Quick and Dirty

(In case you haven't noticed, Unbreaded has added a third blogger! Please welcome Ash, who, blogging as danztilya, authored the last two posts.  I can't wait to read all of her great recipes and tips.  I just have to deal with my jealousy that she lives in New York, and Katie gets to try all her low-carb cookin'.)



For the past few weeks (okay, months), I've been in a cooking slump where I just cannot find the motivation to prepare healthy food. This has mostly driven me to high-carb take-out and microwavable meals, and I'm so spoiled by the convenience of it all that I'm having a really hard time getting up the gumption to rededicate myself to spending time in the kitchen.

My first few meals in my return to low carb eating have consisted of eating pepperoni slices and gnawing on a block of cheese, and people, I AM BORED. I know there are a million things I can eat, but until I can make some time and find some energy to cut up some stuff and cook up some stuff to have on hand, I really need some ideas for quick and easy meals to get me through a busy week, and I'm hoping you can offer some ideas.

What are your quickest and easiest low carb meals? And I mean EASY. Just in case you're unsure of how lazy I really am, I'm talking minimal-step, minimal dish-dirtying, minimal standing-over-and-stirring. As out-of-the-package-and-into-my-mouth as possible food. Favorite fast food options are also welcome.

Thanks! And here's hoping that once I start feeling the increased energy that comes from ditching all the sugar and starch, I'll at least be able to be bothered to boil an egg again.

Not sure what to wear on the 4th?

I love that bacon holds the power to offend patriots and vegetarians at the same time:



Available today only at teefury.com.

Recipe Link: Homemade Peppermint Patties

How exciting is it that the Craft Magazine blog, which tends to showcase sugary sweets and vegan concoctions, recently featured a recipe for a totally low-carb friendly "high-fat, low-sugar version" of York Peppermint Patties?

YUM!
Emily at Joyful Abode writes:

One of my husband’s favorite candies is the York Peppermint Patty. This minty-chocolate treat might not be the most popular candy bar on the market, but it’s not that far of a stretch from his favorite ice cream, mint chocolate chip.

But take a look at this ingredient list:

sugar, corn syrup, semi- sweet chocolate (chocolate, sugar, cocoa, milk fat, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, PGPR, emulsifier, vanillian, artificial flavor), invert sugar, egg whites, and oil of peppermint

Gross, huh? I mean, lots of dieters LOVE York peppermint patties because they’re “OMG FAT FREE!” but with sugar in their ingredient list four times, they’re far from “good for you.” So I set out to make a much more nourishing, high-fat, low-sugar version.

Click through to check out her recipe, which includes Organic Coconut Chips (which I had never heard of but are sugar free and sound delicious). Low-carbers would be wise to omit the honey in the recipe, which Emily even admits wasn't necessary due to the sweetness of the chocolate.

Even if the "real thing" isn't as good for you, there's still no beating their old commercials:

"Cheese-y"? Really?

I've made something similar to this with actual tofu chunks, and I've had my fair share of shirataki, but this looks fantastic:

LOW-CARB SHIRATAKI-RONI & CHEESE-Y NOODLE BAKE
Two 8-oz packages of House Tofu Shirataki Noodles
1 large egg
½ cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. white pepper
½ tsp. hot pepper sauce

TOPPING
1 Tbs butter, melted
½ cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
½ cup seasoned dried low-carb bread crumbs

Yields 4 servings
PREP TIME: 10-15 minutes
COOK TIME: 30 minutes

Preheat oven to 350°.

Prepare noodles according to package directions, below. Cut into 1-inch pieces.

Lightly beat egg in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients and the noodles (not topping ingredients). Stir well. Pour into a well sprayed or buttered 1 ½ quart baking dish.

In another bowl, blend topping ingredients together and sprinkle over noodle mixture.

Bake 25-30 minutes until set and the top is crisp. Serve as a side dish, light supper or breakfast item. Each serving contains 5g net carbs.

(Via Livin' La Vida Low Carb)

Shifty Eggs, and More Reasons to Eat Your Anti-Oxidants

Check out this article from Dr. Jonny Bowden: Scrambled Eggs at the Buffet? Not So Fast!

Apparently, once you break up the yolks in eggs and expose them to air, the otherwise-not-bad-for-you cholesterol starts to oxidize and turn into actually-bad-for-you cholesterol. And the longer the exposure to air, the worse they get.

Luckily, I eat my scrambled eggs as soon as they're cooked so that they're nice and hot, but this information sorta sucks, since scrambled is the only way I trust restaurants to get my eggs the way I like them. (And even then, I get sick of choking down eggs for breakfast. I was always a bacon and home fries only kinda girl.)

Merry Christmas, everyone! One more thing to worry about!

The Politics of Dieting

I realize that I don't blog here very much, and I think one of the reasons for this is that it is really, really hard to reconcile capital-"D"-Dieting with two things I truly believe in: feminism and fat acceptance. And, most of the time, I feel like it's really not worth all the effort it would take to try.

You see, when I read diet-related writing, I often find myself agreeing with a source's premises while disagreeing with its conclusions. Take this Gary Taubes article, for example. I think the research he refers to is crazy-fascinating. When he describes how diverse human bodies are in their calorie-burning/fat-storing abilities, I'm on the edge of my seat and wondering why society can't recognize that we aren't a bunch of predictable calories-in-calories-out machines. But he sort of loses me when he uses this information to prescribe a lower-carb diet for people who are more insulin-resistant in order to regulate blood sugar and prevent fat-storage. In other words, "if you're unlucky enough to be one of those people who easily stores fat, you are doomed to have to suck it up and ditch the bread and pasta." I guess I shouldn't be surprised by it, since it's Gary Taubes and that's what he's all about, but when you try to view the world from a social justice perspective, it just doesn't work.

When I am given information about how naturally different we all are, my brain doesn't translate that information into a belief that some people need to work harder in order to be like everyone else. Instead, I tend to think that there are deeply embedded problems with the ways in which we judge and punish people for not living up to societal ideas of what is and isn't "normal".

I find something SO wrong with our ridiculous cultural expectations: 1) that fat people need to make sacrifices of time, money, energy, and dietary satisfaction in order to become thinner, 2) that fat people must maintain for life whatever strict regimen they adopted to lose weight in order to keep it off, 3) that fat people are always able to lose weight in the first place if they just try hard enough, and 4) that all fat people even WANT to be thin.

I know that there will probably always be concern trolls who yell about how "fat is a health issue!" and "isn't it irresponsible to discourage people from trying to be thin?" I strongly encourage those people to visit here and to start thinking about the complexity of the issue of body size and shape. We are being completely unfair to people when we try to make judgments about someone's health by simply looking at her or his weight.

All that said, are you wondering why the hell I keep a blog about my own low-carb diet? Why do I "diet" in the first place? I often wonder about those same things myself. I think that for me, and for me alone, my personal reasons for doing it are pretty good, but it just bothers me that hardly anyone ever recognizes how completely political fat and dieting can be.

More on this later.

Great Gifts for Low-Carbers

Examiner Columnist Linda Duffy shares some great gift ideas for your favorite low-carb eaters. Skip the cookies, and bring on the meat! Can I just say that I would be ALL about a stocking full of Slim Jims?

Also, check out Jamie Van Eaton's lists of bacon-related gifts. The items on her list are great and all, but she fails to mention this kickass BACON WALLET that was given to me last year by my best friend, or the maple bacon lollipops I sent her in the mail. We have, however, discussed wearing those bacon tuxedos at my wedding.

It's Not That Easy

A couple of things about Oprah, because something about the way the low-carb blogging community is using her situation to promote their diets isn't sitting right with me.

I realize that by "coming out" with this story about her weight-gain, it can be said that she's opened herself up to a discussion about her body. But I see this magazine story as her attempt to respond to negative reactions and criticism she has likely received for her weight gain and not as an invitation for everyone to try and diagnose her "problems". I don't really need to drop links here, because it seems like pretty much everyone has weighed in on it, and they all have the same thing to say.

Like other low-carb bloggers, I feel for Oprah, but not because "She's just been on the wrong diets, and she would have it sooooo easy if she just cut out the carbs!", but because it's ridiculous to me that anyone is making this big of a deal out of 200 pounds. And, frankly, I'm not convinced by this implication that it's easy for everyone to be thin if they only cut down on carbs.

Why do we presume we have all the answers? Based on the weights/sizes/photos they choose to share, not a single low-carb diet blogger I have ever read has a body that is thin or perfect enough for the Hollywood standard set for people like Oprah.

And another thing. Low-carb bloggers who also happen to be doctors aren't her doctor, and it bothers me that, through speculation alone, these folks can presume to announce to their readers that Oprah surely suffers from insulin resistance, or she obviously has some sort of fetal whatchamacallit syndrome.

Just. Stop.

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.

Mmmmm. Cardboard.

A reflection on a night of carb-consumption:



Committed low-carbers often write in their books and blogs about how, after eating mostly whole low-carb foods, processed starchy foods (like the chicken alfredo pizza I had for dinner and the Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies I had for dessert) taste like cardboard.

And you know what? They're right. After just over a year of experimenting with this way of eating, I'm starting to notice that, too. It's mostly in the texture, and sometimes even in the taste, but pretty much anything made with refined white flour just seems, well, cardboardy. I can't think of any better way to describe it.

But here's funny thing. This obvious cardboardiness doesn't make me stop wanting those foods, and it still doesn't keep me from finding them completely and utterly delicious when I eat them.

Will I ever get to the same point as the die-hards who can actually turn up their noses at sugary, floury, pre-packaged chocolate chip cookies? Maybe it's something that will come with more time, or maybe eating them here and there is a habit I will never fully break.

I mostly wonder if this new food-awareness will lead to my eventual distaste for starchy foods, or if it means I'm meant to start finding actual cardboard more and more delicious.

In Which Starbucks Misses Its Chance to Make Me Happy

Question for fellow low-carb enthusiasts:

Do you hate coffee shops as much as I do?

Maybe I shouldn't be so bitter about them, considering how much I used to love them. I spent an obscene percentage of my undergraduate career at a coffee place where I enjoyed sugary mocha beverages and giant everything bagels at least three times a week.

But these days, I avoid coffee shops like the plague. Even though I can tolerate the hassle of confusing the barista by asking for coffee with heavy whipping cream and Splenda, there's never a single food item I can order without blowing my carb allowance for the entire day. (Unless I want to lick cream cheese off a spoon, which I am not above doing.) For me, making the switch to low-carbing pretty much meant kissing coffee shops goodbye.

Which also meant kissing convenient and casual meeting/chatting/time-killing places with friends goodbye. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: The world is NOT friendly to low-carbers.

I didn't get my hopes up too much when I heard that Starbucks had decided to introduce new food items to their menu to try to pull themselves out of their sales slump, but I was secretly hoping that they would read my mind and start serving sausage, bacon, and western omelets. It turns out that they failed to take me into consideration at all. Their new, "healthier" breakfast menu includes oatmeal, apple bran muffins, and fruity granola bars. This USA Today article lists all the new stuff, along with each item's calories, fat, fiber, and protein, but numbers for sugar and overall carbs are nowhere to be found. Wonder why! And don't bother trying to find that info at the Starbucks website, either. All they do when you click on "food" under "nutrition" is list the items.

The only new offering that initially caught my eye was the "Power Protein Plate", but then I read the description:

An on-the-go snack of Cheddar cheese, fresh fruit, hard-boiled cage-free egg, whole-wheat bagel and peanut butter.

Depending on what kind of fruit it is and if the peanut butter is natural, I suppose if I was in a pinch I could order that and toss the bagel, but it's still not quite impressive enough to lure me to Starbucks. It's a step in the right direction for sure, but just misses the mark.

I think I'm just going to continue avoiding coffee shops while I'm trying to stick to my eating plan. I don't know if I can imagine a suckier scenario than sitting in a Starbucks with a sugar-free coffee and hard-boiled egg when there are giant pastries and pieces of cheesecake staring back at me from the display case.