Small changes can make a big difference in your weight and health, as I keep a-sayin’ and a-sayin.’ Here’s a great small change you can make:
STOP BUYING SNACKS.
As I’ve said before, you can exercise three seconds of self-control as you pass by the cookie aisle, or the candy aisle, or the “salty snacks” aisle, and just refuse to go down into that valley of temptation, or you can bring junky stuff home and then have to resist it every time you walk by the pantry or the bowl on the coffee table. Just don’t buy it in the first place! In fact, here’s the question you should ask yourself whenever you see a bag or box that attracts your attention:
CAN THIS ITEM BE SERVED AS PART OF A MEAL?
If the answer is no, DON’T BUY IT. I remind myself of this principle especially as I navigate the aisles at Costco that I have to traverse on the way to checking out. These people know what they’re doing! All those salted nuts, and different types of “bark thins,” and crisps, and crackers, and granola (that is, candy) bars. All piled up enticingly. And you think, ‘Well, those look really good. And look—there’s something made with cashews and coconut, with no sugar! I love cashews and coconut! They’d be nice to have on hand.’ To which I say:
NEVER BUY SOMETHING JUST TO “HAVE ON HAND.”
No, my friends. No, no, no. I’m reminded of the time that I went into our neighborhood Trader Joe’s back when we lived in Virginia and saw that they were selling dark chocolate peanut-butter cups. And I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just keep them in the freezer and have one or two occasionally as a treat.” Ha! They were gone within a few days. I was deluding myself big time when I thought I could resist them if they were frozen. As the peerless Ann Hodgman says in her peerless cookbook Beat This! (and I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted this before, but it bears repeating):
My mother-in-law once tried to keep herself from eating some lemon squares she wanted to save. She wrapped them up and put them into the freezer. Then she discovered how much better lemon squares taste when they’re frozen.
Man, do I sympathize! I once boosted my blood sugar 3-month level by half a percentage point with the lemon bars that I ate. I’d made them for a big event and then couldn’t resist the leftovers. (Lemon bars have a ton of sugar in them to offset the tartness of the lemon juice.)
You know what would have been better for me to do with those sneakily delicious items:
I should have thrown them away.
Let me repeat that:
I should have thrown them away.
Once more, with feeling:
I SHOULD HAVE THROWN THEM AWAY.
But that would have been so wasteful! Wouldn’t it?
No. Not really. I was just eating them to be eating them. The event at which they had been served fulfilled one of the two food roles that I focus on with this blog: They were a delicious dessert at a party. They fostered fellowship and good cheer. But no purpose was being served other than a momentary indulgence by my eating them up after the event was over.
Well, there’s lots more to be said on this subject. Let me tell you, just in case you think I’m advocating some kind of monkish, self-denying mode of life: I’ve asked for a Key lime pie as dessert for my belated Mother’s Day dinner on Wednesday. There will be six of us, and the pieces will be pretty big if we divide the pie into six pieces. But . . . we’ll each eat only one. We’ll enjoy it together as a family, and then it will be all gone. (My mother-in-law will probably refuse to eat her whole piece, but Jim and Gideon can divide up the remnant.)
As a little exercise on masochism, I did the math to figure out just how much sugar would be in those large-ish pieces. And now I’ve done so, and I’m sorry to have to say this, but it comes it at about 65 grams of sugar. Key lime pie is made with sweetened canned condensed milk, a product that became popular back in the time period between the invention of canning and the invention of refrigeration. They add a ton of sugar to the boiled-down milk (that’s why it’s “condensed,” you see), with the added sugar weighing in (ahem) at 12 grams per ounce. So one 14-ounce can contains 168 grams of sugar. Guess what? The standard recipe calls for two cans. Then there’s some sugar in graham crackers, and you add some sugar to that, too. And you put sweetened whipped cream on top. Whew!
As I’ve said before, many times, the recommended daily allowance for added sugar as per the WHO is 25 grams per day, so that one slice of pie uses up the sugar allowance for over two and a half days. But you know what? I’ve had a fairly low-sugar day today. I had eggs, bacon and a whole-wheat roll for breakfast and a pear, walnut, and blue cheese salad for lunch. I did sprinkle some sugar on the walnuts and toast them in butter. Guess I didn’t need to do that. And I did have my usual one tablespoon of maple syrup in my coffee this morning. I’ve probably had 18-20 grams of sugar today so far. We’re having pizza and salad for dinner, and my homemade salad dressing is made with very minimal sugar, with less than one gram per serving.
So let’s see: What if I drink my coffee with no maple syrup for the rest of the week? That’s a savings of 60 grams for the five days left in the week, which pretty much makes up for my slice of pie. I’ll make every effort to keep things very low sugar for whatever else I eat. The important thing to remember is that I need to keep an eye on my average sugar intake. I’ll probably pass up any pecan pie from the planned birthday party for my father-in-law’s dinner this coming weekend. I don’t really like pecan pie all that much, so it’s not worth spending the sugar grams on.
So there you have it. Eat your treats as part of a meal, and compensate for any overages in another way.
And since I’m on a total Adam Ragusea kick, here’s his video that gives his version of Key lime pie. I’ve modified the recipe just a bit for Gideon to use, asking for less sugar in the crust and calling for the maximum amounts of lime juice and egg yolks. I’ll report back after Wednesday to say if I thought it was worth it. (I’m sure it will be.)