Marie Claire's Scathing Report on Food Blogs

Marie Claire currently has a scathing article up online HERE regarding Food and Fitness Bloggers. Of the "big six" she reviews, I am an avid reader of two: Kath Eats Real Food and Eat, Live, Run. Kath and Jenna of those respective blogs seem to present a really healthy relationship with food and exercise--and most especially the pleasures of real food eating (which includes at times bacon and cake, but involves lots of salads, whole grains, legumes, fruit and of course, hummus). Jenna has recently revamped her blog going from food journal to recipe/cooking journal with specific tips, recipes and sometimes restaurant reviews, which is cool. Kath has been documenting her 40lb weight loss and her maintanance of that weight loss for three years.

Some of what the author of the Marie Claire piece offers is disturbing proof of food bloggers "hunger diaries" and I certainly DO BELIEVE that there are food blogs out there that simply work to justify and promote disordered eating and exercise induced anorexia--I've seen some of those blogs, though I won't name them because I don't believe in body/food shaming people with a real and devastating illness. Is someone in the "big six" one of those folks, honestly, I don't read any of those other blogs so I can't say, even if I would. What I do know, is that lumping Kath and Jen into "The Hunger Diaries" means that the author of the article didn't really read their blogs--even looking at a two week period of their blogs would should that those bitches eat and they eat well. So, I'm skeptical that she really did her homework at all.

So, I'm gonna leave you with one of Jen's naughtier recipes found HERE.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about three dozen cookies

2.5 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups packed dark brown sugar

2 eggs

2 sticks butter, softened (2 sticks)

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each one. Add the vanilla and mix gently to combine.

Add the flour to the butter and mix. Carefully stir in the chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for about twelve minutes, or until golden.

Food Blogging: Monday, March 15th

Oatmeal with vanilla agave and some walnuts.

Falafal Veggie Burger in a whole-grain tortilla.

Red Pepper & Tomato Soup, I never tire of this delicious soup!

Baby carrots and lite blue cheese dressing.

& Yes, you can see a dreaded diet coke can in the background of the first lunch picture.

Food Blogging: Thursday, March 11th

Chia Oatmeal made with a dash of Vanilla Soy milk (no Smart Balance) and agave. I thought it wouldn't be as good without the Smart Balance, but a dash of the soy milk really dresses it up!

English Breakfast tea made with the rest of the Vanilla Soy milk and a bit of agave. I'm really trying to ease up on the sweeteners and its working. I'm liking with a hint of sweet, but mostly not lately.

This really isn't as bad as it looks. I took the taco meat, lettuce and cheese and mixed it with the rice, discarding the shell and I ate all of the beans, 1/2 the rice and 2/3 the tamale. I also had an unpictured, ginormous Diet Coke.

Food Blogging: Wednesday, March 10th

They were all out of vanilla and fruit-flavored Greek yogurt at the store the other day, so I bought a standard blueberry yogurt and some plain Greek yogurt to mix. I figured I'm share out the plain Greek yogurt out over two days worth of standard yogurt. The mix was pretty good, especially since so often fruit flavored yogurt is too sweet for my taste. I also mixed in 1/3 cup granola and I had a coffee with milk and raw sugar from Starbucks.

One more view.

Then for lunch, I went to a steak house and got a lean-ish pork-chop and veggie skewer. There's also fried apples in the image, which I didn't eat. Pork-chops really aren't all that bad in terms of calories. The skewer was great!

For dinner, I lowered myself to the dratted frozen dinner, in this case a Grilled Fiesta Chicken. Here it is according to the picture on the box.

Here it is in reality, along with some "white trash salad" and a piece of rye toast with melted cheese. Oh, unpictured are the two girl-scout cookies I had, Peanut Butter Patties. I actually only had the serving size, two for 150 calories.

Help Me Out Here Readers, What to order at a Mexican restaurant?

So, I'm trying to stick to about 1400-1600 calories per day (and I've been writing them down). But what is relatively low-cal to eat at a non-chain Mexican restaurant? Any hints or ideas. I'll go do some research now and update the post, but in the meanwhile, leave me your suggestions in the comments section, thanks!

Update #1: It looks like my best bet would be tacos with Mexican rice or tortilla soup. Or, fajitas sans the tortillas with Mexican rice. I have 910 calories already, so it'll be a close call with either orders. I'll let you know how it turned out tomorrow.

Update #2: So here's what I decided to have. Its shrimp on skewers with onions and peppers served with rice and tortillas. I didn't have any of the tortillas and about 1/2 the rice. I'm not sure what the calories would be on this dish, so I'm not going to fudge that data in my food journal, but I'm pretty sure that shrimp, veggies and rice = not bad at all! I didn't eat all!

Check out the photo:

Food Blogging: Tuesday, March 9th

Lunch was salad with two tortillas with left-over stir-fry. Lots of veggies, some meat and one piece of 30 calories swiss "cheese."

Close-up!

For a snack, I had exactly a 1/4 cup of a light trail mix that is only 120 calories. Its quite good.

Breakfast: Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Chia oatmeal with a bit of agave and vanilla soy milk. Also, English Breakfast Tea with agave.

Food Blogging: Sunday, March 7, 2010

Amazing Grass Blueberry and Pineapple Smoothie (no banana, so it wasn't as smooth as I'm used to and I made it with plain yogurt instead of vanilla, but the pineapple sweetened it up).

Cranberry-Juice flavored Iced Tea, tortilla with some of the left over garlic chicken and a bowl of the great veggie soup I made with a bit of cheese (1/4 cup split between the tortilla and the soup). The tortilla is only 60 calories!

My brother and sister-in-law "grilled out" and so I had some of the "white trash salad" and steak on Oscar night. We call mainly iceburg lettuce served with either ranch or blue cheese dressing "white trash" salad. Its not very political and my SL who is Black was confused by the term. Notice that I quoted "grilled out" because growing up in California, we said BBQ for any activity involving cooking with fire out of doors. In the south, that is blaspheme. I'm quoting the words to demonstrate that I'm trying to fully integrate this correct terminology into my personal lexicon.

Food Blogging: Saturday, March 6, 2010

So, I'm back to food blogging (this time with a new camera). Above, you'll find an orange, a piece of millet toast with Laughing Cow and a BIG OL' cuppa English Breakfast tea.

For lunch I had some of the veggie soup I made before my trip, but never got to try (I had two bowls, actually).

Baked garlic chicken breast, a small potato with Smart Balance and Fat-Free Sour Cream and sugar snap peas. Yum!

Food Blogging: Breakfast, Lunch & Snack

Oatmeal today, I brought this Flax Plus Individually packaged oatmeal from Whole Foods. It doesn't have all the sweetners/junk of other individually packaged oatmeals, so its great to have at work. Its very tasty as well.

Here's the oatmeal served with English Breakfast Tea (made with Silk Vanilla Soy Milk)

Extreme close-up, you can see the light smart balance and agave syrup. I also added chia seeds.

Tea close-up--so what's the difference between "Black Tea" and English Breakfast Tea? Umm, I don't know, I drink both very regularly. I'll get back to you on that one.

Here's an up-close and personal with Agave Nectar. I totally recommend it! It has a lower impact on one's blood sugar than most sweetners (sugar, raw sugar, honey), but it works great on oatmeal and in tea/coffee. I haven't tried baking with it, but I understand you have to reduce your liquids overall whenever using agave or any liquid sugar substitute. If I do try to bake with it, I'll update you on the process.

Lunch was fab (again). Same as yesterday, though as per Lisa D's suggestion, I ditched the cheese and it was almost as good :)

See, no cheese.

Tomato & Red Pepper Soup, really hot this time. So hot in fact that it made a mess in the conference room microwave. I cleaned it up toot-sweet, I'm no Ryan from the office.

For a snack, I had another English Breakfast Tea with a Honey Almond Kashi Bar (only 140 calories, but really good and chalk full of excellent nutritionals).

Pumpkin Oatmeal: Fibery Goodness

Start out with 1/2 cup of Whole Grain Rolled Oats, I like Bob's Red Mill.

1/4 cup of pumpkin pie or pumpkin.

Combine in a pot with 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup milk and a pinch of salt.
Cook until perfection, adding a bit of cinnamon or other Autumny spices.

Serve: Yum!

Adding pumpkin seriously pumps up the fiber and the flavor and if you are into exploring seasonal eating, it certainly invokes the spirit of Autumn.

Lunch: Wicked Good

You'll probably see the following combo twice more this week: Sunshine SouthWest Veggie Burger on Arnold's Multigrain Sandwich Thins (100 cal per bun with 4 grams of protein & 5 grams of fiber each) and Pacific's Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup. Above you'll find the ingredients.

Altogether now!

Close-up #1: I also had organic baby carrots, a couple dill pickles and some snow peas to go along with the veg burger & soup.

Close-up #2: SOUP!

I smooshed some avocado with light mayo on the bun and melted a piece of smoked Gouda over the burger. The smoked Gouda is sooooo good, but I think I won't waste it by melting it over the burger again. Its better as a snack at room temperature. I brought some munster as well, so that'll probably be featured in future pics.

Back to Basics: Food Blogging

You might have noticed I haven't been blogging as regularly as LisaD! I've been working on my Ph.D applications for the past few weeks pretty intensely (plus there were several deadlines at work). I still haven't finished all of my app's (its a process), but I will be better on the blogging front. One thing I'm going to start doing regularly is food blogging again. I think its helpful to put out there what you eat and quite frankly it gives you pause when considering the salad or the burger--which would photograph better? Or more honestly, which do I want the whole world (okay, 150 readers or so, plus my mom) to see?

Today was Oikos Greek Yogurt with Flax Plus Granola and some Chia seeds (so good--I love these guys in yogurt, oatmeal, smoothies, etc.). It was honey flavoried, which I've had in another brand and didn't care for too much, but in Oikos it was subtle and tasted great. I'm glad I tried honey again.
I also had English Breakfast Tea with Vanilla Soy Milk by Silk and some Agave. The Vanilla Soy milk was fabulous and I'd love to try it in Chai Tea as well. Why the soy milk? Well, it has a longer expiration date than cow's milk and I didn't want to buy half and half, to cut down on the saturated fat. So I thought I'd try it and it worked great. I'm battling the last legs of a pretty bad cold here, so I might have another in a bit. This cold was particularly cruel as it hit me right after going to the gym three days in a row last week! I probably won't be able to head back to the gym until Wednesday (though I teach that night, so probably Thursday). I sure do love the ellipitical. When I buy a house, I'm getting one before new furniture. Despite this cold, I will do arm weights today during lunch. My brother (from the Mid Summer's Night Race) has been on a great fitness jag recently, riding his bike and doing weights almost every day. So, just a shout out to him and thanks for the inspiration. He didn't even start up in response to a birthday or New Years, it was just time.

Peace

Sandwich Update

Okay, well, the official sandwich experiment is over. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was going to try to re-integrate some gluten into my life in the form of sandwiches. My work schedule sucks and sandwiches are really filling and easy things to make at work with the right ingredients, unfortunately, even though I might not officially be a celiac according to my blood panels, the gluten wreaked havoc on my system--it took a couple days to really manifest, but after two weeks (M-Th sandwich days), I was a goner.

So, I'm going to bring some Millet bread and toast it and make open faced sandwiches with some Pacific Soup (and bring a couple other prepared meals--like some Gluten Free Tuna Noodle Casserole) for this week. Making a fresh salad with protein is too hard, but I'll get salads on Wednesday when we go to Wacky Wednesday at the Uni Cafeteria and I can make salads for dinner on occasion. Hopefully I'll be able to break the diet coke habit I've picked up recently to compliment the sandwiches. I'm going to try to bring iced-green tea with juice.

Anyway, its been such a long time since I've had regular gluten that I forgot how much it sucks! Its good to remember this is how it used to be and that I don't have to live with a constant feeling of crappyness. I think that its good I'm not a celiac, that means that I can occasionally have birthday cake or similar, but I can't have gluten regularly or else it compounds and turns into gastro-catastro.

Work-Week Food Blogging

This tableaux pretty much represents my lunch Monday-Thursday this week and dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sandwich, veggies with hummus, diet coke with lunch, though not with dinner. I also had a bit of soup after class Tuesday/Wednesday evenings. I'll be honest, I can't remember which sandwich corresponds to which day. This will be a fairly boring post until we get to Thursday dinner.

Apple & cheese for a snack--Tuesday.

Similarly, yogurt & granola for breakfast Mon-Thurs.

Thursday, I bought some take-out sushi, dumplings, & tempura chicken in a ginger dipping sauce. Every bite was delicious. I also had a BL Lime with this.

Sushi close-up.

Dumpling & Chicken Close-Up.

This morning (Friday--the beginning of my weekend), I made Bob's Red Mill Oatmeal with Chia Seeds. I LOOOOOVVE this way of eating oatmeal.

I used the last of the free-Chia seeds I got to review. I need to go buy some, but I've only found a large canister of them at Co-Op for $17.99. I'd rather buy a smaller bag, but a $5.99 bag at GreensPlus, costs $7 to ship--which seems ridiculous. So, I think I'll try Whole Foods one more time and see if they've got them in a smaller container (which before, when I tried about two months ago, they didn't have any) and if that fails, I'll go back to Co-Op and buy the big container. Yesterday, I tried to find them in the expanded organic section of the super-Kroger (they're organic section is HUGE for a conventional grocery store--almost a whole grocery store within the grocery store), but they didnt' have them either.

Isn't this a pretty picture? I treated myself to pink carnations. You'll see my mini-French Press Pot Coffee in the picture as well. I love French-Press, its frothy and lovely. It also uses less coffee then drip coffee.

Oatmeal close-up.

French-Press close-up!