Balance of Food

So how did you do?

The Thanksgiving 4½ day weekend is over. The food temptations abounded. Not just the obvious turkey and leftovers, but eating out while shopping. Maybe you made a midnight sale and then went to an all-night restaurant for breakfast.

Glad you had fun, if you did. But don't make the mistake of stretching this period into 6 weeks of gluttony. I don't care if it's cold where you are, or unusually cold (poor Pacific Northwest with its snow storm). You get a few days at Thanksgiving, a few selected meals in December, and another 4-5 days around Christmas (or other December holiday).

That's it. And increased exercise, too. Just follow the seniors walking around the malls if you don't get otherwise inspired.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yes, Food Day has arrived, uh, I mean, Happy Thanksgiving.

You've been starving since Monday and you're ready for a 2,000-2,500 calorie dinner complete with tryptophan and sugar, a lovely combination.

Enjoy what you can today!! Don't deprive yourself, but don't go completely nuts.

Be thankful you're not on the verge of a diabetic coma. Be thankful you try to find some balance.

The holidays are still fun/insane/depressing regardless of how much food you eat.

NYT responds to use of 'hunger'

Responding to an issue I brought up last week on the Balance of Food, The New York Times ran an editorial on the elimination of the word "hunger" for those who are, for lack of a better word, "hungry."

The editorial is not part of TimesSelect, so free registration is all you need to read it.

Definition of hunger

Next time dinner is running a little late, you're not hungry anymore. You have "very low food security."

From the same people that told you ketchup is a vegetable, the term "hunger" is being Orwellianed.

Each year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures access to food. Lead author Mark Nord has said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey."

Of course, asking people who are hungry, oh, I mean, suffer from very low food security might produce a different answer.

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans — 35 million people — could not put food on the table at least part of last year. It's fair to say that U.S. government numbers tend to undercount rather than overcount. That's a lot of people.

Then you have to factor that this is food, period. Often, the poor tend to eat poorly (pardon the pun) with high amounts of white flour and high-fructose corn syrup, not because of their taste but their cheapness. The cost of eating better is higher than many can afford. This, in turn, raises health care costs for diseases such as diabetes.

Check the fine print on red meat and breast cancer

In the latest red meat-cancer scare, there is this easy "just don't eat red meat" element to the solution.

And we should point out that is for hormone-related breast cancer. But the bigger question is about the red meat we eat. The hormones in the meat, the way cattle are raised are what we need to address. There is way more than just cow in our steaks.

We should also point out that one of the researchers' concerns were carcinogens found in cooked or processed meat. In English, this means the more over-cooked (beyond medium) your meat, the more carcinogens you will find. The restaurants that won't cook a burger below medium may someday have to reckon for their policies.

The study of premenopausal nurses was conducted by researchers at Harvard medical institutions, and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. More than 90,000 women ages 26 to 46 were studied for a dozen years. Women who ate more than one and a half servings of beef, lamb or pork per day had almost double the risk of developing such cancers when compared with women who ate three or fewer servings per week.

Doubling sounds bad, but it's not clear what the numbers are. If 20% is the mark, 40% is really bad. If 2% is the mark, 4% is not great, but not horrible.

Welcome to the world of fried Coke

What would go better with a fried Twinkie than a fried Coke? I'm not sure, but we now have a chance to try it for ourselves.

Apparently, fried Coke has made a splash throughout state fairs this fall.

A computer analyst from Dallas, Abel Gonzales compiled a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

The batter balls are deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.

He apparently sold 35,000 over 24 days at the Texas State Fair — $4.50 each. There are future plans for fried Sprite and fried Diet Coke. I do wonder how well aspartame (NutraSweet) does being deep-fried.

Actually, I could see a fried Coke going well with fried chicken and (fried) French fries.

Kirstie Alley shows off weight loss

I get a little cynical about actresses and weight loss. Actors, too. They put on and take off weight all the time. It is part of their career. It doesn’t make it easy, but it is easier for them than average people.

Still, I am impressed with Kirstie Alley taking off 75 pounds from a top weight of 220 lbs.

But that isn’t why I’m writing about her or even posting a picture. I’m writing about her because she said when she was 30 and slender, she never would have had the nerve to wear a bikini for the camera.

That’s too bad. Women have beauty on so many different levels. So good for her that she wore a bikini on "Oprah." She might be 55, but it’s not too late.

"I think women — I don't think we ever feel like we're good enough. We don't feel like we're thin enough or pretty enough or smart enough or work hard enough. And we are good enough," she told Oprah. "The bikini thing is neither here nor there, other than the fact, you know, I am 55 years old. So I thought -- come on, we are all good enough. And we look good enough. And we are not our bodies."

photo credit: Oprah

How to fight trans fat

Getting rid of trans fat in restaurants seems fairly simple. Change the oil so that it's not partially hydrogenated. For store-stable products, the issue is a bit more complex. There is more pressure to make goods last as long as possible, so cookies can stay on the shelf that much longer.

But restaurants don't work in that world. The food being cooked has a quick turnaround.

Here's an example of how simple it can be for restaurants. Attention McDonald's and Burger King: Wendy's has done it. At some point, your restaurants did it. Read this column and let us at Balance of Food what you think.