Have a recipe you'd like to share with 50,000 readers a month?

Famous low-carb blogger and Examiner columnist Jamie van Eaton wants your recipes:

Instead of constantly trying to reinvent the low-carb cheese wheel, I am going to begin featuring the recipes of people nationally (that's you, adorable dollops of cooking wisdom). My kitchen can only take so much, and my children are having PTSD from the fear that everything I make contains cauliflower or oopsies.

So, if you have a recipe you'd like to share, shoot it my way. I'll gladly credit you for your brilliance and link to your site. With over 2 million readers alone in the last week at Examiner.com's site, your recipes will be noticed!

Contact me at cleochatra@gmail.com and let me know about what you have going on in the kitchen.

The fine print: Make sure you own the rights to the recipes you submit. I always give full credit for intellectual property, and recipes definitely fall under this heading. I do not in any way take your rights to your work, nor will I ever publish anything you have submitted without express consent to do so. If anything, cross-promotion will drive traffic to your site, and that is a bonus. Please ensure recipes are low-carb, and, when possible, include nutritional information and a picture of the recipe.

Details are at the bottom of this post.

Why I Read PastaQueen

This post hit home:

The worst thing about weight loss is that I created a more perfect version of myself. When I reached my lowest weight of 170 pounds and looked in the mirror, my reflection spun herself off into her own world of possibilities where she still exists today. No matter how much I weigh for the rest of my life, I will always know that on one day in November of 2007 I was that thin.

I was never a skinny child. I never had a thin version of me to compare myself too. I only had the morbidly obese Jennette who spun herself into her own world of possibilities, one that exists in a parallel dimension from the skinny version. When I was losing weight, I would compare my current body to the fatter version of me. I could hang out with this fatter friend of mine in my mind where she made me feel skinny in her shadow. Even at 230 pounds I was 140 pounds lighter than the fattest me.

This year I've been dealing with chronic pain, the stress of a book release, and a variety of other happenings that are not ready for blogdom. Eating well and exercising shifted from being my top priority to being number four or five in my top ten life priorities, so I gained 20 pounds. On the way down I compared myself to the fattest version of me, but on the way up I compare myself to the thinnest version of me. Instead of seeing myself as 170 pounds lighter, I see myself as 20 pounds fatter.

I know this is silly. I know I'm not obese. I look in the mirror and think I'm pretty. I'm grateful that I can run and squat and cross my legs. I'm in better health than I've been for most of my life. But sometimes I resent making a slightly more perfect version of myself. I hate that I judge myself against her. I hate that other people compare me to her. I hate that I know I could be her again if I worked harder or cared more. I hate that she's out there, existing as a possibility I one day made flesh, but faded out of reality and into the mirror world of what-ifs.

I was close to putting a bunch of those line in bold type, but I think it all just speaks for itself.

On The Many Uses of Splenda

It's very rare that I find something I can post about both here and my other blog. (Feminism and low carb eating don't seem to cross paths as often as you would think.) But this is just too good to not report.

Have you heard of KY Yours and Mine? In case you haven't, here are the commercials:



What does this have to do with low carb eating, you ask? Apparently one of the ingredients in the "his" lubricant is sucralose!

Do you think the makers of Splenda ever imagined, beyond their wildest dreams, that their product would ever accomplish so much?

(For the rant about why only the men's lube gets to be sweetened, click here.)

The Delicious Vegan Chicken Conundrum

I realize it's in no way low-carb, but I nevertheless developed an infatuation with the General Tso's Vegan Chicken from Whole Foods after having it at a school event. I went there the other day to buy some, and when they put it in a to-go container for me, they stuck a label on it listing all of its ingredients. Here they are, exactly as they are listed:

Soy Popcorn Chicken (Non GMO Soybean Protein, Condensed Wheat Protein, Water, Soybean Oil, Sea Salt, Vegetarian Seasonings, (Soybean Amino Acids, Dry Mushroom Powder, Vegetable Extract, Sea Salt), Broccoli, Sauce (Shoyu (Soybeans, Wheat, Salt, Brewing Starter (Aspergillus Sojae)), Sugar, Stir-Fry Sauce (Water, Sugar, Soy Sauce (Water, Salt, Soybean, Wheat Flour), Salt, Modified Corn Starch, Yeast Extract, Caramel Color, Flavors (Contains Mushroom Extractives)), Mirin, White Wine Vinegar, Mushroom Soy Sauce, (Water, Soy Beans, Wheat Flour, Salt, Sugar, Extract of Mushroom), Garlic, Onion, Ginger, Vegetable Base (Salt, Maltodextrin, Sugar, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Dehydrated Vegetables (Leek, Tomatoes, Onions, Bell Peppers, Garlic, Fennel), Natural Flavors, Maltodextrin, Potato Starch, Spices and Natural Coloring (Tumeric), Silicon Dioxide), White Pepper) Garlic, Chinese Cooking Wine, White Wine Vinegar, Sugar, Canola Oil, Chili-Garlic Sauce, Green Onions, Chili Flakes, Cornstatch Contains: Soy, Wheat.

(To put this all into context, my friend and I have started experimenting with expanding our typical low-carb menus to follow a low Glycemic Load plan which allows slightly more wiggle room as far as sugar goes, but still places strong restrictions on starches.)

So here's my dilemma. When I eat the General Tso's Vegan Chicken, I find myself assuming that I'm eating something similar to meat as far as protein and whatnot are concerned. Am I wrong? I have no illusions about how sugary the sauce is, but the frequency of the word "wheat" and the presence of the word "starch" makes me worry that I'm actually just eating meat-flavored carb-nuggets. And the sheer number of weird ingredients is sort of a shock after following a diet where most of the ingredient lists for the items I buy are short and mostly natural.

Thoughts?

Gherkin Gherkin

Who knew that Vlasic makes "No Sugar Added" sweet pickles sweetened with Splenda?



I picked these little babies up at the grocery store last week and finally popped the jar open last night to enjoy a couple. My observations?

If you're a Splenda enthusiast and tend to enjoy sucralose in all its forms, then these pickles may be a dream come true for you. For me, however, I find that Splenda functions differently on my taste buds in different foods, and the experience of eating these pickles was a little like that of drinking diet soda.

My reaction was not pleasant. Pickles are not supposed to have an aftertaste! I think I'll stick to dills.

Life-Changing Information!

There's a step-by-step tutorial at the blog Polliwog's Cakewalk on how to cut a bell pepper without leaving seeds on the pepper or the cutting board.

My life just got a lot easier.

(Via CRAFT Magazine)

I Write Letters

Dear Subway,

Thanks a whole heck of a lot for switching ALL of your packeted salad dressings to fat free. Was that really necessary? That tiny packet of ranch you tried to give me for my grilled chicken salad today had fourteen grams of carbs in it. Fourteen! It should have been obvious from the bacon and cheese on my salad that I'm not afraid of a little fat. I don't need or appreciate your futile attempts to keep me "healthy" by offering me a gross-tasting, sugar-filled version of my dressing of choice. I'm cool with you offering more choices of dressings to satisfy consumer demand for lower calorie options. I understand that customers like me who refuse your crackers but want extra bacon and full-fat dressing are rare. But come on! What kind of establishment stops keeping around good old trusty full-fat ranch dressing?!

And that little flimsy plastic side-cup of usually-for-sandwiches ranch you ended up giving me? The one you assured me was regular ranch? It popped open and spilled all over the inside of my to-go bag before I even made it to the car.

You suck.

Sincerely,
Tracey

(In other news, I did I quick Google Search to see if I could easily find a Subway picture or logo to put with this post, and I found this. Is it weird to anyone else that this exists?)

Lazy Sunday

My lunch:

-4 slices of summer sausage
-2 sharp cheddar cheese cubes and 2 pepper jack cheese cubes (1 oz. total cheese)
-green pepper slices
-radishes
-wedge of raw cabbage
-baby corn
-a pickle spear
-2 WASA fiber crackers (each 4g net carbs)
-ice water to drink
-a piece of sugar-free chocolate candy for dessert

My fiance's lunch:

-a big bowl of Kraft macaroni and cheese
-a can of Pepsi


My plate was fresh, colorful, nutritious, delicious, and incredibly filling. For once, I wasn't jealous of Dan's carb-filled meal. I won't say that there aren't times when I wouldn't prefer mac and cheese to fresh veggies, but today, my meal was exactly what I wanted.

Besides, I learned this about Pepsi this week. So even though it's pretty much my favorite liquid, that image will hopefully make me think twice before downing a can.

Quote of the Day

"Why must I live in a culture that stuffs fattening foods down my throat, yet mistreats people who are fat?"

-Jennette Fulda, at her blog Half of Me

In case you were wondering...

My eating choices last night resulted in some sluggishness and extreme shortness of breath (reactive hypoglycemia, anyone?), and a ragin' case of indigestion when I woke up this morning.

My body hates me so much more than it did ten -- even five -- years ago. Either that, or it's having some sort of awakening of consciousness and starting to speak up for itself when I treat it poorly.

Sigh. Time to go out to breakfast and begin to undo the damage with a nice omelet and lots of water.