Power of Choice Archives - Respect Food Roles

My Post-Surgery Clean Slate

July 8, 2021 by Debi Simons

It’s now been over a week since surgery. I went in yesterday morning for my first post-op visit, hoping that I’d be told to go back to regular shoes, but no such luck. Maybe next Wednesday. Things look okay, with the implants holding in place, although my not-so-stellar bones have allowed some slippage. My hope was that Dr. Blue would exclaim with joy over how wonderful everything looked, but instead it was more of an “okay.” Guess that’ll have to do. I’m not planning on doing any driving while wearing this very clumsy shoe, so I’m dependent on Jim and Gideon for going anywhere. No big deal! I’m not sure what I’d do if I were, say, a single person supporting myself as a waiter or a housecleaner, but since this was elective surgery I guess it just wouldn’t have happened.

Some Cooking Myths Exploded

May 12, 2021May 6, 2021 by Debi Simons

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve started following a foodie YouTuber named Adam Ragusea, and he’s quickly become a favorite of mine because (ahem) he agrees with me on so many issues and so I trust him in other areas. There’s w-a-a-y too much conventional wisdom out there just waiting to be debunked, and he’s the man to do it. Here are three that I’ve especially liked to go along with the iodized-salt-is-bitter myth from last time:

MYTH #1: Let me start out with the misconception that I cited in my previous post: the ridiculous idea that home bakers should be measuring flour BY THE GRAM for yeasted breads. One of my favorite TV-show-based video channels, America’s Test Kitchen, really stresses this idea. They said in an episode about pita bread, for instance, that you should measure x number of grams for the water and flour, giving amounts for King Arthur brand bread flour. But if you were using another type of bread flour, they said, you should decrease the water by one ounce, as KAF has more protein than most other flours.

Homemade Salad Dressings and Croutons–plus Costco Thoughts

March 24, 2020March 24, 2020 by Debi Simons

This image is copyrighted, but hey! I’m pushing people to go there!

Jim and I made our way to Costco yesterday morning, the first big shopping trip since everything started shutting down. It was my first venture out for maybe two weeks. I had made the prediction that either the parking lot would be empty or that there would be a line out the door waiting for this magnificent place to open at 10:00, and, as usual, neither of my predictions was accurate. Instead, the whole experience was perfectly normal, with the exception of limits on certain items, the fact that a smiling woman was handing out packs of toilet paper, and that other items were missing entirely, notably chicken parts and regular pasta. (I was tickled to see quite a bit of gluten-free pasta on the shelves. Since this snarky comment is in parentheses, please feel free to ignore it.) The lines were no longer than usual; everyone was friendly and efficient, and we were in and out in under an hour. They had even opened early. I came home encouraged that the great engine of American capitalism is probably not going to grind to a halt any time soon, even as many are suffering from its slowing. We’re going to get through this, folks!

The Case for Making Food INconvenient

January 28, 2020 by Debi Simons

Today I’m sharing another one of my Astoundingly Obvious Observations (AOOs): The more conveniently available food is, the more you’ll (probably) eat. I’ve talked about this idea before, but its truth has been brought home to me even more strongly of late as I’ve kept my intake of sugar under control. Keeping sweet items and other snack foods out of the house means that I can’t just grab a handful of something if the urge hits.

Glycemic Index Issues

January 16, 2020January 15, 2020 by Debi Simons

I wrote an earlier post on the whole idea that sugar is sugar is sugar, dealing with maple syrup, honey, and molasses. At some point I want to write about more of these sweeteners, including agave nectar and brown rice syrup, so stay tuned for that. I also want to deal with what I call “sugaroids,” substances that contain sugar plus something else (alcohol! chlorine!) but since they are not “real” sugar, and since they contain fewer calories than sugar, items made with them can be labeled “sugar free.” This is the type of thing that, like so many other weird dietary ideas, makes me want to tear my hair out. But for now I want to talk about another hair-tearer: the infamous glycemic index. As you might guess (to quote my son when he was a toddler), “I don’t wike dat.” The whole idea is so misguided, and has led to so many people refusing to eat perfectly healthy food, that I think it’s worth a post. (And yes, it should be “healthful” food, but cut me some slack.)

The Falsity of “Don’t Allow Yourself to Get Hungry”

September 5, 2019 by Debi Simons

Just back on Monday from a lightning-like trip to North Carolina to celebrate the 80^th birthday of a family member. Such a nice time! Once again, as I mentioned back in May, much of that time was spent eating in restaurants—or at the party itself, of course. I tried to be very conscious of the time between meals, as no sooner had we finished one session than we started talking about the next: “Where are we going for dinner?” “What are we doing for lunch?” Also, the inevitable “Are we going to Goodberry’s?”

The Daniel Diet, Part 2: Evolution of a Fad Diet

August 5, 2019 by Debi Simons

Here’s what happened, as Monk used to say on the old TV show:

As I explained in the previous post, Rick Warren realized that he was fat and out of shape, as were many people in his congregation, in late 2010. According to the NYT article I linked to yesterday, he told his congregation the next Sunday that he needed to lose about 90 pounds (having gained weight at the rate of 2-3 pounds a year for the 30 years he’d been pastor of the church) and that others could join him if they wished. The article doesn’t say what the reaction was on that Sunday. Then we’re told that shortly after Warren’s announcement he was “in Lenox, Mass., for a personal medical visit with Dr. Mark Hyman, a prominent metabolism expert and author of several best-selling books on avoiding chronic disease through healthier living.” I’d like to get some clarification as to why Warren was seeing Hyman, traveling all the way across the country from his home in Lake Forest, California.

I Attain Pizza Nirvana–and Eat Only One Slice

June 19, 2020June 17, 2019 by Debi Simons

Image by Christopher Kuszajewski from Pixabay

We are mildly obsessed with homemade pizza at our house. (But not as obsessed as Kenji Lopez-Alt, who carried out a monster experiment in his monster cookbook The Food Lab about whether or not the mineral content in the water has anything to do with crust quality. You can read all about it in the Kindle sample available on the Amazon page linked to above.) My son regularly makes the complicated recipe for deep-dish Chicago-style pizza from Cook’s Illustrated, and I’ve been on a kick

Resist the Call of the “Purchase Justification Machine”

June 14, 2019 by Debi Simons

I’ve mentioned this blog before, having stumbled upon it by accident several years ago. While MMM has gone through some upheaval in his personal life, and while he also isn’t writing very frequent posts these days, I check in periodically to see what he’s up to. His most recent article concerns his back-and-forth inner debate about whether or not to buy a Tesla, about which I could not possibly care less, but he’s actually onto a bigger principle:

Eat a Small Serving of the Real Thing

June 8, 2019 by Debi Simons

I follow the cooking blog Smitten Kitchen (as you know if you follow this blog), and her latest post is about a recipe for a super-rich chocolate Italian custard dessert called “chocolate budino.” She has some interesting details about how she tweaked the original recipe, but such is not my point here. Instead, I’d like to focus on this one idea:

A few spoonfuls is all you need, and I encourage you to do the same (rather than weakening its perfection with the goal of eating more).