Balance of Food

'The Biggest Loser' turns attention to nutrition; teens also need that help

I promised to focus on the teenagers in "The Biggest Loser" and not worry about the whining and screaming from the adults. This week, the teenagers didn't do much (and we'll hear from them later), but the show actually tried to help the adults on food and nutrition. Consider me floored.

The adults had to shop at a grocery store to feed themselves for the week. Each team got a budget of $10 per day per person.

"$10 a day per person? I can't eat lunch on $10 a day. How am I going to eat three meals a day on $10?" Joe said.

Alex noted, "I'm a fast food junkie. It's so much easier and convenient to run to, you know, a fast food place and grab something for $5."

So many people perceive that $5 is cheap from a fast food restaurant, but $5 in a grocery store feels expensive. These contestants, some of whom admit to not enjoying grocery shopping, learned first-hand on television that shopping smart at the grocery store saves money.

The teams had to get in at the budget with only 15 minutes to shop. The Blue team had 5 people for $350; Red had 4 people/$280; but Danni is the only person on the White team, so she had $70. The dynamic of buying in bulk would prove to be an advantage for multiple people (i.e., families in real life). The two multiple-contestant teams came really close to their budget. Danni actually fell way under at $61.31; if anything, she might have gone a little hungry.

"I'm shocked with how much I bought for $61. I have food for the whole week plus snacks. That's less than $10 a day," said Danni.

Yes, even at less than $9/day, one person would do just fine. Ask the average fast-food junkie who eats out twice a day, likely for about $10 just for two poorly sourced meals.

"I went into this challenge thinking, you know what, eating healthy is pretty expensive, it's pretty hard. But actually, I changed my mind about that," Michael said.

Let's hope the viewers agree with you.

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Turns out "The Biggest Loser" has a resident chef — Devin Alexander. She showed the contestants how to make a Southwest loaded sweet potato. Essentially, this was nachos minus the corn chips but with a healthier cooked sweet potato.

Alexander topped the sweet potato with red salsa, turkey, green salsa, and then topped with Greek yogurt, a "great substitute for sour cream."

This was a rather decent suggestion. Even using healthy salsa and low-fat turkey in a dish was helpful.

Alexander came back later in the show to help parents at a high school in Cleveland figure out a smart way to get protein for breakfast. She taught them how to make a breakfast pizza. Just so everyone was clear on the real reason Alexander was there, the segment became a in-show commercial for Jennie-O turkey products.

Alexander pumped up the turkey sausage and turkey bacon. This was bad enough, but one of the mothers was singing the praises of Jennie-O. The people normally on TV know they're doing a commercial; this mother should have been paid as if she was doing a commercial (more than scale, in other words).

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The teenagers on "The Biggest Loser" are supposed to be worried about screens. TV and video games are a great concern to obese teenagers, so screens are a problem. So how did the trainers interact with the teenagers this week? Screens.

The trainers talked with the kids via Skype. We found out that Lindsay is working out at a gymnastics center, perfect for her cheerleading dream. Biingo hadn't built on his baseball momentum.

The theme this week was having the kids work out via the Skype screen, so the trainers can see them move. The teenagers can't be on the ranch, so there is only so much the trainers can do.

The teens have seen the "junk" that should be thrown out; they could use a nutrition exercise as well as a visit from Alexander.

Lindsay's enthusiasm has been strong; her focus is on the cheerleading. Whatever you might think about cheerleading, she is driven. Biingo may be doing fewer video games, and his injured foot isn't helping him, but he needs to keep his baseball focus.

Still, those two kids have a focus. Sunny still goes on about fitting in the perfect prom dress. She doesn't have the physical focus of the other two teenagers.

Jillian had Sunny running in place during the Skype call. Dolvett had Lindsay doing pushups.

Overall, this was a very slow week for the teenagers.

Those on food stamps need to see role models of success

 

We talk a lot about food stamps and how vital they are to our society. But food stamps, SNAP — whatever we are calling them — are invisible. And we've made them even more invisible to make people feel better about getting the help they need.

The drawback of invisibility is that we don't have role models to tell us about what it's like and why having them is so important.

This is why one particular TV spot in the NoKidHungry.org campaign struck me as being poignant. You had people in the public eye telling stories about what it was like to be on food stamps and what that meant to them.

"Today I have cooking shows, but when I was a kid, my brothers and sisters and I needed food stamps to survive," says Food Network star Sandra Lee.

"Today I am a congressman, but as a young veteran, food stamps helped me feed my family," says Joe Baca (D-CA).

"Today, I play pro basketball. But as a kid, food stamps gave me the energy I needed to play ball and study," said WNBA star Ruth Riley. "Give hungry kids like me a chance to succeed."

Riley, Baca, and Lee all needed food stamps at some point in their lives. What makes their stories even more special is that they rose above needing food stamps to make something of their lives.

The cries from conservatives are that food stamps and welfare is a way to keep people down for multiple generations. While a small percentage falls into that trap, most people on food stamps use them temporarily until life gets better. Not all the stories are as vibrant as the three examples, but they are necessary proof to show that a helping hand does help.

At some point in 2013, the farm bill will be addressed and SNAP is covered. Food stamps in the discussion is about as invisible as those who use them. The more awareness that exists in society, the harder it will be to ignore changes in food stamps programs.

The poor are already invisible in our society as it is. The sympathy that some had for food stamps receipients was based on the poor economy. Now that the economy is doing much better, that level of sympathy is decreasing.

Temptation of the Week: Homemade buttermilk

Regular readers know that boring tasting foods, even if they're healthy, don't cut it for me. Zing makes my mouth sing.

So buttermilk is a taste that can't be resisted. Buying buttermilk is depressing. The store is usually out of the pint size and you don't need a much as a pint. And if you are buying a quart of buttermilk, you might as well buy a whole gallon of regular milk.

The old wives (spouses?) tale is that you take a cup of milk, add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, stir and wait 5 minutes and you have "buttermilk."

But is "buttermilk" as good as buttermilk?

If you want to add straight buttermilk as part of your diet and drink it as is, the idea of mixing milk and lemon juice don't sound appetizing. Quite frankly, as much as the taste of buttermilk thrills me, buttermilk is best left to the cooking process.

The experiment was to create a buttermilk blue cheese dressing. Fat-free yogurt with blue cheese, spices, and a splash or two of buttermilk. The buttermilk taste in the dressing made a big difference.

No special trip to the grocery store. No additional cost. No extra ingredients to buy.

Seriously, if you have a household that doesn't have lemon juice or white vinegar, buy some and find uses for those ingredients.

The other depressing thing about buying buttermilk is that you have the leftover buttermilk and you struggle to figure out how to use the remaining supply. Besides, this article notes that "most commercial buttermilk is made by dairy processing plants injecting enzymes into low-fat milk." Milk and lemon juice/vinegar sound that much better.

If you already drink a lower fat milk (2%, 1%, skim), the good news is that low-fat milks are ideal to make homemade buttermilk because buttermilk, despite the name, is lower in fat than whole milk.

'Biggest Loser' teenagers more than soap opera props

Bob Harper tells us that Biingo should be "finding some sort of vegetable that he likes," but if he could get Biingo to move around, "I will take that over the food (vegetables) any day."

And you wonder why losing weight can be really tricky, especially on television.

The three teenagers got more screen time this week, home visits by the trainers. And the show actually showed a kid in the second hour of the episode.

The home visits went much nicer because Dr. Joanna had come into their homes to throw out the junk food.

The unofficial theme this week was opposites. The adults are away from home but the kids are at home. They scream at the adults, and don't scream at the kids. Then again, the adults are losing weight but we have no idea whether the kids are making any progress.

Nobody wants the trainers to yell at the kids, but they can't just be mascots. They are definitely part of the soap opera.

Lindsay is bullied over cheerleading, so her surprise was being warmly embraced by the high school cheerleaders. Sunny is stressed over not having control of her life, so her surprise was trying rowing, a team sport that is also a good workout. Biingo is bullied over baseball, so his surprise was meeting a minor-league pitcher.

Biingo's stress came in part from his family being forced to sell their home. Living in a basement, though a nice basement, can be stressful. Sunny has stress from trying to fulfill family desires. Lindsay's stress isn't clear; the teasing came after she reached her current size.

Their parents are also rather large; we don't see Lindsay's father, but her sister is in good shape. Though interestingly, Biingo's mother said she lost 27 pounds. Lindsay's mom runs with her in the morning and her sister goes bike riding with her in the afternoon.

Biingo's mom points out one of their changes is eating out less, unfortunately the camera crew shows the family eating out.

Getting the kids to move around is the core goal of the trainers, even if they talk about exercise more than actually doing it on camera. Lindsay wants to be a cheerleader and Biingo a baseball player. Okay, Sunny needs a physical focus. But these kids, and the people they are supposed to be influencing, need to learn way more about eating better.

Barack Obama has 4 more years to improve U.S. food supply, but we need to help

Around Noon Eastern, we will have almost 4 more years of the Barack Obama Administration. We saw wonderful legislation signed in his first two years, only some of which is finally coming to fruition in 2013 (food safety improvements).

The nightmares of a parallel universe where Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan help decide about food safety, school lunch, and farm subsidies should finally ease up. We can bemoan that not much will get done until 2015 thanks to the Republican-led House, but we can reflect on Inauguration Day that we don't live in that parallel universe.

Obama's second term is a painful reminder that if progressives and food enthusiasts want change that will last, time is ticking away. A Democratic person could be elected president in 2016, but they may not be as enthusiastic about the cause, and certainly not have a First Lady (Spouse) as passionate as Michelle Obama.

As we've learned from the delayed Farm Bill, even those who identify as Dem aren't always onboard with changing, or as we put it, going back to Grandma's time. Seriously, those who are conservative should be on the same wavelength as progressives on the ills of our food supply. One of the issues is that many on the right – yes, the Tea Party folk, love corporations as much as they hate the government.

Liberals don't love government as much as conservatives think they do. Liberals want taxes to be collected responsibly to do things for society that private society can't/won't accomplish on its own. And to get out of the way in areas where government ruins things (subsidizing corn, giving farm subsidies to rich people without farms).

Conservatives, rather Tea Party people, don't like government, unless it is the business of killing people who aren't from here. They whine about the debt, so they could be on board with reductions in subsidies for corn and no more farm subsidies for rich people. They may not be happy with increases for school lunch programs or rising food prices, even if U.S. food is the cheapest per capita of developed nations.

The odd disconnect is their love for corporations, as if they are rooting for companies to be deceptive in their labels and to make food as cheap as possible, ingredients be damned. Conservatives are by nature old-school, except on food. They appreciate traditions and traditional means of food, along with progressives, but the results don't match up in the pantries and on the dinner tables.

As much as we would love the federal government to do more about the food supply, not much will get done for 2 more years. If the stars align, the Dems grab back the House and scramble to hang on to the Senate in 2014, Obama and his people have 2 more years to build on 2009-2011. And they will have a lot on their plate, as it were – gun violence, climate change, immigration – so food can easily be lost in the shuffle.

Let's be honest; even if all of that happens, Obama isn't lightning on getting things done. In other words, holding our breath until the Dems take back the House of Representatives will result in lots of unnecessary oxygen losses.

Grassroots, or literally grass grassroots, may be the way to convince those who don't trust progressives too much that food is really important to the growth and improvement of our society. Everything doesn't have to be organic or cooked in foam to make a difference. Changes can be simple, inexpensive, and worthwhile to even the most hardened people.

Progressives waited for years for help from Washington. 2009-2011 showed more improvement from the nation's capital than any 2 years in recent memory. But change can't come just from Washington; if people stand up for a better food supply, there are many in Washington who will help. They can't and won't do it alone; they need your help.

Some other famous president said at his inauguration: “As k not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country.” You have 4 more years, starting today.

Temptation of the Week: Craving olives

Olives have been a food that I neither praise nor criticize. They are fine, enjoy them on pizzas and at parties, but mostly love them for their oil and not much more.

Lately, olives have been calling out and my stomach and taste buds have enthusiastically responded.

Black olives, green olives, kalamata olives … all are on my palate. And no, I'm not pregnant.

I've been mixing olives with my spaghetti and mushrooms. The spaghetti hosts a number of occasional ingredients depending on my mood, including green peppers, sausage, pancetta, and shallots.

Cravings are also about the basic elements of taste: sweet, sour, salt, etc. In craving olives, I'm likely craving salt. As much as I don't salt foods, I do like using salty foods (anchovies, olives).

Who knows how long this olive phase will last. Until then, I am going with the flow.

If you find a craving suddenly coming into your life, enjoy the moment. Embrace the "new" food in your life. Find fun ways to get that food more involved in your world.

The balance of food usually focuses on the extremes; the really healthy food and poutine. The reality of food involves the in-between foods, ones that will not cure us or kill us. Those foods that add color, flavor, and fun are as valuable to the food eating process as the more prominent choices and avoidances.

Cravings don't usually last forever. They give us a chance to rediscover a potentially lost food item. We have so many foods to choose from that jewels get lost in the food shuffle, especially when the hype over some foods cries louder than the rest.

Embrace the cravings, even if they are of the extreme. Got a hunkering for kale? Go for it? Suddenly has a taste for corn chips? The party is yours. Olive your cravings.

'The Biggest Loser' finally focuses on nutrition ... for 7 minutes

"Nutrition is half the battle." — Bob Harper, "The Biggest Loser" January 14, 2013

Maybe The Biggest Loser locked Bob in a room for 4½ hours with video games and junk food for telling the truth. Though Harper didn't say that to an adult contestant. He was talking to Biingo, one of the three teenagers, through the television, a rather ironic move.

If nutrition is half the battle, then why does "The Biggest Loser" and other diet TV shows spend so little time on nutrition?

The show has been running in 2-hour segments; factor in 45 minutes of actual programming in each hour. The childhood obesity segment ran 7:18 out of 90 minutes in one episode, 1:04 of that was explaining the segment.

Bob was giving the heads up to Biingo and the TV audience that the three teenagers were getting visits from Dr. Joanna.

Dr. Joanna (Dolgoff) is a pediatrician and child obesity specialist. At least on television, this doctor makes house calls.

Dr. Joanna told the viewing audience that she wanted to "talk to them about what they are eating and what they should be eating." By TBL standards, this was pretty radical. Actual conversation about food!!

We saw Biingo reflect out loud on the idea of nutrition. "I've never really thought about nutrition or my diet before, but I probably don't have the best eating habits." The visual, as he is telling us about his lack of nutrition knowledge, is him eating ice cream, Doritos, squeezable grape jelly on toast, and a chocolate snack roll. At least we know what Biingo shouldn't be eating.

Biingo tells us and Dr. Joanna that he spends 9 hours on a weekend day playing video games and 5 hours during the day. His parents seem pretty calm about this fact. Dr. Joanna focuses on Biingo eating while playing, pointing out that mindless eating means 25% more calories.

Dr. Joanna comes across overall as warm and child-friendly, but she seemed like she was reading off cue cards when reciting some of those stats to Biingo and his very laid-back parents.

Sunny's problem was reduced quickly to excess carbs. Sunny pointed out that she has been a vegetarian all her life. Dr. Joanna pointed out that some vegetarians become "carb-a-tarians" because "they are turning mostly to carbohydrates." Sunny points out that her family eats a lot of rice because of her (South Asian) heritage.

Dr. Joanna recommends switching out to brown rice from white rice and whole wheat bread from white bread "so you'll feel more full and eat fewer calories." Great advice overall. Sunny's problems don't seem to stem from white rice because we've seen her snack on junk food at stressful situations. Still this is the first information on what to eat, so we have to be impressed.

Poor Lindsay's face always looks like she is about to receive bad news. In this case, her face summed it up: Dr. Joanna tells Lindsay and her sister and mother than she has pre diabetes and that children in her situation will get diabetes in 2 years unless changes are made.

We don't hear her score or understand what the range is or any other explanation other than "we'll get through it. Makes our faces look as worried as Lindsay's.

Then we get to the real reason why Dr. Joanna is making house calls: throwing out processed junk foods into trash bags.

If this tactic sounds familiar, then you suffered along with Jillian Michaels' solo tour of yelling at people in their own homes.

Dr. Joanna is way more polite than Michaels ever was as she and the others throw away cookies, candy, and regular soda poured down the sink. She tells Sunny that you can have chocolate outside the house, but don't keep that in the house. Theoretically, you have to move to get outside to get the chocolate where if you are in the house, you can move a short distance in your slippers.

Once the "bad" food is thrown out, Dr. Joanna tells Lindsay and her family that they can replace the old food with "whole grains, lean protein, reduced fat dairy products, and fruits and vegetables."

That was the second and final mention of what to eat. The only way the adult contestants can find that out if to watch the show like we do.

As for those adult contestants, they participated in a quiz on childhood obesity statistics from the CDC. Alison Sweeney clearly has no future career as a game show host. The questions were portrayed as "trivia" when the questions were geared about having the teams make guesses on CDC statistics. The questions were designed to open the doors to guessing, not actual knowledge. And the teams did pretty badly. The losing team had to spend 4½ hours in a room with video games and junk food for a week.

The statistics were definite eye-openers to the contestants and the TV audience. Can't say I got that all correct either, but I was guessing as much as they were on TV.

Harper is ultimately correct that nutrition is half the battle. Yet these reality TV shows are afraid to show real nutrition information. The American public, which watches these shows on their collective asses on couches, needs more nutrition information ironically through television.

We doubted the sincerity of "The Biggest Loser" to help teenagers with their obesity, and we still have our concerns. But if having the teenagers on the show means we can get 7 minutes 18 seconds of sort of nutritional information, then progress has been made. But like a 302-pound person who only loses 2 pounds in a week, we have a long way to go.

Dr. Pepper/Snapple adds more 10-calorie soft drinks; ads still as bad as the product

When Dr. Pepper launched a 10-calorie soft drink, we blasted the drink itself, but also the advertising touch where the drink was "for men only."

Good news and bad news: the company is spreading the 10-calorie concept to 7-Up, Sunkist, Canada Dry, RC Cola, and A&W Root Beer. The better news is that the advertising won't be as gender-insulting.

10-calorie soft drinks are designed to be neutral, though a difference of 9 calories makes you a diet drink, just one with high-fructose corn syrup. If you like the taste of artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, ace K), then why would you need to drink 9 more calories? And if you don't like the taste of artificial sweeteners, you wouldn't touch these faux diet drinks anyway.

The 10-calorie soft drinks are like when your family can't decide where to go eat out, and someone suggests Olive Garden as a compromise. Then you realize the Olive Garden suggestion has united everyone into saying that pick is a horrible idea.

That lame compromise theme exudes through the new advertising.

-- sitting in a pick-up truck that is hot pink
-- watching a cooking TV show that is interrupted by a football player barging through the set
-- drinking champagne by the fireplace while grilling a giant T-bone steak
-- a barking cat.

The neanderthal ads for Dr. Pepper 10 took us back to an era where newspaper classified job ads were divided by gender. But that era did exist.

These ads paint the genders in odd stereotypes that never did exist. Women who buy pickup trucks (or cars) aren't buying them in hot pink. Neither gender wants a cooking show invaded by a football player. If you eat meat, regardless of gender, why not have a glass of champagne while you're grilling?

Somehow, the barking cat is the only example that fits what the company is trying to do, and that is least gender-offensive idea yet.

In 2013, we live in a society where men and women are more confident to show elements of their personality that aren't confined to a narrow gender definition. Metrosexual men and women who know how to fix things are growing closer to the norm. if nothing else, these are the examples that might sell some ill-concept diet soft drinks.

Even if the ads were good, they wouldn't make up for a bad product. Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. is confused about the ads and the product (finally, some consistency).

Dr. Pepper poured a lot of advertising and goodwill in telling consumers that the diet version tasted like regular Dr. Pepper. 10-calorie diet drinks taste like < 1-calorie diet drinks, but they don't taste like regular soft drinks.

In that restaurant analogy, you would rather go to a place you didn't want that someone wants than go someplace that nobody wants. Soft drink companies would be better off trying to encourage anyone to drink whatever they want to drink, regardless of gender.

photo credit: Dr. Pepper/Snapple

Colbert 'Thought for Food' trips out on wheat/crack addiction analogy

The first "Thought for Food" of 2013 compared wheat to crack and Stephen Colbert did his best to take the drug analogy in a trippy direction.

Dr. William Davis wrote a book called "Wheat Belly" on the "evils" of wheat. His interview on "CBS This Morning" was Colbert's inspiration.

Davis told Norah O'Donnell that genetics manipulations designed to produce more wheat per acre had unintended consequences of being addictive.

Is wheat problematic? More than it was 50 years ago. Is it addictive? Uh, no.

The onscreen graphic from the Davis interview notes that 2 slices of wheat bread = 6 tsp. sugar. Most wheat and white sandwich bread has high-fructose corn syrup. Even those that don't have HFCS contain sugar. If you're concerned about sugar in wheat bread, start by eliminating the added sugars.

Colbert took the drug analogy in a trippy direction. Using bread and wheat wording with drug terms proved comedic ("white bread pony"). But like any other addiction, too much can have its own unintended consequences.

Colbert introduced McGnaw the Beaver, who came out in his "Defeat the Wheat" T-shirt and told kids to not eat wheat. McGnaw recommended kids should eat fruits, vegetables, and wood.

Colbert said kids shouldn't be eating wood, that wood wasn't good for them. Of course, beavers eat wood (but not fruits and vegetables).

The less-processed, more whole-grain bread you eat, the less "addictive" your need for carbohydrates are. Extra fiber makes you full longer; the "white bread pony" encourages more white bread. And just because people eat a lot of something doesn't make it addictive.

When I was told to cut back on spaghetti, something I dearly love, I didn't want to give up spaghetti, even if that meant smaller portions. In the last 8 years plus, I have survived just fine on smaller portions of whole wheat spaghetti. I fill my plate with mushrooms and other foods to keep myself full.

Telling people that eliminating wheat solves their weight problems is simplistic and part of the reason why people don't trust diet information. If you're sensitive to gluten, you should consider alternatives. If not, eat wheat, but good sources and in moderation.

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Colbert also poked fun at the Hapi Fork, debuting at the Consumer Electronic Show at Las Vegas. He appropriately made fun of this silly product, which is designed to vibrate if you are eating too fast.

"Americans already have something that makes your hand tremble so we stop eating. It's called a stroke," said Colbert. "What is the point of consumer technology that keeps you from consuming?"

Colbert invented the "self-loathing food sluice" that is a "combination funnel and high-capacity grinder that delivers a constant stream of nutrient to your gorge."

Both the anti-wheat doctor and the mechanical fork are simplistic "solutions" that aren't helpful and distract people from taking real steps to make progress. Sometimes, having a master media exposurer such as Colbert is the way to drive that point hard. That is truly "Thought for Food."

Temptation of the Week: White vinegar as a condiment

I remember the first time I ever saw the clear liquid in a Canadian restaurant. I recognized the brown liquid next to it: malt vinegar.

I had just ordered the most awesome fish and chips I've ever had at a place in downtown Victoria, BC. "Oh, that's the white vinegar."

White vinegar? You cook with that, right? Makes a great cleaner. But to use as a condiment?

I ignored the clear white vinegar that day and enjoyed the familiar malt vinegar.

In my Canadian travels, I would see the brown and white vinegars side-by-side or often times, just the malt vinegar. I occasionally got packets from fast food places with the regular vinegar and ignored them.

In my last trip to Canada in November, I pulled into my favorite diner just west of downtown and ordered the fish and chips. I had never ordered the fish and chips until that day, and figured that being in Canada, I didn't have to even think about the malt vinegar.

The plate of fish and chips was now in front of me. Everything smelled good. I asked for the malt vinegar, and she told me that the regular vinegar was all they had.

I couldn't change my mind; the food was already there. And this was a place I liked, so getting upset wasn't in the cards.

I hoped that vinegar was vinegar.

I tend to like a lot of malt vinegar on fried fish since I usually eat fish fried because it tastes less like fish. I kept within that spirit and used a lot of the white vinegar.

I was getting the zing of vinegar but not the taste. The fact that the fish was broasted helped. Really good fish, and I could tell that because that was the taste in my mouth.

I kept putting more vinegar on the fish, but I do that with malt vinegar.

Overall, white vinegar did well enough in a pinch. I had no desire to put that on my fries, and the meal would have suffered with inferior fish. I need zing and flavor.

I use apple cider vinegar when making salad dressing, but can see where others would use white wine vinegar if they didn't want the apple taste. I use malt vinegar whenever I can because I like the taste the condiment brings to food.

There is room on the table for vinegars of all kids. Many foodies worship balsamic vinegar, but I usually find that overpowering and distracting away from the other flavors of the dish.

As I have noted before, I detest bland flavors and I feared that white wine vinegar would ruin a dish. Ruin, no, but regular vinegar doesn't bring enough to most dishes.