14 report that they are unhappy with their bodies. Immediately, the host said, "Those are eating disorders in the making."
Shortly thereafter, the guest quoted what sounded like one of Jay Olshansky's statistics. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was about the giant rise in childhood obesity.
I am going to connect the dots in a way that will enrage and offend a lot of people.
Could there possibly be any connection between these two data points?
Are more children unhappy with their bodies in some small part because more children are obese?
Now before you throw a steamed vegetable (I hope) at the computer screen, hear me out. You've already decided to ignore the warning at the top of the page, so you're in.
I know that young girls who are not obese, not overweight, not even slightly anything other than thin are obsessed with their bodies and have terrible body images. I WAS ONE OF THESE GIRLS! Go read the Women's Magazines issue of the blog for the longer story. I have great credentials in the body image struggle field. I thought I was fat when I wasn't, blah blah blah. I also really was overweight for awhile, so there. I get lots of points.
When I was a young girl who was not happy with my body, I was usually not overweight but just on the side of too plump for fashion. And I was unhappy in my own skin. I tried all sorts of bizarre diet schemes, mostly concentrated around eating no fat whatsoever (bagels with mustard era.) I watched my friends go down the anorexic road, and witnessed the dawn of the Snackwells era, when everyone ate no-fat crap filled with sugar that not only contained lots of calories, but was completely without nutrition. It seemed like there were two camps: kids who got fat by eating a lot of no-nutrition crap, and kids who starved themselves so got really thin but ate only no-nutrition crap with less fat.
Now it seems like the camps are even further apart: the fat kids are fatter, and there are a lot more of them. The starving kids are still starving, though now maybe they're eating no-carb crap instead of no-fat crap. Kids are not getting good nutrition, especially not in schools. Parents have to work too many hours just to keep up and don't have the skills to cook super-fast, easy, low calorie high nutrition meals to feed to themselves or their children. Meanwhile, the disconnect remains between real nutritional issues and how children feel about themselves and their bodies.
So join me in this thought experiment. Teleport back to 1988, when I was fourteen, in my first year at a performing arts high school where dancers were actually graded down on their report cards for gaining weight. Toxic environment! Camera focuses in on the upstairs study lounge, where a group of girls are comparing the fat grams on different packages of fake-fat cookies. None of these girls are dramatically overweight, but some of them are a bit plump, some are a bit thin, and none are happy with their bodies.
Then, suddenly, as though out of a puff of smoke, an unusual being appears in their midst. Perhaps it's an angel, or maybe just a collective hallucination caused by eating Olestra. He's slightly orange in color. Anyway, the unusual being immediately catches the attention of the girls, mostly because he's a guy and kinda cute. Not to mention that he appeared out of a puff of smoke.
"Put down the Snackwells," commands the being. "Abandon your Entemann's fat free chocolate chip cookies."
The girls drop the fat-free gak and stare in amazement at the Orange One.
"You have to eat protein! Otherwise, you will live the rest of your life in the grip of horrible carb cravings and you will gradually decompose into a giant bagel!"
As though by magic, a lovely dish of scrambled eggwhites appears in front of each of the girls.
"You have growing bones! You need calcium!"
A kale salad with a scoop of cottage cheese on top appears, right next to the eggwhites.
"Your no-fat lifestyle is killing you! You have to eat healthy, unsaturated fats."
And a half-tablespoon of olive oil mixed with a half-tablespoon of flax oil appears, lightly dressing the kale salad.
"And eat some *87&^%ing vegetables!"
Tomatoes, green peppers, all sorts of salad greens, and interesting veggies appear on the salad, happily basking in the oil that will make their nutritients absorbable.
By this time, the girls are staring at more food than they usually allow themselves to eat. And more nutrition than their fat-free crap filled bodies have seen since Dean Ornish was in medical school.
As quickly as he had appeared, the Orange One is gone, leaving a feast of nutritious food in front of the malnourished teenage girls.
They are all a bit afraid. Not because a random dude just appeared out of a puff of smoke and dropped off some food. No, they're scared of the oil! IT HAS FAT!!!!!!!!!! Everything they have been taught about how to be thin is that they should eat no fat.
Gradually, the girls dig into the food. It's great! They feel... different. Not hungry anymore, completely satisfied.
Later in the day, anonymous notes appear in all of their mailboxes explaining what they should eat. They compare the notes and they're all the same... clearly a communication from on high. Or Canada.
Nothing in the notes says anything about calories. It just explains why and how to eat more protein, good fats, and a variety of nutrient-dense vegetables with a few fruits.
The girls change their diets. The thin ones look healthy! They have color in their faces again! The slightly too plump ones lose weight, liberated from carb cravings and unhealthy eating habits. They have more energy, they focus better on their studies.
One of the girls, the one who was a tiny bit heavy and is now happily thin, resolves to spend the rest of her life looking for a man with a slight orange tint to his skin and an encyclopedic knowledge of nutrition. This process takes sixteen years and involves some disasters that are funny if they didn't happen to you. But I digress.
In one appearance out of a puff of smoke, the Orange One did what legions of counselors, psychologists, feminists who say that we shouldn't imitate fashion models, had never been able to do. He gave the girls the tools they needed to create the bodies they wanted, and BE HEALTHY!
I am not saying that good nutrition can cure anorexia. Nor am I saying that teenagers should be CR'd. I am saying that while we're harping on and on about how girls should not have bad body images, wouldn't it make sense to feed them healthy food?
You see, I have this bizarre belief that it is possible to be healthy and thin. That it is possible for everyone. Unless, like Terry Anderson, you are spending years as a hostage being shackled and fed rice.
And I believe that most people, even young women, *especially young women,* when fed a proper diet of high quality protein, unsaturated fats, and tons of good veggies and fruits, will reach a healthy weight. And will like themselves at that weight! Because I don't think that body hatred is a natural part of being a woman, or even a function of looking at Kate Moss a lot. I think it's a function of being at war with your body because you don't know how to eat.
Yes, there are exceptions. But real anorexics are very rare. While women at all weights who struggle with their weight and health are the rule, not the exception. Wouldn't it be easier to just get yourself the body you want, through a way of eating that is extremely healthy?
How about if we put all that energy that we used to spend hating ourselves into finding our very favorite protein source? We'll have so much time and energy left over that we will be able to run all over town looking for just the right vegetables, and then weighing them and chopping them! Or if that doesn't sound like fun, we could just take over the world. Or whatever.
I think it's pointless to tell women to ignore society's ideas of beauty. It hasn't worked yet. Let's tell women this: if you eat the right foods, you can have the body you want.
Yes, it takes self-discipline, especially if you're the kind of girl who, like me, used to greatly enjoy a bagel and a margarita (not together, I assure you.) But it takes a lot less self-discipline than spending your life hating your body and fighting mad carb cravings.
And most people, when fed the kind of diet I now eat, even without restricting calories, will be thin. Not super-skinny, perhaps, but thin.
Now CR is a different thing. CR, when done right, that is with ON, means taking the building blocks of excellent nutrition and then gradually lowering the total Calories. That's great if you want to slow your own aging process. Or if you have a job where you need to be *really* thin, like a dancer or a model. Or if you're trying to pick up girls.
[Small correction: no man has ever told me that he adopted CR to pick up girls. That was a total fabrication. I made it up.]
So what's the point? What's the clever line that's going to tie this whole thing together?
There's a lot of public handwringing about childhood obesity. There's also a lot of public handwringing about girls who hate their bodies. Yet, our experts remain unwilling to confront the real issues of inadequate nutrition that keep people locked in an infinite loop of ill health and bad body image. It's absurd to deny the connection between how we feel about our bodies and how our bodies actually are! What if, just as an experiment, we give our bodies what they need, and stop ingesting stuff we don't need?
Then maybe we could stop blaming our problems on Kate Moss, and start chopping vegetables.
We'll live longer, be healthier, and spend more money on swimsuits.
Posted by april at 6:19 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 9, 2005
Today's Nutrition Info
Food List : 4-9-05v2.fls
DATE : 04/09/05
Num. Foods : 16
Food #1 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 125 calories
Food #2 : Flax oil 2 teaspoons
Food #3 : Kale, raw 100 g
Food #4 : Arugula, raw 50 g
Food #5 : Cottage Cheese Lowfat Light and Lively 1 cup
Food #6 : Nuts, filberts or hazelnuts, dried, unblanched 10 g
Food #7 : Lewis Labs Brewers Yeast 2 tablespoons
Food #8 : Soup, chicken broth or bouillon, dehydrated, prepared with water 1 cup
Food #9 : Broccoli, frozen, chopped, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 calories
Food #10 : Carrots, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 calories
Food #11 : Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 25 calories
Food #12 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 60 calories
Food #13 : Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red 6 oz
Food #14 : Cranberry-grape juice drink, bottled 1.5 oz
Food #15 : Coffee, brewed, prepared with distilled water 8 oz
Food #16 : Wheat bran, crude 1 tablespoon
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 921.70__cal 46%
Protein 69.58__gm 127% RDA
Total Fat 31.00__gm 48%
Sat. Fat 10.23__gm 51%
Mono. Fat 16.38__gm 57%
Poly. Fat 2.95__gm 44%
Carbohydrate 72.53__gm 24%
Fiber 19.19__gm 64%
Cholesterol 40.00__mg 13%
Vit. A 19800.03__IU 396% RDA
Vit. B6 0.82__mg 51% RDA
Vit. B12 0.77__mcg 38% RDA
Vit. C 223.34__mg 372% RDA
Vit. E 6.81__mg 85% RDA
Thiamine 0.34__mg 31% RDA
Folacin 342.88__mcg 190% RDA
Riboflavin 2.11__mg 163% RDA
Niacin 4.30__mg 29% RDA
Panto. Acid 1.67__mg 33% SA
Calcium 940.90__mg 78% RDA
Copper 0.70__mg 35% SA
Iron 5.60__mg 37% RDA
Magnesium 253.89__mg 91% RDA
Manganese 3.03__mg 101% SA
Phosphorus 746.74__mg 62% RDA
Potassium 2464.76__mg 123% RDA
Selenium 79.01__mcg 144% RDA
Sodium 2238.59__mg 93% SA
Zinc 3.58__mg 30% RDA
Tyrosine 3.97__gm 413% RDA
Lysine 8.49__gm 1180% RDA
Phenylalanine 5.86__gm 611% RDA
Leucine 10.25__gm 1068% RDA
Valine 7.09__gm 845% RDA
Methionine 3.44__gm 1146% RDA
Cystine 2.10__gm 700% RDA
Tryptophan 1.67__gm 930% RDA
Threonine 5.39__gm 1122% RDA
Isoleucine 6.42__gm 891% RDA
Check this out: P:F:C = exactly 30:30:40! Do I win a prize? What sort of prize?
Meanwhile, I'm still feeling terrible, but enjoying having my internet connection at home so I can be relatively productive while feeling terrible.
More anti-aging philosophy soon, I promise.
Posted by april at 3:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Still Sick
Argh. It's day three of being sick. Well, day three of being sick enough to not feel up to leaving the house. It was very warm mid-week but is now just chilly enough that I feel cold outside, so I'm staying in, drinking lots of fluids, and watching the pretty flowers on the trees start to open up from my window.
Stephanie -- I tried to email you but your email address that you entered in the comment field bounced back. Try again, or email me at april@mprize.org.
Thanks to all for your advice re: cold cures. I am too sick to go out and find the various remedies, so I have contented myself with Emergen-C packs (now that MR has said I won't get rebound scurvy from a few days of megadose) and nice herbal teas.
I'm eating normally again today, and playing with my DWIDP as usual. I'll give you the crunch for today after dinner tonight.
Posted by april at 12:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 8, 2005
Every Once In Awhile Fasting
There are a lot of people who engage in Every Other Day Fasting, and find it a convenient way to do CR. I can't imagine being one of them. I enjoy my quotidian diet too much, and I'm so small that I doubt that I could get enough calories on an every other day basis to keep myself going. But I do enjoy the occasional day of fasting, especially at times of illness or stress, or when I'm trying to detox from anything, be it physical, mental or spiritual.
I've always been a bit of a junkie for fasting, of whatever kind. It's funny because I'm not inclined to aesceticism at all. Unlike some of the CR brethren, I'm not interested in denying the flesh in general... just in eating less now so that I can have more fun in my particular flesh for a lot longer. I enjoy food, drink, and lots of fun, just in smaller servings. And since I started out a small person, sometimes those amounts can be very small. Enjoying pleasures of the flesh has actually been an ideological issue for me: believing that it is not only fun to enjoy good food and wine, but that it is right and good to do so. My father wrote a book about the subject, called Jesus and the Pleasures. (You can order a copy of it here!) [Remember, the Mouse doesn't endorse any particular religion or philosophy, nor does the Mouse say that you have to read my Dad's book.]
On the one hand, I'm not into denial of the flesh. On the other hand, I say I'm a detox junkie. What's up with that?
I don't really know, except that there are distinct times when I feel the need to be spiritually and physically cleansed. But that doesn't always mean fasting. In my week of detox leading up to my CR birthday, I just ate my low calorie end of my boring day diet. I can assure you that I took great pleasure in every morsel of kale and cottage cheese!
But today, no doubt as a result of battling a cold, I felt like fasting all together. I've been drinking a lot of water and herbal teas, and I'm too much of a caffeine addict to quit that all together, so I did have a little coffee this morning. But other than that, not a bite or sip of anything. I'm feeling quite good... my cold is improving! It's been a very long time since I've had a day long complete fast, perhaps since before I started the blog. I've had plenty of times when I've fasted until dinner or until a late lunch, which is also good for clearing the mind. But I think this is the first all day fast.
So I've done my nutritional crunch:
Food List : 4-8-05.TXT
DATE : 04/08/05
Num. Foods : 3
Food #1 : Coffee, brewed, prepared with distilled water 4 oz
Food #2 : Tea, herb, other than chamomile, brewed 16 oz servings
Food #3 : Water, bottled, poland spring a lot
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 7.10__cal 0%
Protein 0.12__gm 0% RDA
Total Fat 0.00__gm 0%
Sat. Fat 0.01__gm 0%
Mono. Fat 0.00__gm 0%
Poly. Fat 0.03__gm 0%
Carbohydrate 1.42__gm 0%
Fiber 0.00__gm 0%
Cholesterol 0.00__mg 0%
Vit. A 0.00__IU 0% RDA
Vit. B6 0.00__mg 0% RDA
Vit. B12 0.00__mcg 0% RDA
Vit. C 0.00__mg 0% RDA
Vit. E 0.20__mg 3% RDA
Thiamine 0.05__mg 4% RDA
Folacin 2.96__mcg 2% RDA
Riboflavin 0.02__mg 1% RDA
Niacin 0.26__mg 2% RDA
Panto. Acid 0.05__mg 1% SA
Calcium 21.32__mg 2% RDA
Copper 0.09__mg 4% SA
Iron 0.53__mg 4% RDA
Magnesium 21.32__mg 8% RDA
Manganese 0.24__mg 8% SA
Phosphorus 1.18__mg 0% RDA
Potassium 124.32__mg 6% RDA
Selenium 0.12__mcg 0% RDA
Sodium 15.40__mg 1% SA
Zinc 0.20__mg 2% RDA
Tyrosine 0.01__gm 1% RDA
Lysine 0.01__gm 1% RDA
Phenylalanine 0.02__gm 2% RDA
Leucine 0.03__gm 3% RDA
Valine 0.02__gm 2% RDA
Methionine 0.00__gm 0% RDA
Cystine 0.01__gm 4% RDA
Tryptophan 0.00__gm 0% RDA
Threonine 0.01__gm 1% RDA
Isoleucine 0.01__gm 2% RDA
Hey, that's not fair! Why does it say I have P:F:C ratios of 7:0:93? Are all those calories in coffee and tea carbs??? At least there's a little niacin in there.
Tomorrow will be back to the normal CR yummy foods, but I'm enjoying the break, and my body feels like it's appreciating it.
Posted by april at 10:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Take It Home and Weigh It
No, this is not some CR'd cavegirl's idea of what to do with a man on a first date.
This is Mary's approach to restaurant eating, and I think it's a brilliant one.
For months now, I've been wondering how Mary can be so confident of her calorie counts on days when she eats out. Ever since I started hanging out with the hardcore CR boys who weigh everything they eat and therefore KNOW FOR SURE how many calories they're consuming (not just MR: Kenton, Dean, and the Chain Eater of Lettuce all fall into this category) I've noticed that people who actually *know* how many Calories they're consuming report higher Calorie levels than people who eat out a lot and therefore don't really know.
For example, I know a guy who eats 1900 calories a day and has a BMI of 16.7. Let's call him George, not because that's his name, but because I've always wanted to know someone named George. George never, ever eats out and meticulously weighs and measures every morsel he consumes. George is quite thin, and was, even pre-CR. He's on the lighter end even for CR practitioners. So he's one of those naturally skinny people we used to hate whom we now love, and he's a serious CR practitioner.
Meanwhile, there's Jeff. We'll call him Jeff, not because that's his name, but because I don't currently know anyone who practices CR whose name is Jeff, and I think we need one. Maybe Jeff the Three Hundred brother will join us? Anyway, Jeff thinks he's eating 1600 calories a day, but he eats out several times a week. His BMI is much higher than George's.
Now I'm not saying that Jeff is a liar, or that Jeff is intentionally quoting low calorie levels in order to impress girls. (Though I have been told that many men adopt CR as an intentional strategy to pick up women.) Weight is definitely not a proxy for calorie consumption, nor is BMI. Lots of people who aren't CR'd are naturally skinny... lots of CR'd folks don't look as skinny as you'd think they would. Take me for example. I don't look skinny at all at 105, but pre-CR I weighed 137.
But Jeff is *much* less skinny than George. And Jeff eats out a lot.
Then there's Raoul. Raoul is a hardcore CR practitioner who not only eats a consistent number of Calories, carefully measured, every day, Raoul also participates daily in a very active sport that can only be practiced in an ocean. Raoul is really skinny. Raoul is both a serious athelete and a serious CR practitioner, wow. He knows he's eating 1750 a day, and his BMI is about 17.6 -- he's a little shorter than George and Jeff. He eats fewer Calories, and basically falls over with exhaustion if he tries to lower his Calories even more. But he's really, really skinny.
So George and Raoul know how many Calories they're eating. And they're eating *more* than Jeff says he's eating. But because Jeff doesn't know *for sure* what he's eating when he eats out, it seems likey to me that Jeff doesn't really know how many Calories he's eating.
Am I calling Jeff a liar? Of course not, that would be absurd. I am observing that we tend to grossly underestimate our calories when we don't have direct control over our food.
Take my own case in point. Everyone knows that basically since the dawn of CR time, I have had a pattern of carefully measuring my food at home for about four - five days (in the beginning I did it more with packaged foods that had clearly labeled calorie counts, now I have my very own, very nice scale.) and then eating out and not really watching that carefully what I was eating. This pattern resulted in 32 pounds of weight loss over about eight months, and worked really well with my social life. I thought I was eating maybe 1100 Calories a day, when you average the in meals with the out meals.
I now believe that I was eating way more than that. And when you look at what one can consume in an out meal: soups, sauces, even one small slice of bread, wine, a Cosmopolitian here and there... it adds up. Normal people have no idea how much they eat. What looks like a normal or even small dinner can be 1000+ calories. Easily.
So... I think I was eating more than I thought I was. And here's why I think so. Going to MR's house and spending eight to eleven days in a perfectly calorie controlled environment (it's so relaxing... you should all try it. Wait, I mean you should try it at home... MR won't appreciate it if I invite the entire universe of bloggiefriends to crash at his place for eleven days!) I discovered that I feel great for about eight days, then get wiggy with hunger. Like eating celery between meals and seriously contemplating the macronutrient composition of my dinner companion... as though I might cook and eat him! And recognizing that in order to make a Zoned meal out of MR, I'd have to add quite a bit of oil. He's very lowfat, lean protein. But I could have a giant amount of wine, as that's all carbs and the human body has very few carbs. And the calcium would be great in all those bones! See, when you start thinking these thoughts about the man you love, whom you would do anything to protect from harm, you realize that you're REALLY, REALLY HUNGRY!
So we tried upping my calories to 1100 on my last trip, and sure enough, I still got wiggy with hunger after a number of days.
So guess what? The calorie deficit caused by not eating out is more than 100 Calories a day for five days. So I must be eating a lot more when I go out.
Now that's okay... my weight has stabilized and I am feeling good and blah blah blah... but it does mean that I was misreporting my Calories. Which might be confusing to someone who is starting CR. It's bad if you go too low... it sets you up for failure, makes you less likely to get the full health benefit of CR due to overly rapid weight loss, and is just generally unpleasant.
Now that I realize that I've been miscounting those "out" meals, I can correct my error and figure out more carefully how much I am really eating. Then if I want to go lower, I'll have information with which to make the decision about what precisely constitutes lower.
So I've been wondering how to figure out HOW MANY CALORIES I'm REALLY EATING when I go out.
Then I come across Mary's suggestion. Take it home and weigh it!
This is a brilliant idea! I'm going to take home my favorite dishes at places where I eat out and weigh them on my fancy new scale. Maybe I'll even press the MR button and watch, say, sea scallops be magically transformed into my angel. That would definitely be worth the $32 it cost to get the scale on eBay... and much cheaper than a plane ticket to Canada!
And don't worry, I won't cook and eat him. I'm still a vegetarian at heart.
Posted by april at 9:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 7, 2005
Now I'm Actually Sick
The air travel finally got to me. I have a cold.
Not nearly as bad a cold as I used to get every six months pre-CR, and the first cold I've had since starting CR a year ago, but a cold. Ick. I feel like I have a fever and I am sniffling a lot. I am also very indignant about the whole thing, as I've gotten so used to feeling so good all the time that I'm just not prepared to feel ill.
I may actually purchase a box of kleenex. I feel like I'm caving in!!!
And don't you just love the way everyone has some kind of weird remedy when you're sick? VLC says to eat two whole cloves of garlic. My other good friend says to drink orange juice and megadose on Vitamin C, but I'm scared to get rebound scurvy, which is what happens when you megadose on vitamin C and then stop. Rebound scurvy: sounds to me like what happens when you're just getting out of a bad relationship: you bruise easily and get sick a lot. My favorite home remedy I learned from a janitor at a hospital in Bayonne, New Jersey. When you feel a cold coming on, drink grapefruit juice and tequilla. I've tried this and it really works. I don't know if it's the Vitamin C in the grapefruit juice, the fact that the tequilla knocks you out, or what, but it curse what ails you. A lot of extra calories though, so I might not go with that remedy this time.
In any case, I feel terrible and I haven't felt terrible in a long time. It may be time to lie down with a giant cat on my head. That always makes me feel better, no matter what the problem is.
I had the strangest experience this morning upon returning from a quick trip to the Starbucks. There was a note at my door from one of my neighbors whom I've never met, claiming that I "borrowed" his patio chairs around New Years and never returned them. There was a phone number, so I called and left a message explaining that my mother had given me my patio chairs and has two exactly like them herself, so I'm quite sure that they are in fact mine and not borrowed. The guy called back almost immediately and apologized profusely. How weird is that? I'd never been accused of stealing patio furniture before.
Meanwhile, I'm having a fairly moderate calorie day. I skipped my usual eggwhite scramble in favor of a cup of leftover cannelini bean, asparagus and red pepper soup. Later on I ate 12 olives and 100 g turkey before heading out to meet two friends for lunch. We ended up going to a place that has calorie counts on their "healthy" menu, so I ate a shrimp cocktail that had 125 calories -- just plain shrimp -- and a side salad with just vinegar. I had taken my lunch time supplements, including the one that sounds like metronome and has to be taken with fat, with my turkey and olive pre-lunch snack, so I wasn't too worried about the lowfat lunch. Going out was a big mistake though, because by the time I got home my nose was running non-stop and I was feeling terrible. Sore throat too... this is not looking good. It's been so long since I've been sick, thanks to CR, that I am just plain confused by this. I don't want to take cold medicine because the last time I took any kind of medicine it made me really lightheaded and confused. If anything, I should take children's tylenol or baby aspirin. I'm just too little now for grown-up medication! I think I will probably just take nothing, drink lots of water (like that's anything unusual) and look back at my emails from MR in which he suggested things to do to get rid of sniffly feelings.
If I can get through the rest of the day without being accused of stealing patio furniture, I'll be in good shape.
There... it's later and I've had dinner. I also had a bit of grapefruit tequilla. Here's today's crunch:
Food List : 3-8.fls
DATE : 04/07/05
Num. Foods : 16
Food #1 : Turkey, all classes, meat only, cooked, roasted 0.5 servings
Food #2 : Beans, great northern, mature seeds, canned 0.4 servings
Food #3 : Asparagus, raw 1.0 servings
Food #4 : Olives, ripe, canned (jumbo-super colossal) 12.0 servings
Food #5 : Cranberry-grape juice drink, bottled 1.0 servings
Food #6 : Peppers, sweet, red, raw 0.1 servings
Food #7 : Crustaceans, shrimp, mixed species, raw 1.4 servings
Food #8 : Lettuce, looseleaf, raw 1.0 servings
Food #9 : Cheese, cheddar 0.1 servings
Food #10 : Lewis Labs 4.0 servings
Food #11 : Broccoli, frozen, chopped, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt 0.5 servings
Food #12 : Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.7 servings
Food #13 : Carrots, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.7 servings
Food #14 : Grapefruit juice, pink, raw 1.3 servings
Food #15 : Alcoholic beverage, distilled, all (gin, rum, vodka, whiskey) 80 proof 1.0 servings
Food #16 : Oil, olive, salad or cooking 1.0 servings
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 1109.68__cal 55%
Protein 74.00__gm 135% RDA
Total Fat 37.35__gm 57%
Sat. Fat 6.84__gm 34%
Mono. Fat 21.31__gm 74%
Poly. Fat 5.81__gm 87%
Carbohydrate 105.61__gm 35%
Fiber 29.25__gm 97%
Cholesterol 259.44__mg 86%
Vit. A 18599.24__IU 372% RDA
Vit. B6 1.45__mg 90% RDA
Vit. B12 1.77__mcg 89% RDA
Vit. C 278.74__mg 465% RDA
Vit. E 11.22__mg 140% RDA
Thiamine 0.54__mg 49% RDA
Folacin 410.45__mcg 228% RDA
Riboflavin 0.64__mg 49% RDA
Niacin 11.94__mg 80% RDA
Panto. Acid 2.96__mg 59% SA
Calcium 609.78__mg 51% RDA
Copper 1.41__mg 71% SA
Iron 15.91__mg 106% RDA
Magnesium 270.58__mg 97% RDA
Manganese 2.12__mg 71% SA
Phosphorus 850.60__mg 71% RDA
Potassium 2521.52__mg 126% RDA
Selenium 85.32__mcg 155% RDA
Sodium 2969.66__mg 124% SA
Zinc 8.55__mg 71% RDA
Tyrosine 2.94__gm 306% RDA
Lysine 7.28__gm 1011% RDA
Phenylalanine 4.11__gm 428% RDA
Leucine 7.91__gm 824% RDA
Valine 5.30__gm 631% RDA
Methionine 2.59__gm 864% RDA
Cystine 1.17__gm 392% RDA
Tryptophan 1.43__gm 794% RDA
Threonine 4.07__gm 848% RDA
Isoleucine 5.00__gm 695% RDA
Posted by april at 12:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Who Will Benefit From This Project?
One of the most frustrating things about trying to find funding for the Mprize is the number of corporations/foundations that are only interested in funding "service" projects. As I read over the corporate phianthropy guidelines or grant application instructions, they frequently state that they fund only projects in their local area, and they want to know what economic, social, racial or gender group will "benefit" from the efforts.
Uh, everyone?
Trying to communicate that the Mprize is about benefitting *everyone* has been a challenge. I sense that a project doesn't seem real to people unless you can point to the disadvantaged group it might serve. It just goes to show how narrow our vision has become. I don't blame the corporations for wanting to earn goodwill in their own communities by acting locally, but the frustration remains that encouraging scientists to cure aging will help a lot more people than providing services to Alzheimer's patients in Dallas.
It constantly confounds me that people perceive wanting to cure aging as selfish. No one thinks it's selfish to want to cure cancer, even if you're a cancer patient. Yet aging is somehow seen as different. The results are the same: you're just as dead at the end of the process. I wonder if the phrase "anti-aging" is so commonly associated with charlatans and wrinkle creams that people have trouble taking the concept seriously. That's why phrases like "rejuvenative medicine" and "regenerative medicine" seem to go over better... I use those a lot.
If I knew, through genetic testing or some such thing, that I was definitely going to develop a kind of cancer later in my life, and I spent my entire life crusading to find a cure, no one would call that selfish. Those people are heroes. They're lauded as people who face the horrifying truth of their circumstance and choose to do something about it, instead of living in denial or hoping that science will save them without their assistance.
So why is aging different?
Aubrey de Grey often says something to the effect of "It's very ubiquity renders it invisible." Yet when you talk with people about their struggles to take care of aging parents, their frustration with the changes in their own bodies as years pass, and their sadness that they lost their grandparents just as they were growing up enough to see Grandma as something other than a convenient candy dispensnser, you realize that aging is very real in people's lives.
Jay Olshansky, in response to Aubrey's contention that people are so deep in denial about the horror of aging that they seem to be in a trance, said that it's actually Aubrey who is doing the hypnotizing, by saying over and over again, "We can cure aging." Dr. Olshansky also had a clever cartoon representation of a young woman with long hair and a vacant expressing starting at a crystal object of some kind that clearly had some sinister power over her mind. I took that cartoon rather personally, as the woman in the cartoon looked errily like me. There is Jay Olshansky, saying that instead of mobilizing funding to address the causes and cures of aging, we should put our efforts into fighting the global epidemic of obesity. And then he's not in favor of CR! Who is in the trance here? If you don't want to put efforts into biomedical interventions that can *reverse* the damage of aging, and you don't endorse the only thing we have now that *slows* the aging process in every mammal in whom it's been tested, then what precisely do you want to do?
I can hear it now: encourage people to live "healthy" lives. Perhaps I'm biased, but I think our society's idea of "healthy" is so conditioned by the food industry that benefits from people's addictions to fat and sugar that we have no clue what "healthy" is. Olshansky said that CR may have unknown side effects: I'll take that any day over the very well-documented effects of even "healthy" diets: aging, disease, disability and death!
Besides, as MR famously said in the RANT, the knowledge that eating "better" might postpone a heart attack hasn't persuaded the general public to do anything. The problem is getting worse -- Olshansky's charts of the rise of obesity are terrifying. The very weakness of the advice: eat unhealthy foods "in moderation," get "moderate" exercise, avoid stress... try this: EAT FEWER CALORIES. No tricks, no gimmicks, no pandering to people's fear that they can't succeed. Why tell women to accept their bodies as less than how they want them to look and feel when there is a way to feel better, look better, and annoy the hell out of your friends who have gained weight? Why tell people that the best they can hope for is seeing their grandchildren's weddings, when they could live long enough to attend their great-grandchildren's college graduations? Or for those of us who don't want children: think of just how many diapers, over a dramatically extended lifespan, we will *not* have to change!
I may bear some surface resemblance to the cartoon character woman who clearly lost her mind. After all, I am young, female, have long hair, and like sparkly crystal objects. (I actually really, really like sparkly crystal objects. Especially objects that can hang in the window and make pretty patterns on the wall, and crystal jewlery. Does that make me a less serious person?) But here I am, doing everything I can in the here and now to slow my own aging process, and doing everything I can in the meantime to encourage scientists to compete for the real cure.
What's so crazy about that?
Posted by april at 7:21 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 6, 2005
Iced Coffee Season, Or Why Life-Extensionists Must Get Pedicures
It's suddenly warm here. 75 degrees. That's really warm. It was winter, now it's summer. Nothing in between. Does that count as climate change?
So it's iced coffee season now and the folks at my local Starbucks are glad to see that I've returned safely from my latest trip to Canada. I have this thing about iced coffee -- it really bugs me when they shake it. You know how at Starbucks they're now shaking your iced coffee, whether you want it sweetened or not? Well, I can't stand that because it generates unnecessary bubbles and breaks up the ice cubes, making them melt faster.
There's something about Starbucks that brings out the princess in us all.
Anyway, I'm enjoying iced coffee season and wearing sandals again. Good thing I got a decent pedicure before leaving for Calgary -- one can not be caught unprepared when sandal season kicks in. Actually, one of my central beliefs in life (along with the idea that we can and should cure aging) is that people should get pedicures regularly. They're just plain good for your feet. It's not a beauty issue, it's a health issue. Walking around in shoes generates bad callouses, which if not taken care of, make you walk funny, eventually causing curvature of the spine and no doubt fractures. In fact, I'm quite certain that if a study were to be done of people who get hip fractures, you would find out that none of them got regular pedicures througout their lives.
So clearly, you can not go around claiming to be a life-extensionist if you don't take care of your feet. I don't care if you polish your toenails or not... this is not about beauty. Though if you want to polish your toenails, I won't tell anyone. You should get a pedicure in order to make sure that you walk on happy feet for the next however many decades you can squeeze out of life. Think of all your feet do for you! What have you done for them lately?
There, that's my lecture for today.
What do you think I ate today?
You guessed it: breakfast = eggwhites and flax oil.
I am finally starting to resign myself to the fact that for the next few weeks I have to get my own morning supplements. I was getting awfully used to starting my day with the beautiful sight of the most wonderful man in the universe kneeling at the side of the bed with 30 ml of crangrape juice, a spoonful of creatine, and a capsule of Strontium Support. Yes, I am the luckiest girl on earth. I stop to thank any higher power I can think of on an almost hourly basis. I have found a man who brings me supplements in bed. It just doesn't get any better than this.
However, not one to be a lazy princess, I've gone back to getting my own supplements while I feed my giant cat. I'm also developing recipes that I can cook for MR that involve beans. He eats bean dishes for lunch, and I have this exciting idea that I will make him lunch. I love to cook, and he does not, so I've worked out this neat idea: he should let me do the cooking! Of course, sometimes he should still cook because his food is just so good. But in general, it's most fun if I cook. He suggested that I get rice protein so that I can make complete proteins out of the bean dishes. I'm excited about my next trip to Whole Foods. I'm also going to get the ingredients for... you guessed it... the MEGAMUFFINS! VLC and I are going to have a baking date.
Tonight I'm making a new soup for my mom, who is coming over for dinner. I'm making a cannellini bean soup with fresh asparagus, in a free range organic chicken broth base. Needless to say, I'll be adding some of my delicious and nutritious brewers yeast.
I've been feeling a bit under the weather since I got home, and I think it's due to that horrible post-air travel phenomenon where you've been exposed to so many hours of re-circulated germs that you can't quite shake it. It's been so long since I felt at all sniffly that it's downright odd to feel less than up to par. However, whereas pre-CR I would have gotten very sick with a cold, now I'm just mildly sniffly. I'm not even bothering to buy a box of Kleenex because I know it will pass before I have time to use them. Yea for CR!
Posted by april at 3:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 5, 2005
I Want a Girl Who Knows What's Best
Both MR and I love the song "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake. I thought of the line from the title of today's entry yesterday while during my something like fortieth hour of air travel in eight days I was listening to the tape I made for MR on my walkperson and imagining everyone's reaction to my "How to Start CR" blog entry. I try to make it clear that I really don't know much of anything, just what works for me, but I still come off like a major know-it-all, don't I?
Anyway, glad you seemed to enjoy the entry. A couple of answers to comments:
Re: Mary's tool. Yes, I should have linked to it and will correct! In the meantime, folks can click on CRON Diary in the links at the side of this page to get to Mary's page and download her tool for free.
Re: Grains. Yes, the brownies and muffins do have flour, though they are relatively low carb. I say to get rid of grains at first because most women seem to have bad reactions to excess carbs -- anything from anxiety attacks to food cravings -- and most grains have very little nutritional value on their own. I think Walford is wrong in a lot of his recommendations, and since women almost by definition are smaller than men and have lower calorie needs. I mean, I am half of MR! That's not some kind of statement about how God created man and woman... I checked very carefully to make sure that he's not missing a rib. All last week, he ate 1900 calories and I ate 950. He weighs only 18 pounds more than I do. Of course, he is all bone and muscle (yes, MR exercises, contrary to popular legend. He does it -- he just doesn't *like* it) whereas I still have lots of fat -- all of it properly placed as appropriate to a female of the species. Point being: since women's calorie needs are much lower than Roy Walford's, and since I believe in eating more fat and protein than Walford did, it makes a lot of sense to me that women start out by drastically cutting back on grains, which are mostly carb and mostly empty calories.
SO HOW DO I GET MY FIBER? you ask.
Wheat bran. MR introduced wheat bran into my life, and it is a very efficient low cal way to get fiber. 1 tablespoon a day, soaked overnight in a little water to get off the phytates (did I get that right, K?) and drained in the morning, then eaten with a spoon. Check fiber off my list of things to do -- return to looking for foundations that want to fund the Mprize. Very efficient. Very short skirt, long jacket, if I do say so myself.
Re: meat: MR thinks we shouldn't have it all that often, both for saturated fat reasons and for environmental impact reasons. As an old vegetarian, it takes a certain amount of suspension of disbelief for me to eat meat when I do. But I certainly endorse eating free range organic meat, and I think that if you get your nutritional needs met with meat, especially if you have allergies to vegetarian protein sources, then do what works for you. CR is so individual... there is no one size fits all!
In a nutshell (and nice to see you again, Danielle!!!), find out what works for you, but you've got to start somewhere. And if you're a woman, don't expect what works for the boys to be right for you. We're girls!!! We're different! We're smaller, cuter, more energetic on less food, and we naturally carry more fat. We have monthly changes to deal with, we have time of life changes to deal with, some of us choose to have children, etc. So we can't expect the boys to tell us what to do... therefore, we have to talk to each other!
Posted by april at 10:57 AM | Comments (1)
April 3, 2005
Happy Birthday to Fruitgirl!
Hey bloggiefriends... tomorrow is Fruitgirl's birthday!!!
Everybody put a candle on your fruit!
Maybe I'll even *eat* a piece of fruit, in honor of Fruitgirl's birthday!!!
Posted by april at 5:15 PM | Comments (2)
Lasagna
One thing you should be aware of is that when I do the recipe crunch for food I make for MR, I put the two of us together into one DWIDP foodlist. Then he eats 2/3 of it and I eat 1/3. That's cause I'm half of him! Isn't that cute???
Friday night I made my amazing lasagna. He loves it. This time we used Quorn "ground round," which is like ground beef. Quorn is made of some kind of fungus and it's a meat substitute. MR had me bring a bunch from home because they don't sell it in his stores here.
Here's how you make my lasagna:
(the DWIDP seems incapable of saving the right amounts to text so I'll spell it out to you)
100 g zucchini, chopped
100 g red bell pepper, chopped
90 g part skim mozarella cheese sliced into very thin slices
1/2 cup lowfat cottage cheese
100 g arugula
10 g basil
100 g shitake mushrooms, chopped
400 grams no salt added tomato sauce
89 g (3 oz) dry-ish red wine
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cloves garic.
garlic powder, salt
To make the tomato sauce, boil the garlic (minced) in the red wine for about ten minutes. Cut down the heat and add tomato sauce. Throw in a bit of garlic powder and salt to taste. (You can use half salt -- indeed, if MR is looking over your shoulder, you must.) Allow to simmer for another twenty minutes... you can do the simmering while you chop the other veggies. Just as you're about to add the sauce to the lasagna, stir in a teaspoon of olive oil.
Mix up the cottage cheese with the basil and a few dashes of garlic powder and a dash of salt. Set aside. Put down a thin layer of arugula, cover with an thin layer of zucchini. Put down a layer of cottage cheese. Follow with a thin layer of red pepper. Follow with ground Quorn, or any other ground beef substitute (like Gardenburger) or just skip it all together. Follow with shitakes. Continue until you're out of all the ingredients. Cover with the tomato sauce, allowing it time to drip down into the rest of the mixture. Top with the mozarella cheese. Bake at about 400 for about 45 mins. Serve with a glass of pinot noir (3 oz for each of us is in the recipe crunch.)
Here's the nutrition info:
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 925.69__cal 46%
Protein 56.91__gm 103% RDA
Total Fat 42.64__gm 66%
Sat. Fat 22.65__gm 113%
Mono. Fat 14.05__gm 49%
Poly. Fat 3.17__gm 48%
Carbohydrate 67.79__gm 23%
Fiber 17.59__gm 59%
Cholesterol 100.10__mg 33%
Vit. A 8467.40__IU 169% RDA
Vit. B6 1.40__mg 87% RDA
Vit. B12 1.06__mcg 53% RDA
Vit. C 163.40__mg 272% RDA
Vit. E 8.51__mg 106% RDA
Thiamine 0.68__mg 61% RDA
Folacin 256.41__mcg 142% RDA
Riboflavin 1.26__mg 97% RDA
Niacin 8.05__mg 54% RDA
Panto. Acid 6.33__mg 127% SA
Calcium 1227.50__mg 102% RDA
Copper 2.40__mg 120% SA
Iron 7.79__mg 52% RDA
Magnesium 263.08__mg 94% RDA
Manganese 5.35__mg 178% SA
Phosphorus 1043.89__mg 87% RDA
Potassium 2858.50__mg 143% RDA
Selenium 41.97__mcg 76% RDA
Sodium 3418.41__mg 142% SA
Zinc 17.04__mg 142% RDA
Tyrosine 2.97__gm 310% RDA
Lysine 6.18__gm 858% RDA
Phenylalanine 3.49__gm 364% RDA
Leucine 6.46__gm 673% RDA
Valine 4.22__gm 502% RDA
Methionine 1.84__gm 614% RDA
Cystine 0.78__gm 260% RDA
Tryptophan 0.93__gm 516% RDA
Threonine 3.23__gm 673% RDA
Isoleucine 3.90__gm 541% RDA
It does have more saturated fat than we would normally eat, but since our diets are usually so low in saturated fat, and it also rocks out on the calcium, it's okay for sometimes. MR and I are at mindnumbingly low risk for heart disease. So yes, Dan, go out to Trader Joes and buy your goat cheese! You could alternatively skip the mozarella all together and use a whole lot more cottage cheese mixture, which cuts out saturated fat almost all together and makes it more ricotta-like. You could also sprinkle a little bit of fresh grated parmesean on top.
Tonight I'm making a shrimp dish. Tomorrow I fly home to Philly... alas, coming down from the mountaintop is always rough. But MR is going to pack me some of Sherm's megamuffins and Sherm's binging brownies to soften the transition.
Posted by april at 12:27 PM | Comments (4)
April 1, 2005
But It Just May Be A Lunatic You're Looking For
MR and I had one of those classic pop music moments the other day. I don't remember what we were talking about, but he said, "You may be right."
I answered, "I may be crazy."
And we said in unison, "But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for."
If there was ever a moment when the truth about two people and their relationship was spoken, that was it.
We had another of those CR geek moments later that day when I was planning our dinner on my DWIDP (for those of you who are new to the blog -- welcome! -- that's Dr. Walford's Interactive Diet Planner, nutritional software that I use to monitor my calories and nutrition.) I had just finished entering the data for the stuffed peppers, vegetable soup, and glass of pinot noir that I was planning to serve for dinner. The ratios came out MR Zone perfect: 31:41:28! MR eats a little more fat since he doesn't want to overdo it on the protein at his calorie level, and the Zone thing is to find your protein grams, match them with carbs, and fill in the rest with fat. So I excitedly showed MR the computer screen and we had a happy CR geek out fest.
Here's what I made:
Green Peppers Stuffed with Goat Cheese, Tomato and Basil
Wash and cut the little heads off of however many green peppers.
I made MR's in one giant green pepper -- 238 grams. I stuffed it with 85 grams of goat cheese, 100 grams of tomatoes, 5 grams of fresh chopped basil. Then I drizzled in some white wine vinegar with tarragon, covered the pepper with its pepper hat (that I had previously cut off) and put it in the baking dish with my pepper (half the size of MR's, as I am half of him) and drizzled with a bit of chardonnay, leaving a substantial pool of chardonnay at the bottom of the baking dish so that the peppers would be standing in it. Bake at 350 ish for abouut 45 minutes with a lid on the baking dish (though it's okay if you don't have a lid), adding more chardonnay periodically to make sure that the peppers are always standing in a little pool of wine (happy peppers!) Yummy!
The rest of the meal that I served included free range organic chicken broth brewers yeast soup with half a bag of carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. I only gave MR one tablespoon of brewers yeast, as his nutritional day is not entirely dependent on it.
Here's the crunch for the dinner I made for him:
Food List : MR Stuffed Pepper and Soup
DATE : 03/28/05
Num. Foods : 10
Food #1 : Peppers, sweet, green, raw 2.0 servings
Food #2 : Cheese, goat, semisoft type 3.0 servings
Food #3 : Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average 5.0 servings
Food #4 : Basil, fresh 4.0 servings
Food #5 : Soup, chicken broth cubes, dehydrated, dry 3.2 servings
Food #6 : Lewis Labs 0.8 servings
Food #7 : Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red 0.8 servings
Food #8 : Carrots, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.5 servings
Food #9 : Broccoli, frozen, spears, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 1.0 servings
Food #10 : Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.7 servings
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
3wCalories 618.54__cal 31%
Protein 48.01__gm 87% RDA
Total Fat 27.88__gm 43%
Sat. Fat 17.93__gm 90%
Mono. Fat 6.21__gm 21%
Poly. Fat 1.49__gm 22%
Carbohydrate 61.30__gm 20%
Fiber 15.26__gm 51%
Cholesterol 69.16__mg 23%
Vit. A 17697.29__IU 354% RDA
Vit. B6 2.31__mg 144% RDA
Vit. B12 0.29__mcg 14% RDA
Vit. C 312.52__mg 521% RDA
Vit. E 4.31__mg 54% RDA
Thiamine 0.85__mg 78% RDA
Folacin 184.21__mcg 102% RDA
Riboflavin 1.52__mg 117% RDA
Niacin 8.55__mg 57% RDA
Panto. Acid 1.37__mg 27% SA
Calcium 519.45__mg 43% RDA
Copper 3.43__mg 172% SA
Iron 6.02__mg 40% RDA
Magnesium 234.56__mg 84% RDA
Manganese 2.12__mg 71% SA
Phosphorus 1379.23__mg 115% RDA
Potassium 1732.76__mg 87% RDA
Selenium 42.84__mcg 78% RDA
Sodium 4209.20__mg 175% SA
Zinc 2.31__mg 19% RDA
Tyrosine 2.55__gm 266% RDA
Lysine 5.13__gm 713% RDA
Phenylalanine 2.78__gm 290% RDA
Leucine 5.29__gm 551% RDA
Valine 4.02__gm 478% RDA
Methionine 1.15__gm 383% RDA
Cystine 0.43__gm 144% RDA
Tryptophan 0.88__gm 487% RDA
Threonine 3.05__gm 635% RDA
Isoleucine 3.22__gm 447% RDA
How cool is that... we finally figured out how to save the nutrient crunch and copy it onto the blog! Yea!
We're having lots of fun here cooking for each other and working on our computers side by side. He's working on stuff for Aubrey, I'm working on grant applications for the MF. I'm constantly sipping green tea sweetened with sucralose, to which I am rapidly becoming addicted. For breakfast, I have one cup of eggwhites and one teaspoon of flax oil. When MR makes his breakfast salad, he puts aside one for me (half the size!) and I eat it with my lunch, as I enjoy eating more at lunch and have historically had my salad at midday. So my lunch is one cup of cottage cheese, my breakfast salad, and half a megamuffin. For dinner we do his recipes some days and mine on others. Tonight I'm making my lasagna, which he loved when I was here in Feb.
Okay, back to the grant.
Posted by april at 1:44 PM | Comments (3)
Mild to Moderate
Welcome commenters! It's wonderful to generate so much chatting! Thanks for visiting!
Is that the Dan I think it is? The Dan who inspired MR to write that sacred document, "RANT: Moderate CR," that convinced me to take my calories lower and my nutrition higher? That also convinced me that MR is without question the coolest guy on earth, and hopefully will remain so for at least the next hundred years? It sounds like that particular Dan. If so, how appropriate! In my festival of CR birthday week, which MR is making last the entire eight days I'm here, we recently celebrated the occasion on which I read said RANT for the first time.
I sorta feel like we're re-treading the arguments of the RANT from 2002. It's still the case the "moderate" CR is unlikely to get much in the way of extending lifespan, though the health benefits of eating a diet that isn't entirely crap are pleasant enough: avoiding early heart attack and type 2 diabetes, not looking like a big slug. I'm all for people avoiding looking like big slugs, especially if I have to look at them for any extended period of time, and I'm all for solving the staffing crisis in our hospitals by keeping people from having heart attacks and strokes. But seriously, why stop there? We can do better. With a little more self-discipline, a little more thought and planning, and a little more concern for our futures, we can achieve actual lengthening of human lifespan. Not a whole terribly lot -- that's why I'm fundraising for the Mprize, so we can do better -- but some.
Ah, but then the side effects debate. I always find this a bit annoying because I think that the side effects debate is dominated by the people who have had a lot of negative side effects. Like the whole libido thing. The only thing that has changed about my libido is that I'm now violently attracted to skinny guys eating giant salads. The people who are having fabulous, satisfying sex lives *while on pretty severe CR* are not chatting about it! Why? Because it's a touch socially awkward and really rather rude to go bragging about how much sex you have. So when people do a CR Society archive search on something like "libido" all they get are rants about how these skinny guys have lost all interest in sex. The girls aren't really talking at all, and lots of CR'd men have told me in private conversation that while their libido has *changed,* those changes they consider for the better. For instance, at least five men on strict CR have told me that they no longer size up every woman they meet as a sex object. However, they enjoy satisfying relationships with their partners, relationships that involve sex but don't *revolve* around sex. I actually think that's pretty cool. If CR makes men more likely to treat women like people, to really get to know them before becoming attracted to them sexually, then I know a lot of women who will be interested in coming to the next CR Society conference. And btw: they're all gorgeous, salad-eating skinny girls. Maybe Robert and David had better open conference registration now... if word gets out that I'm bringing my crew of vegetable eating CR girlfriends, the conference might fill up really fast.
On to more "problems" with CR. Dan raises:
"Calorie restriction, especially when severe, can leave a person with minimal reserves and change the chemistry of the body enough that doctors no longer understand what they're looking at."
True, doctors don't know what they're looking at. Last time I went to the doctor, the doctor definitely hadn't seen any creature in as good health as I am in a long time. Minimal reserves? This is definitely true if you're planning to say, run around in winter in Calgary with no clothes on. But if you're going to do that, CR is the least of your problems. To quote the gorgeous redhead sitting next to me (he's writing a book, I think) "CR works BECAUSE it makes you healthy!" That's why CR practitioners can never take sick days -- everyone knows we don't get sick anymore! The anecdotal evidence on this is overwhelming, and I'm hoping that studies like Luigi Fontana's will explain more about why this happens.
Also, CR'd folks don't snore. Last night, MR and I were awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the person NEXT DOOR snoring! It sounded like someone using a power tool! Think of the women who could be convinced to cook CR meals for their husbands if they knew that CR prevents snoring!
So now we're down to problems with implementation. The medical profession and public health "authorities" are notorious for not wanting to tell people the truth if the truth hurts. "Eat crap -- in moderation!" they say. So people keep eating gak, keep getting sick and fatter as they age, and wonder why if they're doing everything "right" everything is going so wrong. Telling the public to eat a low-fat, "balanced" diet and to exercise moderately has resulted in exactly what Jay Olshansky so eloquently proved at the debate in Montreal: the population of the US, with the UK, Australia and Canada not far behind, is rapidly becoming obese! Especially children! Ick ick ick! The kinds of parents who, like my mom and MR's mom, fed us healthy food and rarely darkened the door of a McDonalds, are fewer and farther between. School cafeteria food is a nightmare, everyone is working so darned much that they don't have much time to cook and they don't have the skills to cook quick, easy meals that are also very healthful and low calorie (hence the purpose of my blog and Mary's wonderful new blog with menus, located here:
http://eatwell4life.blogspot.com/, and the CR Society website, at http://www.calorierestriction.org (see also link on side of my blog)
Yes, CR is an adjustment. I'd argue that it's easier than all the silly diets that have marched through our bookstores and supermarkets in the last thirty years. I mean really: eat meat and cheese all the time? Eat no fat ever (yeah I did that one.) Memorize the glycemic index? Memorize the POINTS system? How about this one: EAT FEWER CALORIES!
In an article in _Nature_ re: Jay Olshansky's new study on obesity and life-expectancy, you find this quote:
"We'd like nothing more than to be proven wrong," says
Olshanky's colleague David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "I hope we continue to figure out what causes obesity, and how to prevent it and more successfully treat it."
Friends, this is not rocket science! How do we prevent obesity? People need to eat fewer calories! Have the weak, pathetic recommendations of public health authorities managed to do anything as of yet to stop the obesity crisis? No, it's getting worse and worse and worse. And now it's getting to the children, who really don't have much control over their food environment.
I am always amazed at how people who say they eat "healthy" really eat. Tons of empty calories in grains, very few vegetables, tons of meat that is high in saturated fat, and fat and sugar laden desserts as more than just the occasional treat. How many times a week does the average American family order pizza for dinner? Cereal for breakfast, a sandwich and chips for lunch (with maybe an apple or a banana), pizza and a salad covered with gak-filled salad dressing for dinner. Is it any wonder that people can barely fit into airplane seats anymore?
AND PEOPLE ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE LONG TERM EFFECTS OF CR???
This is clearly an issue where the issue is not the issue.
When people seem irrationally angry about something, when their reaction seems to be emotionally hostile in a way that is disproportional to the importance of the topic at hand, it's usually a hint that there's something they're not being quite honest about.
So why don't the public health authorities recommend CR?
Now let me just be clear -- I'm not picking on Dan. I think Dan is really cool. Dan is a long-term CR practitioner and list-person, and if it weren't for Dan, MR might never have written the RANT, and I might never have fallen for him. So if the truth be told, I owe a significant part of my current blissful happiness to Dan. And to some guy named Mike who seems to have disappeared, but who wrote that he didn't want to be part of an experiment. To which MR said, "Then understand that you will age and die like your neighbors." Which led me to spend months saying to people, "You will age and die like your neighbors." Maybe I will append it to read, "You will age, die and snore like MR's neighbors."
Dan claims to advocate for moderate CR, though I've heard rumors that his own CR practice is pretty hardcore -- Dan? ;) I imagine that unlike Olshansky, Dan would draw the line for what we should advocate for the general public to do at much closer to where I would draw it, and probably much closer to what I actually practice.
But here's where I think the difference may lie. I want more health, more life, more years, and more fun. To me, that means that I'd better do more CR. So I'm constantly adjusting my life to improve my nutrition and lower my calories. I make compromises like we all do, but I have every intention of pursuing CR as far as I can happily go. I have no artificial line for how far is "too far" -- as long as I'm happy, healthy, having fun, and living a life that is in accordance with my values, I'm going to keep dropping my calories. There will come a point when I stabilize out at a level that is sustainable, but I'm not there yet.
Aubrey de Grey asked me if I was still losing weight, and I said, "Well, we're talking about that." Meaning that MR and I are constantly discussing what I can do to take my calories lower while maintaining excellent nutrition and continuing to do things I think are too much fun to give up. It's nice to be in a relationship with someone who really can't complain that you're too skinny. You can all rest assured that I have one of the safest CR diets on earth... in addition to reading my blog every day, MR actually watches me eat and cooks for me for about a week a month these days. Any nutritional deficiency will be spotted immediately.
My contact with serious life-extensionists, both through the CR Society and through the Mprize, has made me more committed to intensifying my CR practice. Eating more crap just isn't worth it, when you compare the short-term benefits, long-term benefits, and pure and simple coolness of the hardcore CR lifestyle.
After all, I don't want to miss escape velocity by just a few years...
And I won't look like Kate Moss no matter how few calories I eat. I'm just lucky that way. ;)
Posted by april at 9:30 AM | Comments (3)