Balance of Food

Jillian update: Still in Tennessee, though Subway in-show ad is rather disturbing

Jillian finishes herself the "leprechaun" — her words — in the land of giants in this week's episode of "Losing It …" Jillian Michaels continues this pattern where she hangs around a certain geographic area for a couple of weeks.

Last week, Jillian was in the Nashville, TN suburbs. This week, she was in Springfield, TN, which if it isn't a suburb, the city is near those Nashville suburbs. Does feel like being in a specific geographic place increased your chances of being on the show.

The beauty of being at least 6 feet tall is that you can get away with weighing more. But clearly, some members of the Vivio family have abused that privilege.

Elijah is 14, well over 6 feet tall and 330 pounds. His father Mark has had 11 heart procedures in the last year or so. The father's lack of work is a similar theme in the show, though the declining health has a literal correlation to the loss of work.

The family is eating a meal as Jillian is literally sneaking onto their property. You can't see too much of what they are eating, except for bacon. There is also a package of fat free natural cheese. Not quite sure "fat free" can mean natural, but packages can be deceiving — literally.

The bacon theme comes up in the initial workout as Jebediah — the other teenage son who isn't allowed to say much (since Elijah is the focus among the kids). Jebediah is throwing up:

Laverne (mother): Too much bacon for lunch.
Jillian: How much bacon did you have for lunch? How much bacon.
Jebediah: 10
Jillian: 10 strips. Look, there's at least 2. Jebediah puked. Yea!!

Well, the mother was there when her child was eating 10 bacon strips. But she takes it all in stride. And poor Jebediah: barely allowed on TV and he'll best be remembered for eating 10 strips of bacon and losing some of that in a workout.

This is all there is in terms of their bad eating habits: none of these people are in great shape, even the two oldest boys who make small appearances in the episode. Yet, there is nothing about what bad stuff they might be eating.

The attempt to eat better turns into a commercial for Subway — within the episode. About :25 into the episode, Jillian takes the family to Subway.

Jillian: Instead of you picking up a pizza or taking two burgers and smooshing them together, there are things that we can do that are fast food that are going to be a lot lower in calories and a lot better for you. You can do salads, you can do sandwiches.

Jillian goes for the vegetarian sandwich on the Italian bread. Elijah gets the oven roasted chicken breast. Makes for good, er, commercial copy.

Jillian (to Laverne): "Since I have had your cooking this week, I do think we need to be working on how to eat out."

Okay. Unless Jillian thinks this family is going to eat out all the time — and they won't — they would need help on being better in their own kitchen. But that isn't as interesting for TV sake — the show would rather give a "promotional consideration" (i.e., advertisement within the show) to Subway.

In a promotional consideration, you get something from that company. If Subway got this much publicity for 5 measly lunches, we would love to get that kind of a ROI.

The long ago parable taught us that giving fish feeds us for a day, but teaching us to fish lasts us a lifetime. The Vivio family would be better off with fish instead of Subway — a subject that will be dealt with in much more detail tomorrow.

American McNuggets proof of lax food standards in United States

If you have traveled outside the United States, you likely have found that a similar food back home taste different overseas.

CNN, of all places, looked into the difference between McNuggets from McDonald's in the United States vs. England. They took a tip from a comment and discovered the the tipster was right. And Americans are worse off.

Let's quote from CNN:

American McNuggets (190 calories, 12 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat for 4 pieces) contain the chemical preservative tBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, a petroleum-based product. They also contain dimethylpolysiloxane, "an anti-foaming agent" also used in Silly Putty.

By contrast, British McNuggets (170 calories, 9 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat for 4 pieces) lists neither chemical among its ingredients.

When do we reach the point where we say what should go into food in the U.S.?

Not having been to England, but I have had McDonald's in Paris. Before you criticize, my stomach was upset for about a day, and eating the food was soothing.

The McDonald's food in Paris automatically tasted better because there is no high-fructose corn syrup. They use French beef without hormones and antibiotics. And these are just the obvious differences.

The idea that questionable chemicals can exist in food -- and no one in power has an objection to doing so -- speaks volumes on what we consider to be "food." The difference, of course, is that Europe has regulations over what can be in food and the United States doesn't.

Deregulation is a term heard in politics, but we clearly have had a deregulation mentality over our food supply for decades now. And this is how chemicals end up in our food.

More from the CNN report:

TBHQ is a preservative for vegetable oils and animal fats, limited to .02 percent of the oil in the nugget. One gram (one-thirtieth of an ounce) can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse," according to “A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives.”

Fast food is fast: the effects of fast food shouldn't make us that slow.

There is this new American reality that corporations should be free to do whatever they want, food safety be damned. America used to stand for pride in food, but that has disappeared.

And why should we be finding out from a comment on a blog? CNN has 24 hours to fill and a Web site -- give them credit for following it up -- but it needed a push to look into this. "60 Minutes" and "Dateline NBC" and "20/20" could have a field day on what is in our food supply.

Next time you are in McDonald's, see if you can order McNuggets without tBHQ.

NBCU's 'Eat to Live' hits strong notes, but fall short in anti-fat stance and fast food 'ad'

As part of the Healthy at NBCU take on eating healthy, the NBC owned-and-operated stations took their shot at giving us "information" on how to eat better. At least, this was the case in Chicago, where the NBCU-owned WMAQ-TV gave us a half-hour on a Saturday night just before prime time kicked in for the evening.

Nesita Kwan was our host, she serves as a reporter and is the health editor for NBC5 in Chicago. Kwan started off by noting that Americans average 4,000 calories, but we shouldn't eat more than 2,000 calories. How many calories one should eat varies on a number of concerns, but this fly-by effort wasn't meant for specifics.

The 30-minute show (with commercials) dropped down to give us the elementary basics, and not much else. The show started out strong with Kwan talking to two dietitians in a grocery store setting. There was some strong advice (eat the rainbow, look for lower-fat cheeses).

Kwan threw us a good curve when she spotlighted a working mom shopping for vegetables at a suburban farm. Wasn't expecting a TV show to think in these terms. She also pointed out that the children learn where the food comes from, a great life lesson.

Kwan talked about lunch and the changes at the Chicago Public Schools, noting that CPS "will become the first major school district in the country to exceed the highest national guidelines." Those national guidelines allowed the school district to serve nachos, donuts, and Pop-Tarts, which the school district did through the school year that ended this month.

There were some quick pointers in eating out: avoid sauces and dressings, or get on the side; order appetizers; or box half the meal right away.

We saw children learning to cook healthy, a marvelous program for school students to get an education in the kitchen.

Kwan and the producers made some odd choices, such as focusing on Taco Bell's Drive-Through Diet, which even Taco Bell admits isn't a diet. Turns out that a local male radio personality was on the "diet" as part of a promotional stunt to lose weight.

The segment felt more like an ad for Taco Bell for its program that even I had forgotten ever was a part of the fast food chain.

The focus on the Taco Bell "diet" is part of the fixation that I touched on where fat is "bad" in these programs. The NBCU mentality toward this underserves what is supposed to be an educational process.

Referring to a beef taco from the "lighter" menu at 150 calories

John "Jurco" Jurkovic: "No sour cream, no guac."
Kwan: "and fewer grams of fat than the regular menu item."
Jurkovic: "You put sour cream and guac on this thing, you got another 3-400 calories. That's death."

Not a single word that "guac" has avocado, a good fat. In the world of NBCU and Jurkovic, fat "is death."

Kwan interviewed a personal chef who had some nice ideas. But from a TV standpoint, Kwan picks a chef who is extremely thin. Not to cast aspersions on her words, but having such a thin example looked a little off.

The personal chef's alternative to burger and fries was pretty basic: a turkey burger than was more like a meatloaf on a bun and sweet potato fries. She starts to describe the fries but doesn't finish the process. What she did describe for the burger and fries would satisfy few people, children or adults.

The show ended with 82 seconds of credit, an eternity in 2010.

The positive segments were nicely done, but in a half-hour, especially from a health editor, you should be cramming in more information. And touching on fast food trends is one thing, but these in-show commercials have to stop. If Taco Bell paid one penny, directly or indirectly, NBC5 screwed up and should have disclosed it. If Taco Bell got this publicity for free, NBC5 journalism standards are up there with serving donuts and Pop-Tarts to school children for breakfast.

And one more time — NBCU — fat is not evil.

Canadian food event was a success

Okay, the headline is a bit biased. I thought the event on Saturday went quite well. For those who didn't remember or are brand new to the Web site, I moderated a panel on Canadian food and culture at Kendall College in Chicago.

We had a great panel, experts in their own realm and connection to Canada, food, and history. And the audience was very eager to share their own history.

We talked about the different Thanksgiving celebrations, differences in junk food, poutine in Canada and around the world, the impact on the native people in Canadian cuisine, why there are no Canadian restaurants, how Quebec approaches food versus the dominant English-speaking provinces, Americans crossing the border into Canada and their reactions, the impact of seafood on the West Coast and Vancouver Island and the Maritimes on the East Coast.

The impact of how Canada was settled and the wild animals and plants conducive to Canada — how they impact Canadian cuisine was also discussed.

There were other vital discussions, such as why Canadians put ketchup and sometimes cut up hot dogs in their Kraft Dinner, why Smarties look more like M&Ms in Canada yet Smarties in the U.S. is a different candy altogether.

As soon as the podcast comes online, I promise to share it with readers of BalanceofFood.com as well as CanadianCrossing.com.

To access the podcasts, check them out in the podcast library.

'Daily Show' takes unfunny look at new government obesity guidelines

The "Daily Show" had a nice idea to do a story on the new federal government guidelines on improving our collective health. And it was done in the typical "Daily Show" setup.

Unfortunately, the program brought us someone who is not funny — little-used Josh Gad. Imagine Jack Black without any comedic talent and you have Josh Gad.

But the segment did mock those who think the government is overreaching on guidelines, none of which has any weight in law.

After all, the government overreached when it freakishly lowered the price of corn, encouraging the rise of high-fructose corn syrup. The government reached it and allowed a lot of our farm land to soy and corn.

The government overreached when it allowed our beef to be infested with antibiotics and hormones. And the government overreached when it introduced lax inspection standards that led to recent scares for spinach and tomatoes.

Even those who find themselves on the conservative part of the stream should want a system where the government tries to make people as healthy as they can without mandating behavior. Health care costs would be significantly reduced if people had better opportunities to be healthier.

There will always be sugar, fat, and salt in our diets. Nothing that Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, or anyone else has done or will do will ever change this point. But government has a role, an obligation to ensure that what we are eating reaches a basic level of decency.

The "free market" has decided for the last 30 years the levels of what is acceptable for us to eat. And our obesity levels have skyrocketed as a result. Like it or not, government is the only entity that can take the control of our food supply back.

Jillian update: Going South to attack the 'deep fryer' mentality

This week, we get 60 minutes of the woman that Jon Stewart called "the scary muscular lady who screams at fat people."

No presidential interruptions for Jillian Michaels as she delves for the first time into the flyover states. Jillian also works with her first non-Caucasian family, the Northern family, amusingly enough from the Nashville, TN suburbs.

Being Southern and African-American, you can assume we will see some traditional Southern cooking. And we are not disappointed. We see that somehow the family was convinced to cook up this huge meal for the TV cameras. Sometimes, these people forget they are on TV.

We see the calorie counts of the meal crash onto the TV screen like rejects from the old "Batman" series:

Macaroni and cheese: 7,150 calories POW!
50 chicken wings: 3,500 calories BAM!
Total calories in meal: 14,290 calories ZONK!

We do find out later that the food cooked up is for 2½ days, not just one meal. And there are two 14-year-old twins named Ameer and Ameera. Liked the name so much, they named it twice.

But the Southern stereotypes are in force. We hear Kim, the wife, tell us how "Southern cooking is all about putting your love in your food." And the calories and the fat and the cholesterol.

If you're using a deep fryer designed for Thanksgiving turkeys to cook 50 chicken wings, you might just be a redneck (with deep apologies to Jeff Foxworthy).

If you say on TV, as Kim does, that "butter will make it all better," the scary muscular lady will yell at you real good.

Patrick, the husband, has an ideal weight of 192 pounds. My girlfriend guessed he was 263 pounds; I went the cynical route and said 309 pounds. Patrick weighed 329 pounds. Kim's ideal weight is 139 pounds; her starting weight was 283 pounds with a body fat percentage of over 53%.

We see Jillian throwing out food, including Patrick's stashes of oatmeal creme cookies and some bizarre collection of "food" that Kim pulls out from her bedside drawer -- "breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a Saturday." And Jillian goes after Patrick for having a 5-gallon container of oil for the outdoors deep fryer. Would love to have seen Jillian bury that deep fryer like Jamie Oliver did in Huntington, though the Huntington deep fryer was a lot smaller.

Later, when Kim's sister, LaTasha, comes over, they are eating healthier. Roasted asparagus and there are onion slices over what looks to be fish. But we don't see a whole lot of the good eating since, well, this doesn't make for good TV. Throwing bad stuff out = awesome TV. But good habits need to be taught and on display.

Jillian chastises the family over their "100,000 calories" lunch. "This week is going to be a lot more about why you're eating stuff that's killing you and less about 'Hey did you know that's bad for you.'"

The Northern family knew the stuff they were eating was bad. Showing them, and more importantly, the TV audience, how to do well is something that we aren't getting enough of from Jillian Michaels.

The healthy tips offered online apply to "Southern cooking" since the show was in Tennessee. Some of the stereotypes about Southern cooking are true, but hopefully the show isn't painting too broad a brush.

This week's episode falls in the middle of Healthy at NBCU week. NBCU refers to NBC Universal, the current name of the company (who knows how the scheduled takeover by Comcast will change the name, again). If this take is any indicator, you would be better off on your own. You can judge for yourself here.

For all the stuff on the Web, good and bad, NBC might want to put together a TV special devoted to eating better that doesn't obsess over a "high-carb, low-fat" outdated mentality.

Maybe that Jillian Michaels could do something about that; after all, she has a TV show devoted to such things and stuff.

Fortifying junk food is not a sound government food policy

We live in a world where we take out the ideal ingredients from a food — say bread for instance — and then put in artificial realms of vitamins and minerals, the same ones taken out to make the bread. Well, some of them anyway.

So it wouldn't seem surprising that a government made a suggestion to fortify junk food. The good news is that Canada isn't going to be fortifying junk food, at least for now.

Unfortunately, Health Canada, the government department that handles such things in the Great White North, will expand the list of allowable nutrients added to breakfast cereals and white rice, and increase the levels of some nutrients currently permitted in those foods.

What's missing besides the nutrients is why these particular foods, or any foods, need to be fortified. Of course, these food manufacturers can brag about how many nutrients and vitamins there are in their foods, even if they aren't as good for you as finding them in their natural state in food. And even if the foods are fortified, there can still be things in those foods that aren't good for you.

Fortification isn't as simple as a black-and-white issue. After all, milk is fortified with Vitamin D and orange juice with calcium. However, these are basically good foods enriched with something very necessary and not easy to get.

Fortifying junk food is another matter. People need to be "trained" to eat the right foods to get the ideal allotment of nutrients — vitamins and minerals. And junk food isn't the way to go.

Breakfast cereals — the ones that are fortified — qualify as junk food. We grew up in a time where breakfast cereals were a gateway for sugar, advertising — a part of a balanced breakfast. But kids are getting too much sugar (and/or high-fructose corn syrup) in the morning. Giving them that sugar because the cereal is "fortified" is a pretty screwed up way to run a food philosophy.

I have been critical of how food can be described and handled in the United States because the government allows businesses to have a free hand. The Canadian government shouldn't step in to make things easier for food manufacturers to present products designed to mislead the consumer, food-eating public.

Finding practical ways to reduce your salt intake

Usually Monday is a Meatless Monday, thinking of a healthier way to eat. But this Monday, I wanted to try something a bit different.

We consume way too much sodium — salt — in our diets. Even as the standard has been lowered to 1,500 mg (2/3 teaspoon) of sodium from the traditional 2,300 mg, we still consume a few times more than the limit per day.

Some of this salt is actively placed on foods, as is noted in the video up above from the American Osteopathic Association. But as the doctor notes in the video, only 20% of the salt we consume comes from inside the home.

Cooking for yourself, using herbs and spices that aren't salt based, is a great way to reduce salt intake in the home. Be careful when you buy spices, even if salt isn't in the name, often spices will have salt in them. I have bought lemon pepper where the first ingredient is salt.

Allowing yourself to adjust to a reduced salt intake is valuable — if you consume a lot of salt, it took you time to reach that point. So you need time to get used to using less salt.

Not automatically using the salt shaker helps as well. Instinct might make you grab for the salt shaker, but if you get used to a reduced salt intake, you will do something better for your health without that much sacrifice.

Outside the home is where we find 80% of the problem areas. It would be nice if every single chain and mom-and-pop restaurant that served French fries wouldn't salt them — or oversalt them. It would be great if chain family restaurants didn't make it their goal to put so much salt in the foods.

Navigating the landscape is not easy, but figure if you reduce the amount you get at home, you will get less overall, even if the restaurants more than make up for the "lost" salt. And since we need salt, you'll get some that way.

The doctor in the video has some pretty good advice, though the video is a little cheesy with the hotel room backdrop and the lame music. But if you listen to the words, there are some nuggets of helpful ways to reduce your salt intake.

MSG in Hooters salad dressing only there to get you to eat more

I have only had one meal at Hooters — that meal was rather bad, though that got saved with a slice of key lime pie. The wings were rather bland and the dressing was not noteworthy.

Hooters is known for its wings, and of course, you can't eat wings without salad dressing — ranch or blue cheese.

My girlfriend and I were in a local Mexican supermarket and saw jars of Hooters ranch and blue cheese dressings. So in the process, there are two tastes to consider: wings and the dressing. And if you can't always have the wings, you can enjoy the dressing on your own time.

So I was curious what would be in the Hooters dressing that makes it worthy to be on the shelves. After all, even as a heterosexual male, I know the best thing about Hooters isn't the food.

But there must be something in the dressing that makes you want to eat the dressing without the, uh, accoutrement. Assuming that the dressing in the bottle is the same as what you get in the restaurant, it might be this ingredient:

monosodium glutamate

The dressings have salt, sugar, and monosodium glutamate. Admittedly, other ingredients ranked higher, but you have to wonder if this is dressing or that the "dressing" is a gateway for whatever to put inside of it to get people to eat more.

Restaurants want you to eat more. Processed food manufacturers want you to eat more. And not in a way that was true 30-40 years ago.

Wings and dressing are a classic food item where we think about the calories or number of wings we eat. But we don't think about the dressing, yet we consume the dressing and those calories still count.

And if the dressing contains MSG that will make you eat more as a result, ignoring those calories comes at your dietary peril.

picture credit

Canadian food informative session coming on Saturday

This blog isn't normally of a self-serving nature, and while today's entry might seem that way, there will be information — and snacks — at the following event.

I will be hosting an event on Canadian food (yes, there really are such things as Canadian food items) in Chicago on Saturday morning. This will be about so much more than poutine. All the details can be found here.

There will be a panel discussion, so it won't be just about me. And I will summarize the session for those who can't make it, or the mass amounts of people that can't get to Chicago on a moment's notice.

I do have a Canadian connection through my sister blog, CanadianCrossing.com.