Balance of Food

Fine tuning Balance of Food in 2013

Bienvenue and Welcome to 2013. Once the hangover has subsidized, you have more than 1,000 meals coming this year.

The turn of the calendar allows for change, and we are going to tweak things here at BalanceofFood.com. The key word for 2013 is flexibility.

First of all, we are going to celebrate with more Temptation of the Week segments. The response has been quite positive, and I enjoy doing the segment. We only get 52 weeks per year, but we will run more segments in 2013. The resolution is to get to the Friday after Thanksgiving without stopping the feature; we'll see whether we keep that resolution.

The only major change this year is that the Tuesday column will run in fewer weeks, or sometimes might be a Wednesday column. Some weeks will demand a Tuesday column; other weeks will require more entries, but smaller in length. Essentially the Tuesday column will run on Tuesdays, except when it won't.

We may be covering more in the reality food TV world, returning temporarily to an old favorite (details coming tomorrow). We are hoping for a return from Jamie Oliver, preferably somewhere suffering more than Los Angeles, though we haven't heard a thing.

With another four years of Barack and Michelle Obama, we are anxious to see what comes of food politics in 2013, including the Farm Bill. Not looking forward to a potential $10 gallon of milk, though reportedly that will be postponed for a year.

The one consistency will be Temptation of the Week. The rest will flow based on what is happening in the world of food. Keep informed with the Twitter feed as a way to tune in; sometimes what we have to say about the world of food can be said in 140 characters or less.

We also hope for more comments to what we are doing well or not so good. We want these stories to be the start of the conversation, not a one-sided dialogue. Feel free to let us know in the comments section whenever possible.

Thanks and Happy New Year!!!

Richmond, BC gets PR blogger in Lindsay Anderson, but little else

I want to hate Lindsay Anderson.

She is probably a very nice person, but I'm tempted to hate her because she got the coveted role of blogging 365 days a year on the dining scene in Richmond, BC, just south of Vancouver.

I had applied for this position and never heard back. I blog about food and Canada (not always together but usually separately), so I figured an interview was entirely possible. True, Anderson has quite a background.

She also worked as a cheese-monger and baker, and volunteered on several Italian farms where she herded goats, made cheese, harvested olives, and helped plant a vineyard. In 2010, She moved to Italy for a year to earn a master's degree in Food Culture and Communications from the University of Gastronomic Sciences.

They could use a proofreader as "She" should not be capitalized after "2010."

You can't blame me for trying. I wanted to blog about food in Richmond for 365 days, get paid $50,000, and have a free gym membership. I want to live in the Vancouver area.

Did Richmond make the right choice? Well, Anderson takes a lot of pictures so we don't get too many words from her. Regular readers know I am better with words than pictures. Anderson features a few pictures of herself, whereas my pictures would possibly frighten small children. She likes virtually everything, something that I wouldn't have been able to pull off. I respect the right to be truly honest if I don't like something. Perhaps Anderson really likes most everything, but it can be off-putting in the way food TV "loves" everything with equal abandon.

A few of her readers believe she spends too much time in Steveston. You should be aware of these things if you are going to spread yourself throughout a city.

Anderson seemed really proud about making it to 100 days; the post was the first I had heard that someone was indeed blogging for Richmond. I could do 100 days standing on my head; I wouldn't be treating that like it was a marathon.

One new perk not mentioned in the deal was getting to stay in fancy hotels in Richmond. Even though an apartment is part of the deal, a few nights in really nice hotels would have been extra special nice.

Anderson does get to go to a lot of Asian places, an area where I don't have that much experience. I would have offered a fresh perspective.

The ad made it seem like the city was looking for that fresh perspective. However, Anderson is from the area; she has eaten in some of these places before she took the job in June.

Richmond, BC wanted someone to give them publicity about its dining scene, and Anderson does a reasonably good job of doing just that. The challenge of a honest outside blogger giving a perspective on a city's dining scene would draw quite an audience. I would prefer that be in Canada. I will take whatever perks you think would help get the job done. With some notice, I can start really soon. Just send me an e-mail.

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We could borrow a few good ideas from French gastronomic meals

In the time it would take to fix a gastronomic meal in France, the average American could fix and eat 6-7 meals. In the time it would take to eat a gastronomic meal in France, the average American could squeeze in watching two average American films.

Now the French don't eat every meal in such a fashion. One of my first meals in Paris was at a sandwich place where you leaned against tables while eating a baguette avec jambon et beurre et fromage. (What they do with ham and butter and cheese is simple yet amazing.) I saw many people dining in the Jardin du Luxembourg at lunchtime, and they didn't take 3 hours. Some of the young people even had McDonald's.

What was nice about the gastronomic meal, based on the lecture I saw on the topic, was that everyone is involved in the preparation of the meal. If you are a guest, you help. If you are a child, you help. Everyone is involved, socially and work-wise.

The French gastronomic meal is about food, and the care and preparation is meticulous. One example from the lecture was a main course where the preparation of the main course started 3 days before the meal. Aperitif, hors d'ouevres, fish course, meat course, cheese course, main dish, dessert, coffee: that is probably not a complete list.

The French gastronomic meal is also about friends, family, and conversation. Topics that might upset digestion are left for a different time, ideally away from food, but particularly at a meal such as this. The gastronomic meal is a feast of food, friends, family, and fun.

Americans eat in their car, on the run, on the train and bus, while dealing with their spouse or kids, in front of the computer, the TV, the smart phone, at their desk, in front of the computer at their desk.

The idea of taking an entire day and preparing such a meal feels foreign. Yes, Thanksgiving is a North American holiday, and don't we have that tradition on Thanksgiving? Besides the fact that it's a once-a-year meal, the courses are all designed to be served at once. Not everyone helps out, if we're being honest. Other than the standard turkey, the preparation isn't as elaborate. And we don't sit around the Thanksgiving table for 3 hours. Football needs to be watched, dishes need to be soaked, people need to nap so they can be awake for the stores to be open at midnight for Christmas shopping.

This isn't to say that Americans should eat like the French. I noted in a follow-up question that a lot of the food in the gastronomic meal has to be served cold or near cold for the concept to work well. (Can't imagine too many microwaves in the French countryside.) This wouldn't be acceptable to a lot of Americans.

But we can borrow some concepts. Invite friends over and have them help in the kitche while the conversation flows. You can make individual pizzas and have each guest put just what they want on the pizza, or set up a taco bar and spend the time with multiple sous chefs.

Come up with cold or room temperature dishes to stretch out a meal to an hour. If/when the weather is warm, make a simple meal and lay out a blanket and enjoy a meal outdoors.

We know most days you will eat like you do with some electronic entertainment. Every so often, break the mold and try something different. Then you can truly say "Bon Appetit."

Temptation of the Week: AYCE at MLB ballparks

Those who obsess about calorie counting likely recoil at the idea of eating 2,200 calories in a day when they really wanted to eat 1,900 calories.

Eating 7,800 calories in one setting — almost 4 days worth of food for an average male — might cause a calorie counter to faint at the thought.

The case study, that's one way to put it, came from a story in The Washington Post a while back on MLB ballparks All You Can Eat offers.

Case in point: Before the first pitch at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore last week, Mark Mirchandani casually announced that he already had gobbled three Esskay dogs. Nearly three hours later, when the Orioles had finished off the Toronto Blue Jays, 2-1, Mirchandani said he had polished off 10 franks — not to mention two orders of nachos, two servings of peanuts, five tiny cups of ice cream, one soda and, apparently to restore order to his battered digestive system, a small container of salad. He had his reasons for the binge, which, incidentally, totaled approximately 7,800 calories, or about three times what the average male needs a day.

This isn't an admonishment or an endorsement of what he did; this is much more about why he ate so much, and what it says about the financial value we place on food.

This gentleman paid $35 to take in this feast in Baltimore. In Maryland's largest city, you could get a nice fresh seafood dinner for $35. Let's say you order a pound of crab legs, a side of fries, a bread basket, soup or salad, and maybe dessert. Most people would enjoy that meal, even if it didn't have as much "value."

We view food value in terms of quantity for money; the more food you can eat, the more value you get. Once you reach equal value, especially at ballpark prices, anything over that becomes free food.

If you don't sit in an AYCE area, you wouldn't order as much food as he did because you would have to pay for it. $35 at a MLB ballpark would likely buy you 5 hot dogs ($17.50), 1 order of nachos ($5.50), 1 bag of peanuts ($4), 1 small helmet full of ice cream ($4), and 1 soda ($4). The free food becomes the other 5 hot dogs, 1 order of nachos, 1 serving of peanuts, a small helmet of ice cream, and the small container of salad — slightly more than half of the food he ate.

The ballpark food bought at face value is almost 4,000 calories — about twice as much as the average male should consume. However, if the goal is calories for the buck, the ballpark dinner beats out the nice crab dinner.

The guy in Baltimore got 2.23 calories per penny. As food-wise bargains go, that would be hard to top.

If you are as young a person as this guy is (25) and you regularly consume 2,600 calories per day, you are still eating 3 days worth of food in one meal. If only we were bears, that would be awesome.

As for the curmudgeon to The Washington Post food chat, you are correct. "If I want to eat 8000 unhealthy calories at a baseball game its (sic) my business."

You might want to know that you are eating 8,000 calories. You might even be impressed with that. You should have an idea about how many calories you would require, as a point of comparison. This isn't anybody telling me what to do/not do. Just letting you know what you are doing to yourself.

My one ballpark meal in Baltimore was a crab sandwich from Ethel & Ramone's at the outdoor market ($9) that I brought into the stadium, a Boog Powell barbecue sandwich ($9), and tap water. Calorie total? Have not a clue. Cost? Slightly more than half of the $35 pigout. Value? Well, not as many calories per penny as the guy did in Baltimore, but the crab sandwich was amazing. Boog Powell knows what he is doing with barbecue. Paying $35 for food at Oriole Park without a Boog Powell barbecue sandwich? Not my definition of value.

Miracle Whip goes back to using high-fructose corn syrup

Kraft got a lot of good publicity when it switched several of its major brands from high-fructose corn syrup to sugar. Though Oreos weren't on that list, the most prominent name for me was Miracle Whip. I had been eating Miracle Whip from Canada to fulfill my needs, since the Canadian version contains sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup.

Toward the end of using the Canadian Miracle Whip, I discovered it was using glucose-fructose, which we know now is high-fructose corn syrup.

Miracle Whip made the change in the fall of 2009. Now, high-fructose corn syrup is back in Miracle Whip.

The current Miracle Whip ingredient list has both high-fructose corn syrup and sugar, an unfortunately growing trend in food products. We see now that in Canada that soft drinks are using the Canadian version of that long-hated phrase "high-fructose corn syrup and/or sugar." At least, Miracle Whip is being honest.

But now this once lauded childhood product is now back to being off-limits. In a world where good press comes from getting rid of high-fructose corn syrup, Miracle Whip has sneaked high-fructose corn syrup back into its ingredients list.

As for Ray Turner, no, it isn't your imagination. While there may be several reasons why Miracle Whip never replied, one good reason is that Miracle Whip isn't going to admit it deliberately went back to putting high-fructose corn syrup in its product.

When Miracle Whip announced its return to its original formula, we saw a major PR blitz. Where was the PR blitz to announce Miracle Whip changed back to high-fructose corn syrup?

Miracle Whip changed the formula to high-fructose corn syrup some time ago without much fanfare. Funny how you never see the front of a food product market the fact that it now contains high-fructose corn syrup.

After an eventual backlash, the company switched to sugar and made sure you knew about it. Of course, Miracle Whip went back and didn't have the guts to openly admit that decision.

Even if Miracle Whip somehow comes out and makes a switch back to sugar, consumers across the United States will find themselves looking at the ingredients list every single time we buy the product. That might appeal to food nerds, but the average consumer will just buy something else.

Paula Deen brings nothing to the table on Type 2 diabetes

"I wanted to bring something to the table when I came forward."

After three years of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, Paula Deen wants to bring something to the table. Still waiting …

Paula Deen was on Jay Leno recently and made a cheeseburger meatloaf (not to be confused with her bacon cheeseburger meatloaf). The other guest was Jonah Hill (nominated this morning for an Oscar), who just lost a bunch of weight. When Deen offered Hill some of the cheeseburger meatloaf, he recoiled and wasn't about to try any of it.

Hill had the look of someone who understood what was going on. Deen doesn't quite get it.

Paula Deen is proving to us that food is a powerful drug.

Television is a powerful drug, too. We tend to think that because Paula Deen is on television, she has all the right answers. She doesn't.

We did say last week that she shouldn't be met with scorn. Paula Deen has proven to be all too human, and even though she has had three years to deal with the diagnosis, she struggles to make significant changes. In that way, she is like a lot of us.

Her new Web site has information and recipes designed to get you to rethink the food process. If you offer that Deen wasn't a role model during his cooking show TV career, she won't be a role model now.

A defeatist attitude to being on meds. Slight changes to diet and a little more exercise. All of this after 3 years with the disease. Deen has brought so little to the table that a paper napkin folded in half could cover it all.

The first recipe on her site is an adapted lasagna dish. Better than cheeseburger meatloaf, but not by much.

Kudos to using no-salt versions of tomatoes and nice to mention whole wheat noodles for the lasgana. The alternative is "reduced-carbohydrate lasgana noodles," which isn't that big of a step.

On the flip side, the recipe has 7 different kinds of cheese, though 5 of the 7 call for fat-free or low-fat versions (parmesan is naturally low in fat and Gruyere is the other one). The cheese content is 6 cups and 3 tablespoons. And we have a ¼ teaspoon of Paula Deen's Seasoned Salt and a ¹⁄₃ teaspoon of salt in the ½ teaspoon of Paula Deen's House Seasoning. In just the seasoning, we have 1,342 mg of sodium; this doesn't count the salt in the cheese.

If this is what Paula Deen is bringing to the table, we'll have what Jonah Hill isn't having.

"I'm here today to let the world know that it is not a death sentence," Deen said in her initial announcement. Type 2 diabetes is not a death sentence. If left untreated or undertreated, the disease can lead to a miserable life and eventually death. However, a big giant however, people with the disease can turn themselves around, eat well, and do better with the disease.

Small changes are a start. Deen recognized that Southern sweet tea was an issue, and cut back. A small change. One idea that Paula Deen should consider is not just adapting what she has done in the past.

On her son's "Not My Mama's Meals" show, Bobby Deen is talking to his mother to get her take on his modifications to her dishes. He baked a small apple pie instead of deep-frying it and used whole wheat flour. Paula Deen said it was good, but noted it would go perfectly with sugar-free ice cream.

I cringed as I heard her say the words "sugar-free ice cream." The calorie-reduction in sugar-free ice creams isn't that much, and the impact of sugar alcohols have its own price. A smaller portion of the real thing is a better option for most people, and tastes better, too.

You can have the apple pie with a small amount of ice cream. You can try to have the apple pie without the ice cream. Yes, just apple pie. Or if you want a cool treat, try sorbet.

The truth is when you get shocking health news, your instinct is to panic or think you can't do anything. We're human; these things happen. After a while, you learn that you can make adjustments to better find your balance of food.

Even after three years, Paula Deen is struggling to find her balance of food, and she may never find it. In that sense, Deen is a role model, as many others have similar struggles. The difference is that they aren't on TV and they don't have the pressure of being a role model.

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Georgia childhood obesity campaign should be more positive for everyone

An adult such as Paula Deen getting Type 2 diabetes is tragic enough, but people usually factor in that adults have more control over the factors that led to the disease. The often quoted figure that 1 in 3 children born in 2000 will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes is sadder when you consider that children don't have as much control over their risk factors

Even if fat children don't get Type 2 diabetes, they are still stigimized in ways that make it more difficult to eat better and get healthier.

Even if you weren't a fat kid growing up, you felt sorry for the fat kids. The taunting, teasing, and abuse. Children get teased all the time, but it never seem as bad as the abuse of the fat kids.

Being a fat kid these days is easier and tougher at the same time. Easier because the Internet can give you hope and allow you to be a kid who isn't judged on size, and you are not alone these days. Tougher because kids can take pictures of you with cellphone cameras and post pictures on that same Internet.

The kids in the PSA campaign in Georgia (home state of Paula Deen) to get kids to lose weight get the added stigma of being identified in videos and pictures as "the fat kid."

One young girl is concerned because she has hypertension. Another girl doesn't want to go to school because kids make fun of her.

We are anxious for the future generation, wanting them to be in better shape. Even as we list the numerous reasons for why our children are fatter than ever before — school lunches, video games, parental lack of knowledge, fast food advertising, lack of recess, too many organized sports — as a society, we tend to blame people who are fat, especially children.

The ad campaign notes that 75% of parents of overweight kids ignore the problem. In one of the videos, a young boy asks his mother why he is fat. One look at her gives you a good idea. 

The campaign identifies children that are fat, and leads you to a Web site with more details. The Web site has some pretty good tips. Though, the tips are fairly mild, as in "your child is a little overweight and here are some good points." The kids in the campaign are not just a little overweight.

You likely have seen kids who weigh more than these children, but the kids that was selected are in a normal range of fat.

Identifying the problem is easy, once you get parents to recognize that a problem needs to be identified. The hard part is instituting change. These fat kids in the campaign made an extreme sacrifice. They have to go back to their lives and be the fat kids in real life, too. They have the added stigma of being a fat kid in videos and still pictures on how not to be.

Getting kids to eat better and get more exercise is a worthy goal, regardless of what weight your kids might be. The goal of the campaign is to stop childhood obesity. The goal should have been for all kids to be more involved in their health.

The girl in the video wonders what hypertension is; we would be better off if she learned that word while doing a report on health than hearing it from a doctor.

Temptation of the Week: Nutrition swaps

Swapping has an image of couples from the 1970s with lots of polyester, bowls full of keys, and lava lamps. A different kind of swapping — a bit more wholesome — involves substituting ingredients where you get a more nutritious option without sacrificing too much in return.

Nutritional swaps are seen as "good for you," but for them to work, they need to be as invisible as they can to get you to try them seamlessly.

A classic casual swap is using natural applesauce instead of oil in a recipe, or sauteing vegetables with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter.

The newer versions are healthier, but still provide you with comparable quality, consistency, and taste.

Some people can handle more significant swaps, and you should definitely do as much as you can up to your comfort level, and maybe 5% beyond.

Dawn Jackson Blatner came out with a list of 12 nutrition swaps for 2012 (clever). Full disclosure: I know Blatner. Then again, I'm not praising all of her selections.

Swap 1: Breadcrumbs To Seeds
Swap 2: Brown Rice to Cauliflower Rice
Swap 3: Spaghetti Noodles To Zucchini Ribbons
Swap 4: Romaine To Kale
Swap 5: Chicken To Beans
Swap 6: Lasagna Noodles To Eggplant Slices
Swap 7: Pretzels To Nuts
Swap 8: Whole Grain Bread To Sprouted Whole Grain Bread
Swap 9: Whipped Topping To 2 Percent Greek Yogurt
Swap 10: Oil To Nut/Seed Butter (For Salad Dressing)
Swap 11: High-Fiber Cold Cereal To Oatmeal
Swap 12: Butter To Avocado

Swaps 2, 3, and 6 fall into the "let's take out pasta and put in vegetables and pretend it's pasta." Dietitians swear by this, Blatner included, and the idea is confusing. People do need some carbohydrates, and lots of vegetables. They're not the same, and pretending that they are defeats the purpose of swapping. Mixing cauliflower into brown rice is a great way to get the fiber from the vegetable without it making an impact. Same with zucchini in your spaghetti; just make it whole grain. The eggplant as lasagna is a better idea, only because you are dealing in layers of flavors: easier to hide a layer of eggplant.

Swaps 4, 8, and 11 take things that most Americans aren't doing in their diet, and going an extra step or two beyond. If you aren't at romaine, whole grain bread, and high fiber cold cereal, you have a lot of company. Get there and you are better off than most people, and you should be proud of where you are.

Swaps 1, 7, 9, and 12 are very reasonable and subtle enough to work. In cooking tuna, you already want to use sesame seeds. The "bread" in breadcrumbs isn't significant, and you can add flavor in a good way going the seeds route. Pretzels are a good sub for potato chips, but nuts give you a crunch with much better health. If you are at potato chips level, move up to pretzels. Then when you're ready, go nuts for nuts. Greek yogurt is a great sub for sour cream and other dairy products. Blatner notes that you aren't saving calories (at 2% fat), but getting better nutrition. Though sight is one of the 5 senses, if you close your eyes and eat a cookie and can't tell the difference, the cookie is okay with me. If nothing else, save it for Christmas time.

Swap 5 is well beyond a swap. Going from meat to beans is a swap in chili, but in most dishes, swap is a radical understatement. The more beans you can eat, the better off you will be, no matter how you do it. Swap 10 only works if you are making a specific dressing. If swap 10 feels foreign, use less oil and more vinegar. The experts use a 3:1 ratio; tweaking it a bit makes no negative impact while reducing fat and calories.

Blatner is a dietitian (and my friend) and her job is to challenge you to eat better. You might be brave enough to try some of her more extensive changes. Just don't be scared by them if you aren't ready for them. Nutritional swaps don't have to be radical to be effective. They just have to work.

'Simpsons' expose pretentious eating and obsessive food blogs

Food isn't what Homer Simpson puts in his mouth, but some of what we saw in "The Food Wife" episode of "The Simpsons" didn't seem like food.

The Simpsons clan took on foodies as Marge accidentally stumbles upon an Ethiopian restaurant. This from a woman who was once confused by oregano.

Of course, Marge is mortified by the idea of trying Ethiopian food, yet once she tries it, Marge is onboard. Bart and Lisa are also along for the ride, forming a food blog called the "Three Mouthkeeters."

Homer is not onboard, drawing from either the 4 Krusty Burgers outside their window or "La Fridge" open 24 hours a day.

The fact that the writers compared a food science chemistry restaurant with a meth lab gives us an idea of what they think about the foodie obsession.

Pretentiousness doesn't mean food is good. We don't mind some pretentious and obsessive natures, but when they scare people into not trying to get beyond Homer-type obsession with donuts, well, they aren't helping.

Renowed TV chefs Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, and Gordon Ramsay lent their voices to the episode, giving it an authentic taste.

Gels, foams = not food. "Pine needle sorbet" = doesn't sound like food. Just because food is exotic doesn't mean it's more awesome; after all in Ethiopia, German food is exotic.

In case you missed the episode, and you want to see it again, you can check out the episode on Hulu.com. You may have to prove you have cable, or otherwise check back in about a week. Regardless of which side you are on this issue, the episode is worth watching.

Heinz tries Facebook to hype balsamic vinegar ketchup, but we'll wait without anticipation

Our excitement for ketchup surpasses the enthusiasm of the average foodie. Clearly, this is the behind the atypical motivation for Heinz's new ketchup flavor, made with balsamic vinegar.

Since our society doesn't think ketchup is exciting, Heinz is kicking up the social media angle and offering ketchup to its Facebook users … about a month before putting the ketchup on store shelves.

Instead of going to the store, you order your new ketchup online on Facebook and pay a shipping fee (a shipping fee — for ketchup, seriously).

Heinz has come off two wonderful marketing decisions: Simply Heinz, that features its traditional sweetener, sugar, instead of high-fructose corn syrup, and the new portable ketchup package. So we want to be encouraged by the new ketchup flavor, despite the hype and unusual marketing campaign.

All the hype and social media element could be wonderful, but if the balsamic version has high-fructose corn syrup, then it's a no-go.

Balsamic vinegar is a fascinating choice since regular ketchup is not a "foodie food" and balsamic vinegar definitely is a "foodie food." Mixing chocolate and peanut butter is normal compared to this combo.

The balsamic vinegar is pinch-hitting for the regular vinegar. One element to check for, besides the sweetener choice, is whether vinegar remains in 2nd in the ingredient list. As we've pointed out in the past, Heinz is unique among mainstream ketchups in having vinegar before sweetener in its formula.

Increasing the hype is Heinz's decision to have the new flavor be for a limited time. We'll see if that is true. Large companies such as Heinz don't move quickly, and a "limited time" flavor might not be worth trying if we really thought it would only be for a limited time. Heinz wants to make this work.

However, unless someone I know purchases it and lets me try it — put that probability at 0 — I won't even think about it until late December. Even then, I'll be reading the label to make sure it can work. And even after that, balsamic vinegar may not make me move from my regular ketchup, the Canadian version of Heinz, of which I hope to be reunited later this month.

photo credit: Heinz