I love Subway. I really do. When Chris and I first started our weight-loss/health-gain journey, we were both working at the same company which had a Subway franchise below. Since we would plan our meals together from breakfast to dinner and snacks in between, we made it easy on ourselves and made Subway a lunch staple for a very long time. And, I really believe it helped us feel that lunch was enjoyable and yet something that wouldn’t detract from our goals.

Seven-ish years later, I’m still eating Subway! Sure, I no longer get the turkey or chicken sub (I opt instead for the veggie sub), but I still love it!

When I became vegan, however, I had to make sure that there was a bread option for me, which compelled me to review all of the ingredients in each bread option. I should have done it earlier because I must say — it was a very disappointing endeavor! While Subway does offer fresh and healthy ingredients to go inside of the bread (at least in terms of the veggies), the bread itself is a disgrace!

The Truth About Subway

None of the bread options at Subway are good enough! Their vegan option is the Italian version, which is just regular refined-flour white bread. Also, just so you know, all of the breads have unfortunate ingredients like dough conditioners and preservatives. Worse, ALL the breads have enriched flour (including 9-Grain Wheat, which sounds healthy but not only has enriched flour as the first ingredient, it also has high fructose corn syrup!). The worst offender is the wrap which has BLEACHED wheat flour and HYDROGENATED OILS! Do my caps scream as they should?! Not one bread on the Subway menu, vegan or not, can be considered fully nutritious and as a franchise boasting the slogan Eat Fresh, that’s just wrong.

I guess I might as well mention, though I’m sure you figured, that the meat isn’t great either. It’s got nasty preservatives and questionable chemicals like polysorbate 80. But, since meat isn’t my thing, I resign to only being pissed about the bread.

So, dear friends, should we boycott Subway? No. But I do intend on writing them a letter seeking better bread options for a start and posting it here. ‘Til then, Subway, meet my way…

Tofurkey Italian “Sausage” inside a whole wheat lavash bread with fresh vegetables (green bell pepper, red onion, tomato, cucumber), eggplant hummus, balsamic vinegar and pepper. You can also add avocado, olives, jalapenos, pepperoncinis, etc. to make it just like Subway (minus the crappy bread!))!

Same but without sausage.

Trader Joe’s’ Clay Oven Baked Whole Wheat Lavash Bread is amazing — it’s so versatile! Oh, and a 6-pack is only $1.99! Here are the stats:

Nutritional stats for 1/2 piece: 120 calories, 0.5g fat, 180mg sodium, 24g carbs, 2g fiber, 0g sugars, 4g protein
Ingredients: stone ground fine whole wheat flour, water, yeast, salt

You only need 1/2 a piece if you want a small sandwich, but I usually opt for the whole 240-calorie slice. Adding the vegetables I do, along with a tbsp or so of hummus and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, I still clock the sandwich in at less than 350 calories and it’s super huge (the entire lavash slice is longer than a foot -  I measured )

Have fun filling the lavash bread with all sorts of goodies!

<3,

The Cranky One

Fat Head

He knew I’d give up laptop time for thismovie, available for instant-stream on Netflix. He wins. And… I do, too.

This documentary made me really uncomfortable. I mean, seriously uncomfortable. First, the dude in the documentary, Tom Naughton, is annoying — his jokes fall flat (he’s a comedian turned computer guy, go figure) and he seems arrogantly sure of himself and his views (and maybe you need to be when you’re doing a documentary? But I think an ounce of humility and room to be wrong would actually make this more of an unbiased documentary, dontcha think? I digress…). Secondly, the documentary is in response to Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me and is meant to “debunk” it. That makes me uncomfortable because I loved that documentary. Thirdly, this documentary sets out to debunk a lot of the health-related advice we generally consider scientific and sage. That said, I’m all about feeling uncomfortable and testing my assumptions and beliefs. So, amongst the discomfort, I found some of the information shared very compelling, even if contentious (and even if annoying dude kinda killed the mood for me).

Main points of the documentary
And some of my commentary in italics because I’m too annoying and opinionated myself to leave it out. Tom, you’ve met your match in annoying characters!

• Super Size Me doesn’t add up. First, the math doesn’t add up. Spurlock couldn’t have eaten 5k calories a day worth of McDonald’s foods if he followed the guidelines he set for himself of eating McDonald’s three times a day, trying each entree item on the menu at least once, and super-sizing if asked. Tom tried to get a hold of Spurlock for his food logs, but couldn’t get them. Second, if a typical person ate 5k calories a day of ANY food, he or she would gain weight and suffer negative health consequences. Third, there’s an air of paternalism about the documentary in that it assumes “the poor” need the government to pry the fast food from their hands and the assumption that these people don’t have the common sense to know that fast food is high-calorie junk. Tom tries to be funny by waiting for someone to “force” him to super-size his meal. He also goes around asking patrons if they think a fast food meal is low- or high-calorie. Of course everyone seems to have the common sense. His point? The fast-food industry isn’t some demon forcing food down people’s throats and isn’t to blame for “the obesity crisis.” The fast-food industry is a for-profit industry — if more of us want to buy tofu burgers and broccoli fries, they will start serving it.
• You can lose weight eating fast food. Tom lost 12 pounds (lowered his cholesterol a tad) by eating nothing but fast food for 28 days, yet limiting his daily caloric intake to 2,000 calories per day and his carbohydrate consumption to 100 grams per day. He also doubled his exercise routine. So while he seems to show that calories in versus calories out does work even if you eat fast food, one of his points is actually that…
• The standard calories in versus calories out equation for weight loss is wrong. The biggest factor regulating your fat storage is insulin. Your insulin production and its efficiency in storing fat (or using fat storage) is dependent on genetics and what you eat. A high-carb diet and low-fat diet (the diet that health professionals and our own US Govt. recommend) seems to be the culprit diet for a lot of health problems. I’ve heard this before – this is the argument made in Gary Taube’s Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health. Apparently all that saturated fat mixed with low-carb intake helped Tom lose weight, which was compared to the four+ months it took Spurlock to lose the 25 pounds he gained from his experimental fast food diet (and he went about losing the weight on a vegan diet composed by his vegan-chef girlfriend).
  
• BMI is an inadequate measure of health. By its standards Tom was considered obese. BMI doesn’t take muscle mass into account, genetic composition and the fact that being thin by BMI standards doesn’t necessarily equate to “healthy.” Tom took several blood tests to prove his good health and, if we trust those indicators of health (i.e. LDL, HDL, cholesterol), than he was actually in good health despite being considered obese. All I gotta say is, damn straight!
• By projecting “thin” as “health,” we’re actually making a racial argument. Tom (and J. Eric Oliver who is interviewed a lot in the film) seem to think that it’s predominantly thin white people who use “being thin” as a gauge for health. People of color, Tom and J. Eric argue, tend to be genetically predisposed to carrying more weight on their frames. You know…this is a rather compelling argument. It does seem like white thin people are those continually represented by the media as our “health advocates” and perhaps it does reflect a sort of -ism (racism? fatism?)?
• The American Heart Association is in cahoots with the grain industry and gets licensing money each time a cereal company uses its “heart healthy” logo. Tom indicates that cereal like Grape Nuts that have a health halo around them are actually awful breakfast choices since the sugars in the carbs spike the blood sugar and cause you to crash later. It actually does concern me to see row after row of cereals loaded with sugars bearing a “Heart Healthy” logo — when any scientific organization that is meant to be unbiased participates in marketing tactics with an entire industry, I start to worry. It seems money is always speaking louder than science/the consumer’s best interest.
• The Center for Science in the Public Interest was a well-intentioned consumer advocacy group but is now simply a misguided group run by people with a vegetarian agenda. One of the most interesting arguments Tom makes is that the CSPI went after fast-food chains, specifically McDonald’s, for using saturated-fat-laden animal-based oils to fry their foods. So, these companies then starting using trans-fat-ladenvegetable oils instead to comply (and, apparently, at the time the CSPI didn’t think transfats were harmful). I happen to stand behind CSPI and still recognize that they, like any advocacy group, are going to be wrong about something at least once. C’mon.
• Our agriculture-based diet is a relatively new phenomenon in the broad scheme of the human diet and has negative health consequences including stunted growth, obesity and tooth decay. For years we ate predominantly meat, fruit and vegetables. Eating cereals and vegetable oils is a relatively new diet that correlates with our “obesity epidemic.” I haven’t done enough anthropological cross-studies to know what is a “new diet” in the scheme of the human race (esp. since it’s going to vary so much culturally and geographically), so I can only accept this at fat-head-face-value.
• The “Lipid Test” gauge for heart health is bogus. There has not been a real correlation found between cholesterol and heart-disease risk.
• Saturated fat is not the health-demon we consider it to be. Saturated fat (and fat in general) has a bad rap. Reputable studies have shown that our body needs fat and that saturated fats are not bad for the body, but these studies get pushed aside since they aren’t profitable enough to highlight (in other words, organizations getting financial backing from “big agriculture” need to continually show that low-fat and high-carb is the way to go, so they tout and fund those studies). Coconut oil is actually a healthy oil, butter is fine, etc. Trans-fats are, however,  are bad fats because they are chemically altered. I’ve heard, and subscribe to the belief, that fats aren’t bad to consume, particularly saturated fat from coconuts and avocados. However, I’m not sure I’d eve recommend eating saturated fats from animal foods (even if we put ethics aside).

“Authorities” Interviewed &/Or Referenced
I had to put “authorities” in quotes because they are used in the film as authorities but I have yet to do enough research on the people and foundations to make a well-informed decision on the matter.

• Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
• Eric Oliver, author of Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America’s Obesity Epidemic
• Sally Fallon and Mary Enig of the Weston A Price Foundation: “The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price, whose studies of isolated nonindustrialized peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets. Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that humans achieve perfect physical form and perfect health generation after generation only when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats.” They’ve also authored Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats
• Al Sears, M.D., author of The Doctor’s Heart Cure, Beyond the Modern Myths of Diet and Exercise: The Clinically-Proven Plan of Breakthrough Health Secrets That Helps You Build a Powerful, Disease-Free Heart

My Final Thoughts

• There was no mention of environmental or animal ethics. Clearly, this documentary is espousing an animal-based, low-carb diet, so it’s not going to discuss the actual environmental repercussions of this diet and the manner in which animals are raised and slaughtered for consumption. So, the whole time I watched this documentary I felt that one very integral part of diet was left out of the picture — mindful eating. And I mean “mindful eating” in the sense that our health is more holistic than we give it credit for and that we can’t eat in a way that we feel is ethically repugnant without that, too, having effects on our health. Also, they seem to think that it’s vegetarians and vegans, in fact, who are setting themselves up for health problems since the body, especially the brain, need fat to function properly. It would have been great if they featured a medical professional in the documentary who actually supported vegetarianism/veganism so that we could get an idea of the spectrum of conflicting research and personal experience that shows how there will never be a one-size-fits-all type of diet for good health.
• Food quality was not discussed. One of the biggest deterrents to eating fast-food for people in general (i.e. not vegans like me) is that the food quality is horrible. So, animal and environmental ethics aside, fast-food meat is highly processed and comes from questionable sources. There have been reputable studies that have shown that eating processed red meat is bad for your heart (whereas less processed red meat, not so much). Also, many fast food items are made with, or contain: enriched grains (stripped of nutrients), cancer-causing chemicals (preservatives and pesticides) and more fun stuff. A lot of these chemicals/toxins/pollutants are considered obesogens in that they disrupt your endocrine system and mess with the hormones that regulate your weight.
• I get that “poor people” are not dumb and in need of a paternalist government ripping the burgers from their hands, but equal access to healthy food is a big issue. It may not be an issue if the diet that you’re espousing is paleo (b/c, in that case, poor people could indeed eat healthy by still eating at fast food restaurants), but the social justice component to Supersize Me was one of its most compelling factors — something that was entirely missed in Fat Head.
• Paleo is the way to go? It’s clear that the agenda behind this film is to encourage the paleo diet. And, once I checked out the Fat Head site, this suspicion was confirmed. One of the images on the movie’s homepage is of packaged food with the words “Nomad Foods” and it links to Nomad Foods — a company selling pre-packaged frozen paleo diet meals [here]. One big capitalized word for you: LAME. Also, sure Tom lost 12 pounds eating a fast-food-based paleo diet, but this was after 28 days. Isn’t that usually the ketosis phase where you shock your body into weight loss? We need a long-term study to show that the weight lost was actually good and that he maintained a healthy system in the long-term. 28 days is too soon to tell!

More?

• You can read Tom’s blog here.

Thoughts? Please share!

<3,

The Cranky One

Arby’s Angus Three Cheese & Bacon Toasted Sub
[source]

April Fools? 660 calories, 33g fat (13 saturated), 0.5g trans fat, 1810mg sodium, 2g fiber, 3g sugars, 47g protein

Highlights of Joy:

• A load of calories and fat coming from processed meat, bread and cheese. Your body will not metabolize these as efficiently as less processed food calories [see here].
• Processed red meat, which is linked to cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, since it’s got those lovely sodium nitrates. See here and here.
• Trans fat (from the bread) is pretty unanimously considered a bad fat (it’s synthetically produced). Trans fat is shown to increase bad cholesterol and reduce good cholesterol, which increases risk for heart disease. You know a food has trans fat not just from the nutrition label (since, technically, if a food has less than .5g trans fat/serving, the product can list “0g trans fat”), but also from the ingredients list as “partially hydrogenated __ <insert type of oil here>.” The World Health Organization recommends zero consumption/daily.
• More sodium than is recommended in a day for about half of the U.S. population. Consider that the USDA’s 2010 dietary recommendations (published 2011) included reducing daily sodium intake to < than 2,300 milligrams (mg) and decreasing intake to 1,500 mg for persons 51+ and those of any age who are African American or who have hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease [via Fooducate here].
• Azodicarbonamide. Say that with me three times. According to Fooducate, it’s a dough conditioner found in bread products that also bleaches the flour. Unfortunately: “It’s considered safe in the US at up to 45 parts per million, but is banned from use in Europe because studies showed it could cause asthma or allergic reactions” [via Fooducate's "5 Bread Ingredients to Avoid" here]. If Europe bans it, I consider it banned here.
• DATEM. No, this isn’t an abbreviated command to “date him,” it’s an acronym for Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Monoglycerides found in the bread. According to Fooducate: it’s a dough conditioner that is “considered safe by the FDA, but a study in 2002, on rats, showed ‘heart muscle fibrosis and adrenal overgrowth.’” [via Fooducate's "The Top 20 Ingredients Used in Bread" here].
• High Fructose Corn Syrup in the Parmesan ranch sauce. Though it’s still considered safe by the FDA, the jury’s still out on just how safe this chemically altered sugar is.
• “Caramel coloring” (in the meat) is linked to cancer [here].

And, honestly there’s even more to investigate. What’s propylene glycol alginate (in the Parmesan sauce) or natamycin (in the cheddar) or L-cysteine (in the bread)? It would take me a day of research to unravel the many “good mood”-inducing horrors of this toasted sub. And I’m tired. And cranky. And I have a full day of more good-mood-inducing research tomorrow, though this time on Jack Kerouac, On the Road & ecocriticism. Fun times

Are you feeling that good mood yet?

<3,

The Cranky One

Watch the commercial here:

Have you ever met someone and felt an instantaneous connection, like you were kindred spirits? That’s exactly how I felt on Saturday when I met the gorgeous blogger behind “Eat, Move, Write,” Jasmine. Check out her re-cap of our meeting! Her talent with writing makes me disinclined to write my own re-cap lol — it can’t be put more poetically than she already did! [here]

Check out her story, too — you’ll be blown away!

Ok! There were two excellent articles published recently that I wanted to share — I think it’s awesome how they correlate as if one asks the big question and the other responds with a big shrug (ok, I exaggerate…).

In the article, “Fixing a World that Fosters Fat” [published online in The New York Times here], Natasha Singer asks “Why are Americans getting fatter and fatter…?” While her attempt at a “simple explanation” — that it’s a matter of calories in and calories out — is obviously flawed — the article has a lot of merit in discussing the limits of behavior modification in a society that caters to, and favors many of, the bad behaviors we’d try to remedy to benefit our health. In other words, if our society rewards those who work endless hours (and makes it nearly impossible not to), the government subsidizes crops like corn and soy that makes it most affordable to eat like crap (esp. when you don’t have the time to cook your own meals), etc., are we giving people a fair chance to change their ways? Better yet, are we giving them the chance to maintain their reformed ways if they even ever get to that point?

Since I’m privileged to know a lot of bloggers who have completely reformed their lifestyles to be more healthy, and have done so myself, I can speak from experience that behavior modification can survive in the American supersize-it environment. But just because something exceptional is possible in an environment doesn’t mean the environment needn’t change.

A lot of us, myself included, will point our fingers at the monolithic “Corporate America” and its drive for profit. We’ll ask where corporate “responsibility” lies and we’ll ask why restaurants keep making utter crap (like the 2500-calorie pizza burger, Burger King!) and marketing it disproportionately to the poor and to children.

In the article “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility” in the Wallstreet Journal recently, author Aneel Karnani tells us readers, “Pleas for corporate social responsibility will be truly embraced only by those executives who are smart enough to see that doing the right thing is a byproduct of their pursuit of profit. And that renders such pleas pointless” [here]. Karnani also writes, “The danger is that a focus on social responsibility will delay or discourage more-effective measures to enhance social welfare in those cases where profits and the public good are at odds. As society looks to companies to address these problems, the real solutions may be ignored.” Basically, Karnani fears that corporations become crafty in their “social responsibility” – they adopt green measures, for instance, that are profitable (either b/c the government gives them incentives and/or because they can market products as “green” and reap the profits from its green-inclined patrons); and that focusing on corporations doing the right thing means we deflect from our own personal responsibility and from the search for more holistic solutions. This does seem like a valid concern.

The entire piece rests of the principle that you can’t force corporations to do what’s right until doing what’s right becomes more profitable than their current mode of operation. Why not? Because corporations involve shared interests in profit. Corporations, like McDonald’s, for example, that do offer some healthy items, aren’t necessarily offering the goods out of their health-conscious alter-ego (please); but out of the interest of profit. The feel that I get from this piece is that consumers have to be the change. We have to stop eating crap and making it profitable for restaurants and fast-food places to serve it. As soon as we make it profitable for super-sized salads and quinoa-filled burritos, the supply will be there.

Sounds true, but optimistic. I feel like the demand for healthy items is growing, but I also feel a lot of the demand is misguided (100-calorie packs; high-fructose-corn-syrup-filled “health” bars, etc.); and disproportionate across the nation (wealthy populations, obvs, will have more demand for healthy foods). How can we create a demand for something that for many people is currently (or seemingly) out of reach? How can reach people who feel hopelessly dependent on processed foods? We’d also have to convince the government, who is bed with Monsanto to lift their subsidies on crap and put them instead on produce? Do you agree with Singer that there are severe limits on behavior modification in an environment that “fosters fat”? Do you agree with Karnani that we shouldn’t focus so much on corporate responsibility?

Other stuff:

• Michael Pollan will speak about the egg recall on Anderson Cooper’s live-video blog tonight at 10 p.m. ET here
• Ck out Orange County, CA’s “OC Foodie Fest” this Saturday, the 28th, at the Honda Center in Anaheim [here]: “Orange County’s first gourmet food truck event taking place Saturday, August 28th at the Honda Center in Anaheim. The one-day event will be the ultimate foodie destination, featuring the best in popular mobile eats combined with a unique forum to showcase local entertainment & shopping to help support local charities.” Tix are $12 for adults.
• If you’re a healthy-living blogger, or on the look-out for healthy-living bloggers in your area or on a specific topic (such as weight-loss or veganism), check out this great new resource! Created by Lindsey of Sound Eats, “HLB [link] is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support.” If you’re interested in having your site listed on HLB, send the following info. to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com. Email subject line: MEMBERS; your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet); Blog Name; Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.); Your twitter handle, if applicable; Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy’s sake, that is completely understandable. They’ll  simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too); Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.). Cool.

<3,

The Cranky One

The three copies of The Three Day Cleanse by Zoe Sakoutis and Erica Huss

go to Ashleigh, Erika & Jessica

The winners of This is Why You’re Fat by Jackie Warner

are Jessica, Chrissy & Jenn

I will e-mail you guys for your mailing addresses!

In other news:

• KFC is launching a new HEALTHY sandwich– two pieces of fried chicken sandwiching bacon & cheese!
  Oh, I said, “healthy,” huh? April Fools! Click here for the deets. In the spirit of objective info., I’ll just note that while the writers of the piece say the 540-calories price tag is “whopping” — you can just as shockingly get a salad at Claim Jumper for double the calories — the Bleu Cheese Wedge has 1114 calories, 30g sat. fat, & 1839 mg sodium. Just sayin’.
• Enter Cedar Lane Natural Foods’ (maker of awesome frozen food) “Stock Your Freezer for Free” contest here! You can enter every day for a chance to win a year’s worth of frozen food. (News via Hungry Girl here)
• More calorie/nutritional data to become transparent at restaurant chains NATIONWIDE! See here! (News via Hungry Girl here — Have you signed up to receive their daily e-newsletter yet?)
• Is the NY State Health Commissioner’s proposed “soda tax” a good idea? Click here.
• Have you seen Jamie Oliver’s reality t.v. show “Food Revolution”? Click here — it’s shocking how desperately we need school lunch reform and food education for children. Click here to sign his petition.

Do you think  you can conjure up a more disturbing sandwich than KFC’s new Frankenstein sandwich? I’d love to hear your ideas (because I’m sick like that…)!

<3,

The Cranky One

According to an article called “Anger over Weight Watchers’ endorsement of McDonald’s” in UK’s The Guardian two weeks ago (read here), Weight Watchers will now be endorsing select McDonald’s products in New Zealand. What that means is McDonald’s will get to bank off the WW brand and capitalize on dieting consumers by posting the endorsed items on a ”diet friendly” menu board with the WW points values indicated, I presume, and including the WW logo on the select products’ wrapping. Outside the store, WW will promote McDonald’s items to their members (presumably in group meetings & weigh-ins). On one hand I want to scream; the other hand is currently occupied eating a McGriddle. I kid, I kid.

These are the items that would be endorsed by Weight Watchers:

• Filet-O-Fish — 380 calories, 18g fat (3.5g sat.), 640 mg sodium, 2g fiber, 15g protein
• Chicken McNuggets (I assume the 6-piece; could not confirm) — 280 calories, 17g fat (3g sat.), 600mg sodium, 0g fiber, 14g protein
• Sweet Chili Seared Chicken Wrap – 370 calories, 11g fat (3.3g sat.), 656mg sodium, 6.3g fiber, 24.4g protein*

*Nutritional info. taken from McDonald’s Australia nutritional info. PDF(here); all other info. from McDonald’s U.S. nutritional info. PDF here.

One thing that is interesting to note is that the calories differ significantly from the US version of the Filet O’ Fish to the AU Filet O’ Fish. The AU nutritional PDF lists the fish sandwich at 303 calories — almost 80 less than the U.S.’s. The chicken nuggets are about the same and the Sweet Chili Chicken Wrap seems to be a regional item unavailable in the U.S.

Here are three positions reflected in the article:

Con: “But nutritionists and obesity experts said the menu items were a marketing ploy to lure customers into the restaurant. ‘It’s all about sales,’ said Jane Martin, senior adviser of Australia’s Obesity Policy Coalition. ‘It implies this food is healthy … when often it is high in fat and salt. Chicken McNuggets are Chicken McNuggets whether it’s got Weight Watchers on it or not.’

Hopeful but Cautious: “Sian Porter, a dietician at the British Dietetic Association, said: ‘This sort of initiative should be applauded, but the danger is that someone will go in, choose one of the healthier options and then think: ‘Ooh good. Now I’ll have an ice cream,’ which is not the right message.’”

Pro: A Weight Watchers spokesperson, Chris Stirk, director of business in Australia and New Zealand, said “the partnership between the companies reflected ‘part of our philosophy that you can enjoy life … while still achieving your weight loss goals.’”

So this is what I think, in a nut shell — The same people who don’t read or understand nutritional info., even when it’s provided on menu boards, in pamphlets on the table and online, will still be the ones who go for the crap at McDonalds’ whether or not it’s WW-endorsed. The same people who order a premium salad at McDonald’s — which has got 430 calories and 20g of fat — thinking it’s a healthy choice and then ordering a milkshake to balance out the “healthy” in their diet, will be the same ones who order a Filet O’ Fish and then down a mountain of ice cream for good measure.

The people I see this working for are people who are working towards a weight loss goal, mindfully, and still want to enjoy fast food until they can wean themselves off of it. I don’t see this as having a “conversion” effect or as having a detrimental effect. While I don’t eat fast food myself, and wouldn’t recommend it in and of itself, I also wouldn’t withhold applause to someone trying to lose weight and eating a few chicken mcnuggets along the way. If you had told me 7 years ago that in order to lose weight I could never eat the things I loved again, I would have probably shrugged with defeat and asked for a take-out menu. There’s a lot to be said for condoning methods that encourage “what I can have” instead of the “what I can’t have” mentality. I do feel it ethical to mention, however, that while I do condone eating fast food on occasion as part of a healthy weight-loss plan, I also accept that there’s been research proving fast-food to be addictive, to some degree. In which case, for some, weaning off of it may be easier said than done.

I don’t think that Weight Watchers is sending out the message that McDonald’s food is healthy, though I can imagine many people will interpret it that way. If you know about the WW program, you know that part of its message/selling point is that you can eat the foods you want and still lose weight. That sort of message implies that the selling point is losing weight not gaining health. While those are very related — that’s not my point. The point is — you can eat Chicken McNuggets and Filet O’ Fish and lose weight. In fact, you can even go on the Taco Bell or Subway Diet and lose weight. Once in a while, eating these foods is fine. If someone were to take it to the extreme and literally do a fast-food diet — that’s when the lure to eat crap and lose weight without regard to health can turn very ugly.

Actually, now that I’ve mentioned Subway, let’s just take a little peak. You could just as well go to Subway and get a 6″ Meatball Marinara with 580 calories, 23g fat (9g sat.), 1530mg sodium, 9g fiber, 24g protein (see here) as you could opt for one of their “6 Under 6 Grams of Fat” subs.

I always take the perspective of my old self when it comes to these issues. I didn’t give a crap about saturated fat and sodium when I first started losing weight. Now, I care a lot. About everything. But it was a gradual process of enlightenment, revisions, and education. Let’s face it — a lot of us are truly detached from what we’re really putting in our bodies and we focus more on its effects. The more info. we put out there, the more choices we make available that will give people the steps (albeit baby steps – and so what?) to their goals, the better.

There’s so much more that goes into this issue, including food politics and why places like McDonald’s still focus more on burgers and fries than salads (and why even on their WW menu, there is no salad to be found!) — which is an issue of government subsidies — but I want to hear your opinions.

What do you think about Weight Watchers endorsing select McDonald’s products in New Zealand? Is this setting a bad precedent? Setting a good example of giving healthy options? Neither? Speak out and loud!

<3.

The Cranky One

Call us sick, but my twin Chris and I *love* to stroll down candy memory lane and reminisce about our poor eating habits. Weird, right? It’s just an interesting experiment in behavior modification and lifestyle change to look at the past and see how what passed for “normal” back then is completely outrageous in our vision today. So, for fun (at least for me!), I thought I would give you a glimpse into what would have been my eating habits about 10 years ago:

Breakfast

Source

• Costco Double Chocolate Muffin – 690 calories, 38 g fat, 3 g fiber, 10 g protein

Lunch
Source

• McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets – 185 calories, 11.7 g fat, 0 g fiber, 9.7 g protein

Source

• McDonald’s French Fries (small) – 231 calories, 11.5 g fat, 2.8 g fiber, 2.8 g protein

Lunch #2

• Reesesticks (King-Sized) — 460 calories, 26 g fat, 2 g fiber, 8 g protein

Source
• Hot Cheetos (2 servings) — 340 calories, 22 g fat, 1 g fiber, 4 g protein

Dinner

• Arby’s Curly Fries (large) — 604 calories, 36 g fat, 7 g fiber, 8 g protein

Dessert

TOTAL STATS FOR FOOD CONSUMED IN ONE DAY: 3,590 calories, 195.20 g fat, 21.8 g fiber, 84.5 g protein
What’s even sadder is that I’m pretty sure this wasn’t as bad a day as I typically had.  I didn’t even include all the soda I used to drink!

What do you guys think? Can any of you “boast” having similarly awful eating habits in the past? What amazes me so much is not how much or what I ate, but that I even survived without getting diabetes or something else awful. I think I may have pulled a 180 just in the knick of time. These days, I don’t eat fast food, am extremely cautious of any processed or packaged foods I eat, and don’t eat meat. Moral of the story: we can drastically change, re-educate ourselves, decondition out of bad habits and get to a point of seeing no other way but the healthy way!

In the News

Uhh…is there Meat in my French Fries?

MrsMarv on Flickr here

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, how confident are you about finding food choices that suit your needs wherever you go?  If you were to order a veggie burger, would you be okay with it being cooked on the same grill as the meat? Are you confident that the sauce on your sandwich is free of meat products? Your french fries?

This is a relatively new issue to me.  After ordering a veggie burger at a restaurant and seeing it cooked on the same grill as the meat, I was rather disturbed at how non-vegetarian my meal became in the split second it touched the grill. 

After doing some Googling, I’ve found that eating vegetarian and vegan is actually quite a feat, especially in the fast food world as things like “natural beef extract” find their way into McDonald’s French fries, anchovies into dressings at Jack in the Box, and  milk (and wheat, for all you gluten-free babes) finds its way into practically everything.  Are specialty restaurants the only “safe” places for people with dietary restrictions/specific food lifestyles to eat? I’d say yes and no.  Yes, if you really don’t want to head back to the kitchen to watch your food being made or to read the labels on every drop of sauce or dressing added to your bread.  No, if you do your research beforehand and stick to really simple, fool-proof items like salads with the dressing on the side (preferably with packaged dressing so that you may examine the labels, or ask for a simple vinegar & oil blend).

Check out this site to find out if your favorite fast food restaurants have any legit vegetarian and vegan options.  If you avoid fast food like I would a bikini, then you might feel more secure in the food choices you make.  But restaurants, especially non-chain restaurants, are less inclined to post the nutritional information for their menu.  While laws in NY, CA and elsewhere are forcing chains to post calorie information, finding the exact ingredients in your foods can be daunting, especially if it’s not a chain.  My one piece of advice?  Never hesitate to ask your waiter or even the chef how something is prepared or what is in the dish you’re eying and don’t be afraid to personalize an item or go off the menu completely.  Any tips to add?

In the News

• Science Daily‘s, “Regular Yoga Practice is Associated with Mindful Eating” (8/16/09) here — Wow, very interesting!
• New Scientist‘s, “It’s True: All the Taken Men Are Best” (8/17/09) here — This isn’t necessarily health-related, but it’s very interesting that this study showed single women to be more attracted to men depicted as being in relationships than their counterparts who were depicted as single.
• New Scientist‘s, “Photos of Cake Can Keep You Slim, Say Psychologists” (8/17/09) here — The parameters of the study seem sketchy — if you show me a piece of cake and then ask me if I have plans to eat better, I’m sure I’d say “yes” and assume you thought I needed to lose weight.  Either way, interesting.  And if true, then we should all prescribe Thisiswhyyourefat as part of a healthy lifestyle makeover plan.

Give-Away?

If you’re suffering from a case of “the Mondays,” I’m offering a give-away to soothe your spirit!  In the mix:

• One bag of Feed Granola in Raisin Nut
• One Honey Stinger 120-Calorie Honey Packet in Ginger
• One Neiman’s Own Organics Super Dark Chocolate Bar
• One Neiman’s Own Organics Ginger Mints Tin
• One Honey Stinger 20g Protein Bar in Dark Chocolate Cherry Almond Pro
• Five (5) Stonyfield Farm Product Coupons
• A mixed c.d. of my favorite work-out songs (which may or may not include a shameless sample or two of my band’s songs)

To enter (please submit a separate comment indicating each entry):

• Follow me on Twitter
• Link to this post on your blog
• Add me to your blog roll
• Add a comment listing your favorite place to eat or a tip on how to eat vegetarian or vegan everywhere

Give-away open to U.S. residents only and ends Thursday, August 20th, 11:59 p.m. PST. Winner announced on Friday, August 21st.

<3, The Cranky One

Top 5 Things I Learned that Piss Me Off

1. I now even have to worry about the fruits and vegetables I buy.  How will I know if my fruit is a GMO? Oh, I won’t!  I guess if it looks like an apple on steroids that’s an indicator.
2. My beloved soybeans are highly monopolized just like corn and are, therefore, the devil. Ok, not the “devil.” But I ain’t smilin’, let’s just say that. By the way, did you know corn is in everything from charcoal to diapers to the meds you take?
3. The FDA is pretty laughable when it comes to actually effecting change and watching out for the consumer. Here’s a great idea, let’s have an organization for the people’s interest and then staff it with people who have a vested interest in companies whose main motives are to make money off the people!  That sounds impartial!
4. Government subsidies of corn have made it so junk food is more accessible to the poor than real fruit and vegetables. Didn’t you know the “American Dream” includes eating Jack in the Crack 3 times a day?!
5. Big Corp is behind most of my favorite brands.  Dear Kashi, I did not know you were part of Kellogg.  That makes my soul die a little, but I still love your cereal, not gonna lie! xoxo

Let me follow this list with a concession — I suffer from H.E.S. (hyperbole and exaggeration syndrome), so I am being more dramatic than may be called for, but I am rather annoyed.  It’s not like I know enough science to know whether GMOs are going to make me grow an extra eyeball in the next few years or even if organic foods are really the answer.  What I do know is this — I value KNOWLEDGE above everything else.  I want to be informed if my food has GMOs — even if the sticker informing me is bigger than the fruit itself and merely says that there are GMOs but until further research is done no one knows what that means.  That way, I am given the choice to say “meh, whatevs!” or “hmm, think I’ll stick to this tiny ugly organic apple.”  I’m just sayin’…

Throughout the film, I kept asking myself:  why, why is fast food so prevalent…still? It’s not that “fast” food is inherently bad.  We all have to eat on the run and bananas are certainly “fast” to eat – peel, go and yum!  But a large portion of us are not eatin’ bananas from a drive thru.  Nope, they’re getting shit crap for food and not just once a week, but with such an insane frequency it creates a problem.

A friend said to me, “no one is a villain here.”  I am hesitant to agree. The reason people eat McDonalds, the reason it’s so in demand is not necessarily because out of a state of nature we as human beings said “I want to take these potatoes from the Earth and fry them to a crisp and eat them every day.”  Fast Food became widely available,  highly advertised, cheap due to subsidies and assembly line mechanics, addictive due to fat & sugar content and an ICON and societal NORM.

The thing that bothers me to the core is this line, “the biggest predictor of obesity is poverty level.” This absolutely bites at my core.  I have seen grocery stores in impoverished areas – they do not carry the same variety of whole foods or organic foods as the SAME store in a more affluent area.  Some poor people simply cannot afford to eat healthy.  And even if you balk at that statement, I’m pretty sure you can’t argue that a lot of impoverished people do not KNOW how incredibly awful they are eating.  And I’ll be the first to admit that food ignorance is not isolated to the impoverished…

I could go on and on, but as you can see — I’m just cranky and confused.  So, what do we disillusioned little souls do?

10 Simple Tips (as listed on the site here)

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.  You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.  Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years.
5. Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week.  An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market.  Farmer’s markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.  The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you. Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections. Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.

If you want to know where I stand — like I said, I’m all about knowledge.  That is what I fight for. I don’t believe in shoving vegetarianism down people’s throats or staunchly advocating the purchase of organic goods.  But I believe people should know something as simple and important as what goes into their bodies as well as what options are available to them.  The main message of the movie was that the consumer has the power to effect change. It’s true — we do vote with every purchase we make. But some people really don’t know they have choices and may, even if aware they are making choices they would rather not make, feel trapped and are economically cornered.

Books I’ve Read (or Plan on Reading) Related to This Topic

• Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Fast Food Nation
• Diet for A Small Planet
• Food Politics

Trailer to the Movie

Now that I’ve blabbed on for way too long (congrats on reading this far, by the way — you earn an Extra Value Meal! j/k!), what do you think about these issues?  Have you seen Food Inc.?  Which of the 10 “tips” above do you already follow?

Burger King’s “BK Burger Shots”

220 calories, 11 g fat, 1 g fiber, 14 g protein for the regular 2-pack, which is not bad calorie wise (if you only have the two…) If you get the sausage and cheese 2 pack, it’s double the calories at 470 calories, 31,g fat, 1 g fiber, 18 g protein. How do you cram 31 g of fat into two mini burgers?! Just think if you ordered the 4-pack…that would be: 940 calories and 62 g of fat! Quick, call 911, my jaw just dropped!

I have never in my life eaten at Burger King.  Of all fast food chains, they just seem to evoke the most negative image in my mind. Maybe it’s their lame commercials. Anyway, I’ve been bombarded with billboard ads for their “burger shots” and I always think that bite size burgers are ridiculous because you probably end up eating like 4 of them to feel satisfied and that could be worse than just eating an entire burger (especially if you eat the sausage ones!).  All that aside, BK really does walk the walk when they say “Have it your way” as a lot of their menu options can be consumed by the calorie-conscious eater (their veggie burger w/o mayonnaise and their Jr. Whopper are okay calorie-wise. They also have a lot of salads, which without the dressing and croutons are great choices, actually!).  I still wouldn’t eat there myself, but for those of you who are slowly trying to wean yourselves off the Fast Food Wagon, be cautious, choose wisely.

Carl’s Jr.’s “Kentucky Bourbon Six-Dollar Burger”

970 calories, 49 g of fat, 3 g fiber, 50 g protein

Yowza.  Again, Carl’s Jr., I applaud you for your ability to cram fat into your burgers.  Bravo.  But in all honesty, I have to hand it to your marketing.  I went on your site and stayed on there way too long — the new ad for the above burger is great, I love the design of your site and its functionality – especially how I can right click and save a picture and it comes out as a full-size version, and your new ad with Padma from Top Chef = Brilliant.  If I wasn’t such a sarcastic pessimist I would think having a hot chick eating burgers was a great marketing ploy, but it actually just annoys me to see slim chicks eating burgers the size of their heads.  Bitter, party of one? Anyway, maybe your marketing folks can help you design the perfect ad for a consumer like me who can’t spare her health on one greasy burger and who doesn’t want just a salad. Deal?

Now that I’ve whined and showed you that Fast Food America is still alive and thrivin’, treat yourself to a small frozen yogurt.  Did you know you can have 1/2 a cup of Yogurtland’s chocolate mint, NY cheesecake, mango, peach, pistachio or French vanilla (no sugar added) for 100 calories or less? Yes, yes you can!