Another couple of good books to put on hold

The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, MD

I don't know where all this book is being publicized but it's got over 50 hold on it last time I looked and for a non-fad diet book that's a lot. Kessler is a pediatritian that admits to being what he calls a "hyper-eater" and writes about how the obesity industry creates and enables him and others like him. After reading the book I realized I am not a hyper-eater but now understand the peer pressure of others who unknowingly try to coax me into one by constantly asking me about my diet especially the not eating cheese and high fat foods part of animal products. They are so conditioned into constantly thinking about and longing for the Fat-Salt-Sugar combo of most common gourmand foods that they need to draw others into their addiction. The final third of the book is different tools to help re-condition you lifestyle to overcome to pull of foods you know are not good for you. I didn't find that part very helpful to me, it was a lots of stuff I'd already figured out when I was quitting smoking but it might help Momcat. (as I am writting this I am eating a bunch of Halloween candy with milk chocolate in it from the Burgi collection:( I actually don't even like chocolate that much!)

Cheap; The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell

I am more than halfway through and am thoroughly enjoying it as much as window shopping at a discount outlet mall. I don't know what to call this genre of book other than non-fiction but it's a very interesting current western cultural history of shopping much like the book I read a couple months ago, "Delux: How Luxury lost it's Luster and this other book I can't remember the name of but Shell's book reminds me of it. The other book was about how the corporate chain stores took over the mom and pop grocery store at the turn of the century. I totally recommend all.

I don't quite understand why I like these types of non-fiction books so much, it's not like it will help me with a crossword puzzle or answer a trivia question or anything important like that.

Christmas plans?

I'm ready to look into airfares. Should I plan for CA or Chicago?

eating Animals

Here is a site describing a new book of interest:

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I attended a vegan cooking class Monday night and got some new recipes as well as info about various products. I bought stick margarine and vegetable stock cubes as well as a vegetarian cookbook. I am still partial to my macaroni salad but will try something new for potluck at church.

The spice cardamom was recommended but it is outrageously expensive.

Why Wall Street is Booming While Everyone Else is Pinching Pennies

In case you'd like to be pissed this gorgeous Sunday morning, New York Times article for you. Excerpt:

Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall Street is minting money — and looking forward again to hefty bonuses.

Many Americans wonder how this can possibly be. How can some banks be prospering so soon after a financial collapse, even as legions of people worry about losing their jobs and their homes?

It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system — reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institutions’ debts — helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth.

. . .

A year after the crisis struck, many of the industry’s behemoths — those institutions deemed too big to fail — are, in fact, getting bigger, not smaller. For many of them, it is business as usual. Over the last decade the financial sector was the fastest-growing part of the economy, with two-thirds of growth in gross domestic product attributable to incomes of workers in finance.

Now, the industry has new tools at its disposal, courtesy of the government.

With interest rates so low, banks can borrow money cheaply and put those funds to work in lucrative ways, whether using the money to make loans to companies at higher rates, or to speculate in the markets.

Food, Inc.

Last night, the U of C student film group showed this movie, and followed it with a discussion led by a professor of geophysical sciences who studies how our food choices shape the environment.

The movie itself doesn't focus (much) on the environmental; instead, Food, Inc. scares you by showing you where your food really comes from, and how the massive agribusiness industry has been amassing more and more control over it.

The film challenges how agribusiness raises, processes and sells meat. What it doesn't do is challenge the sagacity of eating meat in the first place. Still, it is really eyeopening, and makes you want to act. (I signed back up for a CSA this morning!)

Momcat, I think you should show this movie to your "ethical eating" group when it comes out on DVD, which should be soon.

Corn Chowder

This is my latest version of corn chowder that my WIC nutritionist colleague calls "Starch Soup"

Cut kernels off one ear of corn.

In small pressure cooker add:
1 corn cob
1 bay leaf
1 celery stalk
1 washed and cubed small potato
1 cup water

Heat to pressure, cook for exactly 3 minutes and allow pressure to reduce to zero. Remove cob and celery but scrape and squash juice back into pot before adding

corn from above cob
1/8 to 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 chopped carrot
1/2 more cup of water.

Bring to pressure a second time and immediately turn off heat (that's all it needs!)

Optional: Stir in 1/2 cup soy milk with 1 tbls of Better Than Milk powder added in to make a thickish cream.

Share and enjoy with one cute little nephew!

VeganMania

Today, starting at 10:00 am, there was a convention in Chicago with tons of free vegan food and various vegan vendors. The first 100 people who showed up got a bag filled with free vegan stuff.

Vegans are dirty, lazy hippies for the most part, so I didn't think anyone would show up much before 10:30. Wrong! There was a line of 200 before it even opened (no free bag of goodies for me!) It was a madhouse.

Anyway, in addition to buying some vegan cheese made of cashews which turns out to be a bit nasty, I also bought 8 gourmet vegan chocolate truffles, figuring I'd share them with Kipsy and Uncle Sam if they come here for a spa ghettoway over Christmas. I didn't ask how much they cost before she made the box up... and let's just say, you had better LOVE those stupid truffles.

Do not try this at home!

Have you ever had an idea at night that seemed really good, but then in real-life it was not so much? Well, I recently read about how good kale is for me. I add flax seed to my smoothies to make them healthier. I got an idea that a little kale blended into my fruit smoothie would boost the nutritional value. I wish I could say I was drunk or something when I got the idea, but I haven't had a drink in months if not years!

So... I put a few pieces in with my fruit this morning; maybe 3 T or so. It was about as aweful as you might imagine. Kale doesn't actually "blend". It gets finely chopped and clumps together as kind of a suspension. I do not recommend kale as a smoothie-booster. I repeat: fruit + kale = YUK!

Victory

It's time to rejuvenate this blog.

On August 15 my cholesterol was 233. I went vegan that same day and have not eaten anything with cholesterol in it since. Yesterday my cholesterol level was 193!! That's lower than it has EVER been. Here is my favorite recipe which I make up in bulk and feed off of for a week

1 pkg whole wheat macaroni
3 chopped peppers (red, green, orange, or yellow)
chopped onions (to taste and after getting tired of chopping I have gone to frozen)

I added tofu at first but found it didn't last the week so dropped it.

I mix all the above ingredients in a large bowl. When I am ready for a meal I put a generous serving of the mix in a bowl, add a tablespoon or so of veganaise and a generous tsp of nutritional yeast and stir.

Snacks consist of pistachio nuts. Sometimes a peanut butter sandwich. I eat Kashi cereal with soy milk for breakfast. Costco no longer carries my favorite but other grocery stores do.

I've been cooking.

I used my Diet Coke reward points to get one of those electric grills. I grilled slices of eggplant and then made baba ganoush (or however it's spelled). It tasted great but I wish it didn't have such a dorky name. I call it eggpant dip. I think being vegan would be much more popular if we could replace the name of some of our foods: hummus, tofu, seitan, tempeh, texturized vegetable protein, nutritional yeast flakes, soy milk. Thay don't have appetizing names and/or are too hard to pronounce.

I made lentil burgers, which turned out VERY well. I don't like the name, but there you go.

I made brownies that were just alright. I need to try again and alter the process I used to mix all the ingerdients. I think they were so flat because I over-blended.

I don't know what I'll try next...

Ethical Eating

My latest cholesterol count was too high (233) so I am officially giving up cheese and other high cholesterol food. I have joined an Ethical Eating Group at church and have signed on to a 21 day vegan plan at

http://support.pcrm.org/site/PageServer?pagename=21day_vegan_kickstart&autologin=true

I made my first health trip to the grocery store and bought greens, salmon (in envelope), tomatoes, walnuts, and I already have mushrooms for salads.  Also bananas.  Am I right in thinking alvocados have high cholesterol?  Also I bought no-fat dressing and some more soy yogurt.  Eating out will be my downfall but I am going to give it a try.

Eating in London

Eating vegan (no cheese) would have been impossible in London - and Twiggy insisted on eating three meals a day. I ate a lot of mozarella and tomato; goat cheese salads and tortes; and other fattening stuff. Consequently I gained about ten pounds which I am working off. Getting back to exercise is helping, and not eating out.

I bought some nice books and learned a lot in the Children's Lit course. We had three field trips - British Library, V & A, and Oxford. Before the class we had a week of playing tourist and saw four plays. Touristing included Mme Toussaud's (very crowded especially around Michael Jackson and Obama), V & A Museum of Childhood, National Museum and Portrait Museum and the British Museum. I took lots of pictures and bought postcards when photos weren't allowed.

The plays were Stomp, The Calendar Girls and Oliver all of which we enjoyed. We also went to a new play, War Horse, which received rave reviews. The only good thing about it were the "puppet" horses worked by three people each. The play and the acting were overdone.

I am almost caught up. I only had one chance at e-mail so the accumulation was large.

Saving with Slave Labor

I should have gotten pictures while we were doing it, but we were so busy working that I didn't have time to take pictures! Anyway, this is the finished project.

The boys worked 3 and 4 days respectively doing back-breaking labor helping me dig out all the bamboo from behind the garage, and repairing the fence. To save money, we used the same fence posts, just put in steel "sleeves" that fit around the base of the post and are then pounded into the ground with a 50-pound sledge hammer. We took off the old fence boards, and replaced the boards across the top and the boards along the bottom that were too rotted to re-use, then re-attached all the boards.

I say slave labor, but I actually decided to pay them $50 and $40 respectively for the work. They were so happy they were jumping up and down. I'm sure it will be the last time I get to see someone excited about earning less than $2.00 an hour for hard labor. The total to repair the fence was less than $200, including the money I paid to the boys, and my neighbor is going to pay for half.

Now I can spend that $1600 to fumigate the house.

I had previously fixed my front fence with the steel sleeves, also. Now that needs to be painted.

Why do home improvement projects always lead to MORE home improvement projects? Can't we ever just be DONE??

The boys immediately spent their money on "Gundums" which are a Japanese version of a mix of Bionicles, Transformers and GI Joes.

More Reason Not to Get Too Excited

As the market go-go-goes, should we be breathing a sigh of relief? Probably not. For one thing, volatility is not the sign of a healthy market--in either direction. For another, I've already mentioned the false sense of solvency the changed in the accounting rules caused. But last and most important, this recent market surge has come on the heels of "less bad than expected" profit numbers from several big companies. But why are they less bad? Robert Reich, Clinton's secretary of labor, warns:

"[T]hose profits aren't being powered by consumers who have suddenly found themselves with a lot more money in their pockets. The profits are coming from dramatic cost-cutting -- including, most notably, payroll cuts. If a firm cuts its costs enough, it can show a profit even if its sales are still in the basement."

"The problem here is twofold. First, such profits can't be maintained. There's a limit to how much can be cut without a business eventually disappearing -- becoming, in effect, a balance sheet in space. Secondly, when businesses slash payrolls to show profits, consumers end up with even less money in their pockets to buy the things businesses produce. Even if they hold on to their jobs, they're likely to fear that they won't have the jobs for long, which causes them to retreat even further from the malls."

Read his whole blog post here.

Saving by doing it yourself

I'm back to cleaning my own apartment. While I was gone to New York/Texas/Germany, I had stopped my twice-monthly cleaning service, and I never got around to calling them back to start it up again.

And I realize that my apartment hasn't been this clean in years.

The trouble with delegating, well, anything, is that the person to whom you delegate almost always doesn't care as much as you do about whatever it is. Sometimes, it's worth it to farm it out anyway and accept lower quality for the convenience. But I think I'm back, at least for a while, to not accepting that trade-off for cleaning my house.

Maybe some day I'll be able to find someone who is willing to see dirt: remove cobwebs and wipe backsplashes and light switches without my asking; actually moving cords and furniture when sweeping, tucking in sheets properly, etc. In the meantime, I'm saving $120 a month and living in a substantially cleaner (albeit a sporadically messier) house.

Soapy cantaloupe

BC brought me a cantaloupe he bought from a guy selling them out of the back of his truck on the side of the road. It looked and smelled great. I washed, rinsed, and dried it off before I sliced it. It has a soapy taste. I am sure I got all the soap rinsed off before I cut it. Any of you ever had a cantaloupe taste like soap?

Snacking is my downfall

I read somewhere that to save money, you should buy full sized products and divide them into single serving sizes. I bought snack baggies and counted out 22 almonds per baggy. That's when I realized, I could eat 600+ calories of almonds as an afternoon snack! No wonder I'm having trouble getting rid of the 7 pounds I've put on in the last year. I divided my crackers, too. I haven't eaten any of them yet because I don't want to eat 120 calories. If they had been loose in the box, I probably would have nibbled 2 servings without even noticing. So, I'll see if this increased awareness has a positive impact on my belly. I can't believe how small an ounce of nuts is!

What Counts

When I told the dietitians/nutritionists at WIC that you guys wanted to count garbanzo beans, brown rice and hummus as vegetables they laughed (and one's a vegetarian). I looked up on the USDA food website and you can get by with calling fresh corn, peas, and green beans as a vegetable but beans should be considered a protein and rice and corn that's made into a bread should be a grain.

I tried to find a good vegan pyramid but I couldn't find one that listed serving sizes or one that I could easily see what constitutes a fruit and vegetable and what counts as a protein or grain.

Roothy, I like you're idea of having a smoothie at night. I haven't been able to force myself to make a smoothie in the morning because it's so cold and then I don't feel like cooking at night either when it's so hot. Why can't I have my smoothie at night and eat my toast or oatmeal in the morning?

So far today I have had a serving of avocado (on a sandwich), a large baby romaine lettuce salad (but the box still said one serving), and a cup of cantelope (with plain soy yogurt) I also had two pieces of toast with marmite, (does marmite count as anything?). Tonight I will have a smoothie and a left-over artichoke. That will clock me in at five servings of five different fruits or vegetables today.

Crack gravy?

More like crap. First, I burned the flour/yeast flakes in the microwave. Then, it turned into a watery mess with burnt flecks inside. I will try stovetop method next. My bisquits turned out well, though.

So far today, I had a smoothie for breakfast: 1 banana, mixed fruit (a good cup), flax seed, and soy milk (16 oz glass).
Lunch: veggie stir fry with noodles (mushrooms, broccoli, sprouts, and carrots).
Snack: apple

I've had a Luna bar and some After 8 mints, too.

Steal This Recipe #4: Sticky Rice with Mango

The sticky rice I had at the Taste was so good I thought I'd replicate it. Or try. It turned out pretty well:

1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup coconut milk (I used lite, and then tossed in a tablespoon of powdered coconut)
1 packet of Splenda
pinch of salt
1/2 c frozen mango chunks

Heat the coconut milk in a saucepan, but don't boil. When hot, stir in Splenda and salt. Pour it over the rice. Nuke the mango chunks until they are only slightly frozen, put on top the rice. Voila! Simple and delicious.

Very filling--the above should get you two servings. Per serving: maybe 50 cents for the coconut milk, a dime for the rice, Splenda and salt, and depending on where you get it, a quarter for the mango.