It's Not Always About Recipes and Let's Talk Carbs
No Recipes
When you're eating a "whole foods" style diet, you don't rely on recipes for every meal (one of the reasons I don't blog here every day).
Some (a lot of) foods are just "throw togethers" or even "single items".
Like this morning, I cooked two small lobster tails for breakfast. All I did was put them in my 8-inch non-stick pan with 3 smashed garlic cloves and a tablespoon of vegan butter. Cooked 'em on low-medium for about 5 or so minutes, then cracked the shells and ate 'em.
Then for snack between breakfast and lunch I had a small handful (probably about 9) macadamia nuts.
That's a very protein and fat start to my day so the rest of the day will probably be mostly veggies and some sort of complex carbohydrate to maintain my blood sugar levels.
And speaking of carbs...
My Thoughts on Keto (and carbs)
I am not going to do the very trendy keto diet for two reasons. One is that I just couldn't fathom eating the amount of animal protein that seems to be required (and I don't eat dairy so we're basically talking only flesh and I have a hard enough time with that as it is). And two, my intuition tells me I still want at least a modicum of complex carbs in my diet (I grew up with severe hypoglycemia and some fears never leave).
That being said, I watched the documentary on the Keto(ish) diet recently... The Magic Pill (on Netflix... here's the IMDB page and as you can see it's also on Amazon Prime for a fee). And even knowing I'm not going to be going severely low carb any time soon, I think this film brought up a lot of good points. And I for one could probably stand to cut back (a lot) on my current carb intake.
So that's what I'm going to do for the next couple of weeks just to see if I notice any effect. I think it's so easy to eat a high carb diet, even a very nutritious high carb diet, and simple not realize how many carbs you are ingesting.
One seemingly huge upside to the keto diet is that people seem to be making healthier choices in their foods (not just cutting carbs). Opting for whole foods rather than processed foods, etc.
Got thoughts on this subject (or experience to share)? I'd love to hear so leave me a comment.
Tracking Nutritional Intake
Many years ago I bought myself a simple FitBit bracelet to keep track of steps (back when I had time to go for long walks). I created an online account so I could see on my computer my progress as well as input my food to keep an eye on calories, fat, protein, etc.
I'm not big on counting calories, but I think it's helpful to do it for awhile until you get fairly intuitive about what you can eat to stay within parameters you set.
I hear that older people don't need so much protein and I know I tend to rely on protein a lot so tracking my food intake can help me get a better overall picture.
FitBit has a database where people input the nutritional info of various products, foods, and restaurant menu items. You have to be careful, though, when using some internet sources of nutritional info. So I always double-check these things.
Just now for example, I input my lobsters, the vegan butter, and the garlic. Then I went to input the macadamia nuts and was shocked to find out that ten dry roasted macadamia nuts have 18 carbs. That didn't seem right. I was pretty sure nuts and seeds are high in protein and fat but low in carbs. So I grab the Costco bag of nuts and start scanning the label for the info.
Of course a "serving" is in ounces rather than number of nuts. Ha! So I go to my postal scale and weigh out some nuts until I have an even ounce.
Alrighty... eleven whole macadamia nuts equals one ounce. And I was right... that's 4 grams of carbs, not the 20 that someone inputted into the database for an ounce of nuts. Sheesh!
Also learned it's not macadamian nuts, it's macadamia nuts. I've been saying it wrong all these years. In my defense, when you hear it, there is an "n" connecting the first word and the second word... just not two of them. :-)
Other words I've learned over the years I've been pronouncing incorrectly? It's orangutan, not organutang. And it's sherbet, not sherbert (just saw a sitcom recently where that was being made fun of).
How about you? Learned as an adult anything you've been saying wrong all these years?
When you're eating a "whole foods" style diet, you don't rely on recipes for every meal (one of the reasons I don't blog here every day).
Some (a lot of) foods are just "throw togethers" or even "single items".
Like this morning, I cooked two small lobster tails for breakfast. All I did was put them in my 8-inch non-stick pan with 3 smashed garlic cloves and a tablespoon of vegan butter. Cooked 'em on low-medium for about 5 or so minutes, then cracked the shells and ate 'em.
Then for snack between breakfast and lunch I had a small handful (probably about 9) macadamia nuts.
That's a very protein and fat start to my day so the rest of the day will probably be mostly veggies and some sort of complex carbohydrate to maintain my blood sugar levels.
And speaking of carbs...
My Thoughts on Keto (and carbs)
I am not going to do the very trendy keto diet for two reasons. One is that I just couldn't fathom eating the amount of animal protein that seems to be required (and I don't eat dairy so we're basically talking only flesh and I have a hard enough time with that as it is). And two, my intuition tells me I still want at least a modicum of complex carbs in my diet (I grew up with severe hypoglycemia and some fears never leave).
That being said, I watched the documentary on the Keto(ish) diet recently... The Magic Pill (on Netflix... here's the IMDB page and as you can see it's also on Amazon Prime for a fee). And even knowing I'm not going to be going severely low carb any time soon, I think this film brought up a lot of good points. And I for one could probably stand to cut back (a lot) on my current carb intake.
So that's what I'm going to do for the next couple of weeks just to see if I notice any effect. I think it's so easy to eat a high carb diet, even a very nutritious high carb diet, and simple not realize how many carbs you are ingesting.
One seemingly huge upside to the keto diet is that people seem to be making healthier choices in their foods (not just cutting carbs). Opting for whole foods rather than processed foods, etc.
Got thoughts on this subject (or experience to share)? I'd love to hear so leave me a comment.
Tracking Nutritional Intake
Many years ago I bought myself a simple FitBit bracelet to keep track of steps (back when I had time to go for long walks). I created an online account so I could see on my computer my progress as well as input my food to keep an eye on calories, fat, protein, etc.
I'm not big on counting calories, but I think it's helpful to do it for awhile until you get fairly intuitive about what you can eat to stay within parameters you set.
I hear that older people don't need so much protein and I know I tend to rely on protein a lot so tracking my food intake can help me get a better overall picture.
FitBit has a database where people input the nutritional info of various products, foods, and restaurant menu items. You have to be careful, though, when using some internet sources of nutritional info. So I always double-check these things.
Just now for example, I input my lobsters, the vegan butter, and the garlic. Then I went to input the macadamia nuts and was shocked to find out that ten dry roasted macadamia nuts have 18 carbs. That didn't seem right. I was pretty sure nuts and seeds are high in protein and fat but low in carbs. So I grab the Costco bag of nuts and start scanning the label for the info.
Of course a "serving" is in ounces rather than number of nuts. Ha! So I go to my postal scale and weigh out some nuts until I have an even ounce.
Alrighty... eleven whole macadamia nuts equals one ounce. And I was right... that's 4 grams of carbs, not the 20 that someone inputted into the database for an ounce of nuts. Sheesh!
Also learned it's not macadamian nuts, it's macadamia nuts. I've been saying it wrong all these years. In my defense, when you hear it, there is an "n" connecting the first word and the second word... just not two of them. :-)
Other words I've learned over the years I've been pronouncing incorrectly? It's orangutan, not organutang. And it's sherbet, not sherbert (just saw a sitcom recently where that was being made fun of).
How about you? Learned as an adult anything you've been saying wrong all these years?
Have a recipe you’d like me to try out? Let me know in comments. So long as it’s gluten free, sugar free,
yeast free, and corn free… I’ll have a look. When leaving a comment,
you may need to use the pull-down to change the selection from "Google
Account" to "Name/URL" or "Anonymous" Thanks!
This comment is unrelated to this particular post. I just want to say after shopping at Costco yesterday I soaked all my produce in vinegar. People are handling the food we ate all day long, etc. It just took a little extra time and I feel real good about munching on my berries now.
ReplyDeleteOnce it becomes habit, cleaning your produce is not a huge or inconvenient step. You make a great point... people are handling the food all along the way, from the garden to the warehouse to the store. Here's my original post where I talk about the vinegar bath (under "washing fruits and veggies"): https://whatislefttoeat.blogspot.com/2018/05/my-kitchen-set-up-methods-and-staples.html
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