No Junk Food for Me, Please!

Yesterday was one of those days when I hate even the word diet and feel like eating anything as long as  it is "forbidden". So, how about a nice pizza?

I don't consider it "junk food". It's just food. Not the healthiest choice for sure, but since it's not in my daily menu,  I can indulge once in awhile.

In fact, what is junk food?

Ice cream? Cakes? Chocolate?  Ho, ho, you're on a dangerous ground. Who doesn't enjoy from time to time something sweet and delicious?

I have  other criteria to reject food as "junk" and fast food and candy do not  automatically qualify.

If the food label includes more than 5 ingredients or if that food contains colorants and other dubious chemicals, trans fat, hydrogenated fat, "artificial" stuff, corn syrup, added fructose, that food is out of my hands and my shopping basket with the speed of light. Including carbonated sweet drinks, colas, sodas, "natural" fruit beverages, whatever the names are.
I'm not happy either with food containing MSG or "taste enhancer". But I don't think that if I eat once or twice food with MSG I'll get fat or I'll have one of those headaches.

I avoid like plague the "addictive" foods. Those packaged snacks, chips, biscuits, cookies and sticks that once you start eating them you can't stop until you finish them. They might be tasty and attractive but they're usually empty calories with a lot of salt or sugar or substitutes and dubious fat stuff.
Only exception: from time to time, we have a pop-corn evening. Pop corn, as long as it's not too salty, and doesn't have artificial aroma and colors it's quite healthy (fibers, minerals a.s.o)

I hate foods which  contain sugar (or some other sweet stuff) and should not, since they're not desserts, like tomato sauces, salad dressings, mustard, beans a.s.o. I simply don't understand the American preferences. Why on earth pour over some nice colorful tasty crunchy veggie salad a sweet dressing? What's wrong with just a bit of lemon, pepper and olive oil?

These are "junk food" and are bad for your health and weight.

Before embarking on the journey from Fat to Fit, 

get rid of the "ballast": junk food.

Checklist

Oh, No!

• Clean your cupboards, fridge and storage rooms. Get rid of any packaged snacks, chips, other dubious foods, carbonated sweet drinks. Donate them or better, just throw them away. Now! 
• If your family loves you, they have to give up too junk food. Fight, if necessary, for your right to be healthier.
• When shopping,  read carefully the labels. If it's "junk" put it back in the shelf.
• Don't buy food if the label includes more ingredients than you can count on the fingers of one hand.
• Have a healthy snack with you, to help you get over "snacks and chips" addiction. A piece of fruit, a healthy bar snack, a sandwich with whole wheat bread or non gluten bread and a bit of cheese, a cucumber or a paprika pepper, or best, a handful of nuts. Have a bottle of mineral water with you, all the time.
• Keep a diet journal, to help you stick to your decision. 
• More than anything else, tell yourself "I don't need this or that junk, I can do without it, I'm smart enough to do better. I really need to get rid of these  pounds and feel better"

The Science Behind

Ultra-Processed Foods are the True Killers

Everyday we read about the evils of processed foods, but it’s really the ultra-processed food that we need to be concerned about.
Processed foods with 1 to 3 ingredients aren't likely to cause harm, it’s the products with 10 to 20+ that should cause alarm.
Michael Pollan and Michael Moss Give us an interesting tour of the grocery store in this video.

The truth about fats: bad and good

Trans fats  .... occur naturally in meat, but their main dietary source is packaged baked products such as cookies, cakes, breads, and crackers, as well as fast foods and some dairy products. Trans fats were artificially created in the laboratory to provide cheap alternatives to butter. Food chemists found that they could solidify vegetable oil by heating it in the presence of hydrogen. ...Thus, solid vegetable fats such as shortening and margarine came into being. Today, trans fats are found not only in solid foods such as these, but also in foods that contain “partially hydrogenated oil.”
Trans fats are even worse for you than saturated fats. Not only do they increase your LDL cholesterol, but they also reduce your beneficial HDL cholesterol. There is no safe level of trans fats.

Salt in Health and Disease — A Delicate Balance

...
In view of the association of a high salt intake with hypertension and cardiovascular and renal disease, many countries have introduced population-based recommendations and initiatives to reduce salt consumption. Beginning in the early 1970s, Finland implemented population-wide initiatives to reduce salt intake.71 Between 1979 and 2002, the average 24-hour urinary sodium excretion decreased from more than 5200 mg per day (13.0 g of sodium chloride) to less than 4000 mg per day (10.0 g of sodium chloride) in Finnish men and from nearly 4200 mg per day (10.5 g of sodium chloride) to less than 3000 mg per day (7.5 g of sodium chloride) in Finnish women. Along with this reduction in sodium intake, there has been a reduction of more than 10 mm Hg in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure and a corresponding decrease of 75 to 80% in the rate of death due to stroke and coronary heart disease.....

Although it has been difficult to separate salt need from salt preference, current levels of salt consumption exceed salt need and are associated with adverse clinical outcomes. High salt intake is associated with high blood pressure and increased rates of cardiovascular disease.

Is fructose bad for you?

When fructose is joined to glucose, it makes sucrose. Sucrose is abundant in sugar cane, sugar beets, corn, and other plants. When extracted and refined, sucrose makes table sugar. In the 1800s and early 1900s, the average American took in about 15 grams of fructose (about half an ounce), mostly from eating fruits and vegetables. Today we average 55 grams per day (73 grams for adolescents). The increase in fructose intake is worrisome, says Lustig, because it suspiciously parallels increases in obesity, diabetes, and a new condition called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease that now affects up to one-third of Americans. ...

Virtually every cell in the body can use glucose for energy. In contrast, only liver cells break down fructose. What happens to fructose inside liver cells is complicated. One of the end products is triglyceride, a form of fat. Uric acid and free radicals are also formed.

None of this is good. Triglycerides can build up in liver cells and damage liver function. Triglycerides released into the bloodstream can contribute to the growth of fat-filled plaque inside artery walls. Free radicals (also called reactive oxygen species) can damage cell structures, enzymes, and even genes. Uric acid can turn off production of nitric oxide, a substance that helps protect artery walls from damage. Another effect of high fructose intake is insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.

Are sugar substitutes worse than the real thing?

CNN: Okay - so would I be better off eating one small piece of candy made with real sugar, or a larger portion that is sugar-free?
Dr. Jampolis: Honestly I don’t think there is a correct answer.  In my opinion, if you consume it after a meal (not on an empty stomach), I would go by preference.  If you really enjoy a piece of chocolate with real sugar, having a small amount is fine. If you like the taste of sugar-free cherry candy, that’s OK.  As long as we consume things in moderation, I don’t think either option is harmful.

When we start talking about beverages (soda versus diet soda) it becomes more of an issue. Sugar-sweetened beverages can contribute hundreds of extra calories to the diet that we don’t fully compensate for. And many experts, including myself, feel that it significantly contributes to weight gain, especially metabolically toxic weight gain and metabolic abnormalities.

Are E numbers really bad for you?

Despite what you might think, when you research them in detail you find that most E numbers are good for you....
Well, let's start with a short explanation of what E numbers are. E stands for Europe, and the E number code relates to a set of EU rules about which foods can contain them and how much you should be able to consume in a day. For instance E284 boric acid can only be used in caviar, and E252 potassium nitrate (used in bacon and salami) has an acceptable level of daily intake (ADI) of 0-3.7% mg/Kg body weight. Many E numbers are very familiar and important to good food and nutrition: for instance E300 is vitamin C, E101 is vitamin B2, E948 is oxygen and E160c is paprika....

But what about the bad E numbers? E621 monosodium glutamate is anecdotally blamed for an extraordinary range of symptoms, but in fact if you grate parmesan on your pasta you are likely to be adding more glutamate to your meal than you'd ever find in an MSG-laden ready meal. There's a group of food colours called the 'Southampton Six' that have a small but proven association with hyperactivity in children, and which you might want to avoid. Sulphur dioxide (E220) can exacerbate asthma, although without it wine usually tastes foul and in any case it's been used in pretty much every bottle of wine produced since Roman times. ...

Food colours and hyperactivity

Research funded by the FSA has suggested that consumption of mixes of certain artificial food colours and the preservative sodium benzoate could be linked to increased hyperactivity in some children.
It is important to remember that hyperactivity is also associated with many other factors in addition to certain additives, so dietary advice may help manage hyperactive behaviour but may not be the total solution. Other factors include premature birth, genetics and upbringing.

The artificial colours are:
sunset yellow FCF (E110)
quinoline yellow (E104)
carmoisine (E122)
allura red (E129)
tartrazine (E102)
ponceau 4R (E124)

European Union. The list of authorised food additives and their conditions of use

Fast Food in My Kitchen

Fast Food is my favorite food. No, you don't have problems with your eyes, that's what I've written.
But only if it's homemade.
My Fast Food is easy and quick to cook, very tasty, healthy, inexpensive and fills well.
No chemicals added, low salt, no sugar. If you aren't happy with gluten in your foot, you can have it without gluten.

Chinese like recipes

Some of my recipes are based on a couple of very simple Chinese recipes learned while in Beijing, China in 1984.

A few tools, some Chinese ingredients plus "mise en place" are essential for success.
The tools you need:
- a wooden cutting board and a good sharp knife to cut meat and vegetables.
- a wok or, at least, something shaped approximately like a wok. The bowl-shape is important because it helps you control the heat as you cook. Things toward the bottom will cook faster and hotter than things around the edges.
- a wooden spoon
- a watch
- a  few bowls

In French, "mise en place" means "everything in its place". It's very simple.
Before starting cooking fast food, have all tools and ingredients in front of you. Like in a TV cooking show.
Don't turn the fire on until every last ingredient is sliced, diced and ready to be thrown in.
Put the watch somewhere in front of your eyes.

Meal No 1 - Sauted Shredded Chicken

Ingredients for one portion
- oil (canola oil, peanut oil, sun flower oil or olive oil)
- optionally, half an egg white and a spoonful of rice flour or starch or cornstarch dissolved in a bit of water

MEAT
- chicken breast, no skin, no bones
VEGETABLES
- scallion
- garlic, 2-3 cloves

SAUCE
- a pinch of ginger powder or fresh ginger shredded
- half a cup with stock
- 2-3 spoons of white wine
- pinch of salt
- optionally, MSG, just a pinch

Step 1. Cut the meat into fine shreds (1 inch).
Step 2 (optional) Mix the egg white with the the starch in a bowl. Put the meat in and mix lightly.
Step 3. Shred the scallion into 1 inch pieces. The total volume of the scallion should equal the volume of chicken.
This means for each handful of chicken shreds you should have a handful of scallion.
Step 4. Mix the stock with the wine, salt and ginger. Add MSG, if you wish.
Step 5. In a wok, heat three spoons of oil over moderate heat. Be sure it's not hot otherwise the chicken will be too tough. Add the chicken and stir it lightly until the shreds are completely separate. This will take a couple of minutes. When just done (meat is becoming light brown), remove and drain. Set aside.
Step 6. Heat the wok and add a bit more oil. When hot, put in the garlic. Stir-fry until garlic starts to change color. Remove quickly the garlic.
Step 7. Put in the rest of the vegetables. Stir-fry lightly over high heat until they change color, but no more than 2 minutes!
Step 8. Add the stock mixture. Set the heat to low. Add the meat and stir lightly. Transfer to plate and serve.

Now here comes the best part of the story.
This dish can be varied substituting some of the ingredients. Also you can cut the meat and vegetables into squares, very fine slices, cubes, chunks, shreds, any shape as long as all are the same in size (around 1 inch).

Try these combinations

- MEAT:chicken breast, VEGETABLES:garlic sprouts, SAUCE: ginger, stock, white wine, salt, optionally MSG
- MEAT:chicken breast, VEGETABLES:mushrooms, garlic, SAUCE: soy sauce, stock
- MEAT:lean pork, VEGETABLES:red bell peppers,  SAUCE: chilli sauce

- MEAT:lean pork, VEGETABLES:eggplant , celery cut into 1 inch pieces, bell peppers cut into 1 inch squares, SAUCE: soy sauce and stock or a tomato sauce.
You have to prepare in advance the eggplant and add it at the very end, together with the meat.
Cut the eggplant into 1 inch cubes, spread with salt and leave it for  20 minutes, drain.
Stir-fry the eggplant over high heat in 3 spoons of oil,  remove from the wok, drain.
- MEAT:chicken breast, VEGETABLES:soy sprouts and/ or bamboo shoots, SAUCE: soy sauce, stock, optionally MSG
- If you're left with some yolk, add 1-2 more eggs, beat them well, make an omelette and when almost ready, add some soy sauce and simmer for a minute.

I call all these "The 7 Meals Recipe". You can have them for a nice lunch, dinner or even a party, with or without rice or pasta.

These recipes are excellent for South Beach Phase II and can be adapted for Phase I or gluten-free, if you skip Step 2.

More tips
My wok will never be in flames, I don't cook at high temperatures. I can't risk it, I know myself too well :)
This way, I can use safely olive oil for frying, for more flavor.
Read this article, for further information on frying with olive oil.
Dispelling the Myths of Frying with Olive Oil
http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/whats-cooking-with-olive-oil/frying-with-olive-oil/30470
Fried food 'fine for heart' if cooked with olive oil
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16691754

Fried potatoes

Well, what about fried potatoes? Fast Food without fried potatoes? Kids will cry, husband will protest etc...
Well, no fried old big potatoes for me but I sometimes cook them for my family. I prefer red (or pink?) potatoes and take care to use fresh sunflower oil each time.

However, from April till June, we have the "new potatoes", small, fresh and delicious. Don't peel them!
I confess, I eat a handful of them,  boiled or fried, once or twice  a week. They don't have too much starch and glycemic load is low. To obtain even a lower glycemic load, I boil them 15-20 minutes and let them cool for 24 hours, before adding them to salads or frying them for 5 minutes.
Don't eat much, just a handful. Best eaten with yogurt and dill or parsley and a bit of garlic.

Of course they are not on the list for South Beach Phase II or I. But it's a traditional vegetable in my country, I've tried it and it hasn't affected my diet yet. On the contrary, best months so far for my diet seem to be May and June. However, if you don't live in Europe (European potatoes are less starchy) and you are on diet, you shouldn't eat potatoes. But you can cook my delicious Potato Salad for your family. Try to find a less starchy variety of potatoes.

Here is my New potato salad:

- 3-4 small new potatoes per person
- a handful of scallion, fine chopped
- a few spoons of olives
- 2-3 spoons olive oil
- 2-3 spoons balsamic vinegar
- your favorite herb, finely shredded. I like parsley.
- optionally, a handful of pickled mushrooms, pickled peppers, or a can of sardines or some marinated fish, shredded.
- optionally 1-2 hard boiled eggs

Put the small potatoes in hot salted water, over low heat. Don't peel them.  Let them boil for 15-20 minutes or until they are tender. Drain immediately and put in cold water for a couple of minutes.
Cut in slices and add the balsamic vinegar. Cover and let rest until lunch or dinner.
Or let them in the fridge for 24h, for a lower GL.
Put them in a large bowl and add the scallion, finely chopped, the olives, the olive oil. If you wish, add some pickled mushrooms or marinated fish or a can of sardines. Stir gently.
Decorate with parsley, red peppers and the hard boiled eggs.

Last but not least, you can't have a fast food menu without burgers. Keep in touch, I'll post more Fast Food healthy recipes.

Umami

How many basic tastes do we have? Sweet, salty, sour and bitter, one will answer quickly.
No so fast. There is one more, umami.
There was quite a debate starting with year 1908 when the Japanese Kikunae Ikeda  proposed it. The name umami comes from Japanese and means pleasant savory taste.
Only in 1985 the scientific world accepted this taste as the taste of glutamate and nucleotides.

 To identify umami think of a bowl of hot pasta with a delicious tomato sauce and parmesan cheese, a freshly grilled steak or fish, a mushroom dish, a stir-fried seafood or a dish of chicken with sofrito sauce. These flavors result from centuries of culinary tradition, including careful attention to ingredients and preparation.
The quality of the ingredients is essential and don't expect a dish made with frozen vegetables or vegetables
grown in a greenhouse to have the same umami as a dish made with fresh vegetables straight from the garden.

But still if cooked properly, your dish will have umami, a savory taste.

Umami depends on the concentration of glutamates and nucleotides and on salt. Eat food together with lots of bread or add too much salt, and, voila, less umami. I think sugar also diminishes umami. Green tea is more pleasant to the tongue if you don't add sugar.
Umami is good news for people who have to reduce as much as possible salt.
Soup with a proper concentration of the ingredients and less salt is delicious. Otherwise is like salted water.
Umami isn't lost in old age like other basic tastes or smell. This means old people can enjoy better the food if properly cooked, have a proper nutrition and be healthier.
Umami is present naturally in meat and vegetables. It can be found mostly in fish, seafood, cured meat, mushrooms, tomatoes, celery, green tea, cheese (especially parmesan), soy sauce
Babies meet with this taste from the very beginning in mother's milk. Breast milk has the same concentration of umami goodies as a good concentrated soup of fish or bones, meat and vegetables.

Glutamate, one of the umami ingredients, is an amino acid, found in all protein-containing foods.
Monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is the sodium salt of glutamate. When MSG is added to foods, it provides a similar flavoring function as the glutamate that occurs naturally in food. MSG is comprised of nothing more than water, sodium and glutamate.
In the early 1900s, MSG was extracted from natural protein-rich foods such as seaweed. Today, MSG is made from starch, corn sugar or molasses from sugar cane or sugar beets. MSG is produced by a natural fermentation process that has been used for centuries to make such common foods as beer, vinegar and yogurt.
Scientific knowledge says MSG might be ok for your health. However, any Chinese will tell you not to use it for baked recipes as it will give you the headache of your life.
And some people complain anyway of headaches after eating food with MSG.
There is also this rumor, that MSG triggers obesity. Nothing is proved on this to date but...Researches have changed their minds so often that I wouldn't be surprised if one day they'll decide we have too much MSG in  foods. Food industry is using MSG on a large scale to improve food taste and I guess some people already have quite a lot of MSG in their daily menu.
A bit of MSG now and then won't hurt. However I'll try to avoid it as much as possible.
When in doubt, better don't eat it.
For the moment, I'll stick to good old traditional umami.


References
Everything You Need To Know About Glutamate And Monosodium Glutamate
Wikipedia - Umami