Darya’s right. I think that the only way for me to achieve a sustainable healthy weight is to become a food geek.
After all, unless food becomes something I geek out about, it will always be something of peripheral importance (at least as far as quality goes, I’m always up for some quantity!).
Every time I’ve lost weight before, I’ve slowly slipped back into old habits and gained it all back. This time, it was “and then some.”
So… food geekery, here I come. Here’s what I’ve been doing lately to become more of a food geek:
Buying Fresh & Local
I try to spend the majority of our food budget at Butler’s Orchard, where they sell local fruits and vegetables. (They round it out with a few imported from elsewhere to have a good variety, but most of it is from in state.)
I’ve been having fun in the kitchen experimenting with eggplant lately. Haven’t decided if this latest batch of eggplant will be ratatouille or eggplant parmesan.
Thanks to Darya, I’ve discovered the heirloom tomato. They’re ugly buggers, but dang, are they tasty!! I probably would have avoided them before due to their higher price and ugliness compared to regular tomatoes. I’m glad my eyes (and tastebuds) have been opened.
Buying Less Crap
I’m not saying buying no crap. After all, DaveTheGame still lives here and I think he’d promptly die without Cheez-Its, Chex Mix, and ice cream.
I also have some Annie’s mac n’ cheese in the cupboard, because a girl has to have her vices.
But on the whole, I try to keep our place relatively crap- and temptation-free. It’s easier to eat healthy when your snack choices are mostly fruits and vegetables.
Darya’s quote really hit home for me:
I enjoy the occasional kettle chip, but it’s hard to eat too much of something you know will give you diabetes and cancer—especially once you learn how delicious the foods are that prevent these diseases.
Reading Up on Food Geekery
I’ve picked up a stack of books and will be letting you know how I like them and what I’ve learned as I finish them. (And probably a few interesting bits via Twitter in the middle.)
I have:
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
- Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy by Walter Willett, M.D.
- Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
I started Omnivore’s Dilemma last night and it’s been a fascinating read so far. Pollan follows four meals from farm to table. I’ve learned all about corn – in fact, more about corn than I ever thought there was to know about corn.
My favorite quote so far:
“A chicken nugget, for example, piles corn upon corn: what chicken it contains consists of corn, of course, but so do most of a nugget’s other constituents, including the modified corn starch that glues the thing together, the corn flour in the batter that coats it, and the corn oil in which it gets fried. Much less obviously, the leavenings and lecithin, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the attractive golden coloring, and even the citric acid that keeps the nugget “fresh” can all be derived from corn. To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn.”
I don’t think I can ever think of a chicken nugget as a chicken nugget again. I think from henceforth I shall call them “corn nuggets.”
Monday Kick in the Ass
The ONLY e-newsletter that I read on a regular basis and NEVER skip or delete is the one from Dave Navarro of Rock Your Day.
The guy has the knack of knowing the exact right words to say at the right time. Never has a Monday gone by where I have not been inspired by him to keep on fighting the good fight.
Today’s newsletter was really good. But I won’t talk about it here. I want you to GO THERE and check it out yourself – This Is Your Chance.
What About You?
Are you a food geek?
Would you like to be one?
Have you read any other books I should check out?
Did you sign up for Dave’s newsletter? (You should!!)
What do you do to maintain a healthier lifestyle?
What do you say to yourself to make resisting temptation easier?
About e
Ooh, this is a timely topic for me. I had lost over ten pounds, but over the summer there was a certain amount of backsliding into cookies and donuts and I’ve gained back two or three.
I find I gain weight pretty much immediately when I get into the processed junk foods. My way to battle this in tiniest baby step possible is to learn to make my own desserts. Not only does the sheer amount of work cause me to eat sweets much less frequently; I like knowing that if I’m going to eat a cinnamon roll, or pancakes, that they’re ONLY milk, eggs, butter, etc, not all that and crazy chemicals too. Oh, and my milk and eggs are a cool local product that I love.
Alton Brown has been a great help in my learning to cook. He’s like Sesame Street in the kitchen.
Oh, I forgot another wonderful food geek book, Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink. LYAO funny experiments on humans and their eating habits.
Looking forward to following your journey!!
p.s. Love the opening sentence
.-= Darya´s last blog ..How to raise your HDL cholesterol =-.
E, now that you’re up this way, you may want to check out the below site. It is for a foodie blogger in Howard County. Mostly restaurants, but he chats up about local grocery stores as well (see the recent post about the new Dutch Country Market location).
http://howchow.blogspot.com/
I am a diehard food geek AND gamer. The books I would recommend are “On Food and Cooking” by Harold McGee, “Cookwise” or “Bakewise” by Shirley O. Corriher, “I’m Just Here for the Food v. 2.0″ by Alton Brown for the whys of food. I highly recommend the magazine “Cook’s Illustrated” for its in-depth reviews, taste tests, and outstanding recipes. I’ve been plowing through a number of cookbooks recently, but Gordon Ramsay’s “Fast Food” is a recent star due to its focus on fresh ingredients with simple preparation.
I try to eat as much fresh food as possible, and avoid overly processed foods, staying away from HFCS. I also try to hit the gym at least once a week, if not more. To avoid temptation, I usually say, “I know I can make this better at home” or “This is far too expensive for what it is.”
“I also have some Annie’s mac n’ cheese in the cupboard, because a girl has to have her vices.”
I think that’s the best opening I’ve ever had to pimp my own blog. I utterly despise all forms of Mac & Cheese. Not sure why, but luckily healthy, cheap pasta dishes are easy to make: http://www.gamesofstate.net/2008/10/gamer-grub-chicken-pesto/ (I normally use Tofu instead of chicken bringing the cost for two meals to around $8. Great way to get all 5 of your five-a-day).
Essential food reading:
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
A Good (probably state published) Hygiene Guide
A selection of good cookbooks. I could recommend some, but most of mine are British and don’t have US measurements. Student cookbooks are good, especially if it’s “real food, fast” kind of stuff.
Other tips:
Olive oil is your low cholesterol friend, but you only need a few drops to actually fry with. (If you don’t own one, a non-stick frying pan is also your friend).
Don’t add salt to anything, ever at any time in the cooking process.
A really good chefs knife is the best investment you’ll ever make.
At the end of the day, it’s not necessary to geek over food. Investing in loads of foodie books will just furnish you with the same information in different forms.
The main thing is to get into the kitchen, get stuck in to the cooking and have fun. It all comes down to common sense about what you eat (Celeb chefs just don’t want you to realise this because then they sell fewer books
)
.-= Hammer (Not a Food Geek, jut a damned good Chef)´s last blog ..It’s How I Roll =-.
Oh! I forgot to mention… I have two sets of plates that are hand-me-downs (one from late 70s/early 80s, one from late 80s/early 90s), one vintage set (from 50s), and one current set from B,B & B.
These are all standard dinner plates, but it’s amazing how the size of the plate increased over time. The modern plates are enormous compared to the 50s set. I don’t use the 50s set all that much b/c I’m concerned about lead content, but if I’m eating something like pasta, I stick with the next smallest, 70s set. The pasta “fills up” the plate more, and I take less.
I’ve not signed up for Dave’s newsletter, though I do still have him on my list of blogs to check when I get time
(which Darya’s blog is now on too 
)
so….I’m not exactly a food geek, though I love reading cookbooks and I am pretty picky about my food
For me giving up chips and most fizzy drinks really helped (and they just don’t taste as good once you’ve not had them for a while) and also cutting wheat products fairly drastically
Other than that – buying local and organic whenever I can (including meats), reading labels, avoiding HFCS, and trying to remember to give myself less than the big eater in the house
(one caveat to the non-stick pan – avoid Teflon. It off-gasses nasty stuff when it gets really hot)
Mostly though I firmly believe that the goodness of the food is a huge factor – smaller amounts of good ingredients will always taste better, be more satisfying, and be better for you than larger amounts of mediocre ingredients – even when it’s lovely and rich and screams ‘calories’ at you
As for resisting temptation? I don’t. I don’t keep it in the house, but if I have a craving for something for more than a day then I go out, get that thing, and eat it. I finally figured out that I make really bad food decisions when I’m feeling deprived so I just go for it and move on
(yes I have eaten a box of mini-donuts at one sitting and now I’m good on those for the next 10 years or so 
)
and walk. We’re built for it so we might as well