What I've noticed with a lot of people is that they truly do not realize how much they eat or how fast they fill up their daily quota while eating trash. And holy **** they don't realize how easy it is to drink calories.
Worst of all though is that people without thinking seem to assume that making a healthy choice equals negative calories. As in, "I made a good choice and now I can splurge", or adding a salad on the side of the meal will make it healthier. Not understanding nutritional values is the biggest factor and therefore many people simply do not know how much they're actually consuming.

 

Meanwhile Michelle Obama was trying to get people to not eat so much bullshit but the food companies said "whoa hold on there" and the farmers who grow corn that's made into high fructose corn syrup and other processed food chemicals said "let's not be hasty" and her "eat right" campaign becamse "let's move" instead. Because fewer industries tend to lose money when people get up and walk than when they don't consume crappy food.

In other news, Michelle did an ad for a film called "A Place at the Table" that's about hunger in the US... the film was produced by Tom Colicchio's wife. Their joint-effort organization (Food Policy Action) is doing a media campaign for the movie. That campaign is now being run by my wife.

I told her I'm going to need a comped meal at one of Tom's restaurants.

 

 

Homepage | VASTOKC

Where the lady and I went to dinner Saturday night. 49th floor of the Devon Energy Tower in downtown OKC. I forgot to take a pic of food, but we had the Charcuterie board as an app, I had the Lamb Ragu Pasta and she had the braised short ribs. Food and service were excellent.

I think with drinks and tip I ended up dropping $190 on dinner.

 

<Joe's pics of disgusting junk food purchased by a shopper>

^ Docs and dietitians don't bat an eye if you say you eat the above.
And then if you say you don't eat grains and do intermittent fasting they scream "orthorexia!"

Now look at these photos of what a dietitian ate in a day. She actually didn't meet even the RDA of a couple of essential nutrients:
https://optimisingnutrition.com/2017...or-the-future/

 

RDA is an interesting benchmark to choose. Sure it's printed on labels like some sort of authoritary device, but then so is "100% all natural ingredients made with love"

 

RDA is used as a benchmark only because it's standardized. BTW there are some nutrients that evidence is now showing is way too low for *optimal* function, as opposed to "enough to prevent outright deficiency-caused disease". Vitamin D is an example. RDA of 400 IU prevents rickets. But that's suboptimal aka "leads to insufficiency". Hundreds more genes are expressed with higher daily doses. A lot of researchers now think the correct optimal daily dose is somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 IU. Genes expressed include those for immune system health, which help fight infections and prevent cancer.

As an aside, look at what foods have the highest essential nutrient scores per calorie:

https://foodfoundation.guru/blog/201...nutrient-dense

Note these are ranked according to essential nutrients; it doesn't account for the very positive effects of antioxidants (e.g. polyphenols in vegetables and berries) because there is no standardized RDA for them.
Note also that "healthy" grains are waaaaaaay down. They don't have much *soluble* fiber (their *insoluble* fiber is far less beneficial), are nutrient-poor, contain anti-nutrients (block absorption of certain minerals), and are immunogenic (triggers autoimmunity) for a significant proportion of the population.

 

Interesting about the vitamin D. Since my bout with kidney stones almost a decade ago, my Dr. prescribed 2000 IU daily of vitamin D, with a maximum of 5000 IU. My over all health improved pretty dramatically at 2000, and I now regularly take 3000 IU. No stones since then.

 

And look at what 20-somethings eat:



Only 2 items have significant nutrients.
(Oh and potatoes too, but they're fried in obesogenic, atherogenic, carcinogenic oxidized-PUFA "vegetable" oil)

 

Mmmmm. Pizza and beer.

I eat a lot of taco bell. Gotta get those beans in.

 

I am also skeptical of the RDA for Sodium.

Maybe i replace it with MSG.

 

Funny stuff...


Sometimes, I make bad decisions.



This was a week ago:




That was a huge deal for me. I started this quest a year and a half ago tipping the scale at well over 220 lbs and 20% BF. At 6'2", that put me right at the scary edge of the "obese" range of a standard BMI chart. Yes, I realize that the BMI chart is a flawed instrument, but it's really the only universal standard we have.

For months, I've been telling myself that when I hit 17x, I was going to reward myself with a whole frozen pizza, just like the guy I was mocking earlier (California Pizza Kitchen's BBQ chicken, my old weakness.) After having hit that milestone, I found that I don't even want it. Not as in "I don't want it, because it will sabotage my goals," but as it "This literally does not even appeal to me any more." I'm finally inside the "normal / healthy" range of said aforementioned debunked-but-useful charts.


Then, over the past week, I've found myself being taken out to lunch by three different salespeople, and also exposed to large piles of pizza and doughnuts in the studio, provided by my GM, since we've all been working our asses off non-stop to get this set built. And yes, I indulged.

This morning, 182.


Determination... Willpower...

 

For Joe:


Skip to the 2:00 mark and watch til the end.





ugh it cuts off too soon.

SPOILER below:
























at the end he tosses it over his shoulder and says he's not hungry.

 

Today's lunch was not exactly fine dining, but let me tell you, it was some fine dining.

 

Most of that is American Waygu from Idaho, but the two bits on the far edge of the plate are Miazaki prefecture waygu. They were worth every bit of the stupidly large amount of money they cost. I've literally* never had a better meal than the ~10 bites of that cow. I want to go to Japan now...

*Yes literally.

 

Looks phenomental

This is considerably lower-end, but also considerably cheaper haha. I've really been enjoying Costco's pre-seasoned tri-tip. Yeah yeah I know, it's lazy to buy meat that's already done up, but it's so easy, tasty, and $6.50/lb.

Took a couple bites before realizing I should document this...

 

^ That looks quite good, actually. I don't do beef often, but tri-tip is right up there with filet mignon in my book.


I'm itching to try something new. Been doing a hell of a lot of fish dishes, some pork, all delicious. Got a hankering for savory at the moment.

Been reading up for the past day on how to make Gorgonzola sauces. Opinions vary as to buttermilk vs. heavy cream vs. milk, to use wine or not, nutmeg, butter, flour / cornstarch, etc... Some even call for chicken broth or vegetable stock.

 

Apart from pizza sauces, I've never really done a savory sauce completely from scratch. Made quite a few sweet & spicy Hawaiian / Korean / Japanese / Chinese -style glazes for stir fry and slow-cooker pork, but wanted to try something that Julia Child might have approved of. Decided on a Gorgonzola cream sauce last night. (Yes, I know, Gorgonzola is Italian, not French. Hey, at least I'm on the right continent.)

Delicious.

Start with 1.5 cups chardonnay, 1.5 cups buttermilk (I use powdered buttermilk, but have been unable to find powdered chardonnay.) Add 2 tsp corn starch, and simmer on medium heat until reduced by about 50%. At the same time, pan fry 6oz finely-cubed pancetta in olive oil over medium heat until slightly crisp (6-8 minutes). You could also use bacon, but I had pancetta in the fridge already. Add the pancetta to the sauce, along with about 4oz crumbly Gorgonzola and a few tbs of grated romano. Add a few pinches of nutmeg, and a healthy shot of fresh-ground black pepper. Turn to low and simmer while stirring until fully melted. The mixture should be fairly thick by this point.




I'd previously boiled about 20 oz of frozen cauliflower florets for ~15 min in lightly salted water, then drained well. Put this into a cake pan, top with the sauce and mix to distribute, then top with a bit more romano and some panko. Bake at 425° for about 25 minutes, until the top is nicely browned.




Awesomesauce.

 

If you do a bechamel method, you probably wouldn't need corn starch. There's even a cheater microwave way to do it, if you don't mind losing flavor (oh, but you probably do).

bechamel is the base for the mornay sauce which is often used for mac + cheese. just swap in your favorite moldy, tangy cheese and bam, flash flood in flavor town.

 

Béchamel uses flour and butter instead of cornstarch and wine. Any reason why this would be preferable? Both are similar in caloric content, carbohydrate content, etc.