(This is a post I did for the food brand “Attune Foods” about misleading food labels.)
We are powerless in the presence of a provocative label that appeals to our desires and beliefs about healthy eating. But the package claims are there to improve product sales, not improve your health. Knowing a few of the more popular “tricks” will permanently save you time at the store and have you speaking label language fluently.
I love hot dogs and it’s not a seasonal thing. If someone is cooking them for “the kids”, even in the dead of winter, I am known to request one more be tossed on. Street vendors, baseball concession stands, BBQers – bring me your dogs! (Bun optional, but extra mustard is a must.)
Only problem with them is what’s in them.
Every few years a new sweetener comes along claiming to be the “healthy” sugar. It tastes just like “real sugar” (usually meaning cane sugar) but with a long list of benefits that rapidly turn it into the must-have sweetener of the day. The timeline goes something like this:
You can always tell when it’s January because the the gym population swells by 50%. By March, the New Year’s Resolutionists have packed their LuLu Lemon bags, not to return until the following January. My advice – don’t put “exercise more” and “eat better” on a New Year’s resolutions list; just start doing it. And don’t call it a diet. The word diet sets us up for failure – it implies deprivation and has a short-term connotation. Simply list a few rules about how you want to approach food choices, follow them rigidly for a month and they’ll become habit. The language we use when we think about change, is as important as the change itself.
The best advice I can give on healthy eating for 2012 is this:
Are alternative meats becoming more popular or am I just noticing them more? At my local market, smack in the middle of New York City, I can buy bison, ostrich and elk, none of which were roaming the markets a few years ago. The sheep vendor (still pretty novel for the beef and poultry set) seems downright mundane next to these guys. But it’s his lamb’s meat that has won me over, and you can buy it online which is what I would do if I ever found myself one Saturday not able to get to his stand.
From someone who writes a food blog, this might come as a surprise, but I really hate baking – or baking sweets I should say. Even in December. Even for the holidays. But I sometimes do it because what comes out of the oven is never for me but is always a gift for others, and there is nothing more special than homemade sweets as gifts. So that’s a good enough reason for me to do something I don’t love to do. But if I am going to bake, give me simple with no sacrifice in taste, and I might almost enjoy the whole process.
His torso glistened as I walked by him and up the stairs to “Men’s Activewear”. He was wearing red and white beach trunks – possibly a seasonal gesture – flip flops and that was it. He stood immobile, occasionally turning his head like an on-duty life guard.
He was decoration, nothing more – a human statue that Hollister (the sister co to Abercrombie & Fitch) had placed in high traffic areas to elevate the store beyond just a cool fashion brand and to, I guess, declare the brand’s celebration of male beauty.
It’s too late for this to be of any use to you for Thanksgiving 2011, but it’s not too late for next year. It is tips and wisdom compiled not only from this year’s personal experience, but from past years, as well as input from friends who “cook and tell”. Please add your own tips in the comments and I’ll create a master list with community input, called “Don’t Say We Didn’t Tell You: The Sweet Beet Speaks”
Add your own “learnings” below and I’ll compile the “best of “ and you can print it out and tape it the fridge for TG 2012 …
Oh and the winner of the KitchenAid stand-mixer, new-subscriber giveaway was Lindsay L. of Maine! Congrats!
Related Posts (Actually more like UN-related – light meals to help get the stomach back to size.)
Quinoa with Adzuki Beans and Avocado
Arugula with Roasted Radishes and Pumpkin Seeds and Goat Cheese
Not including the year when my roommates and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for thirty people (we were living in Australia and decided it was high-time our Aussie friends learned the story of the Pilgrims) – I have never hosted Thanksgiving. Which means I have never had the pressure of cooking the turkey or any of the main-event dishes. Instead, I have always taken a side-dish, one that if it were to go terribly wrong, would go wrong largely unnoticed, amid a sea of other sides.
I’m not buying the apple part of the whole Adam and Eve forbidden-fruit story – far more likely if she bit into anything, it was a fig. I mean, she and Adam were covering themselves with fig leaves, why would she not be eating them? And honestly if you buy the fact that sweet is more tempting than sour, back in the Biblical days apples were sour! Eve bit into a fig…
