Miscellany: 10/22/15

Unorthodox Eats

This is still one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on the silver screen:



I've been somewhat adventurous an eater. There are a few dishes I can't stand; one is canned chicken, which is somewhat unintuitive because I love fresh/frozen chicken--baked, fried, grilled. All parts. Since my low carb days, I've been into organ meats on a periodic basis, and I've probably averaged at least a package a month of chicken livers, hearts and/or gizzards.

But I don't know what it is about the brine or liquid, but I can't stand canned chicken--even if I'm hunger. I remember my maternal grandfather loved it; we were staying with him (a mom-and-pop grocer) while Dad was securing family housing at his next military assignment. My mom's female cousin lived with her own family up the street from us; after school, my younger siblings and I would stop by the cousin's apartment and watch TV or play with her school age daughters. I think Mom called to let us know that dinner was ready, and I got the word we were having canned chicken sandwiches. I got myself invited to dinner with the cousin's family.

I also don't like chicken on pizza, at least without a tomato-based sauce. Other idiosyncrasies: I'll eat pineapple by itself, but not on pizzas or ham. But I'll eat duck with orange sauce. However, there have been other dishes my family liked that I didn't--in particular, cream corn and jellied/pickled pigs feet. It's not that I have a hangup about pig parts but the jellied/pickled presentation. As for corn, I love popped corn and fresh corn on the cob; frozen corn often retains the corn-on-the-cob taste, but I usually take a pass on canned corn.

But I would be adventuresome within the context of my experience. I wanted to try venison, even though my Dad didn't hunt (to the best of my knowledge) and my Mom never prepared it. I've seen ads for jerky from more exotic animals like alligator, boar, snake, or kangaroo; I would probably try these. Now I realize millions of people have eaten different types of cuisine from different parts of the globe, but most people I know are wary of dishes they aren't accustomed to. I remember when I went to my first Taste of Chicago festival; I sampled this African goat stew with bananas; surprisingly tasty!

Some things I try and I'm just not into. To me, squid is like chewing on flavorless gum. I don't get the yuppie sushi thing at all; I've had it more than once. I did a project in Brazil (see below) where millions of Japanese-Brazilians lived and there were lots of ethnic restaurants; my teammate loved sushi and would eat it daily (within reason our meals could be expensed; I remember one time he pleaded with me that he would find a restaurant that would cook fish). And sake is definitely an acquired taste; in my experience, it tastes like something fermented in an old army boot

When I visited São Paulo, Brazil back in 1995 for a few months at a client site, I experienced many new for me dishes; I developed a taste for very strong coffee, a wonderful concept of churrascarias (sort of a one-price Brazilian steakhouse where you start out with a lavish salad bar, and waiters constantly patrol with cooked meats, chicken hearts, etc. on skewer that are carved onto plates. I once hadn't noticed a green/red button near my plate; I pointed out my plate was full. He shrugged his shoulders and put a second plate in front of me. Even though the waiters couldn't speak English and I spoke a limited amount of Portuguese, I ate well enough to put on 20 pounds in 3 months, which didn't make my girlfriend happy. (There were some things that I wouldn't eat; in one of the more American-friendly hotels, they often put out some eggs on the buffet line (more standard fare included sandwich fixings, fruit, etc.); one day I started to scoop up some scrambled eggs, when I saw some greenish coloring to the eggs--I wasn't that adventurous.)

But next to churrascarias, there was feijoada, typically served on Wednesdays and Saturdays. (The story I was told by my client hosts is mentioned in the Smithsonian piece, that it was a slave or peasant feast of beans and leftover parts of animals not served to the upper class in the old slave days, like ham or bacon.) You might see dishes exotic to me, like tongue and pig ears. Feijoada was the yuppie thing to do . I think I sampled a little of everything, probably on dares from my hosts.  I remember trying a pig's ear; it was okay, but not my thing. Been there, done that.

Where is this all leading to? Insects, in particular crickets. Now I've known for some time that vendors (e.g., on Amazon) sell chocolate-covered insects (although a little too pricey to interest me in buying them, same as with exotic jerky).  There is a (new to me) high-end protein bar which is based on a key ingredient of cricket flour. Consider the following image:

Courtesy of Exoprotein

One can sample a 4-pack of Exoprotein's 4 flavors (e.g., peanut butter and jelly, cocoa nut, etc.); see the above vendor website link. The nutritional labels vary, but to give a rough estimate, a bar is 300 calories, maybe 15 net carbs, and a healthy chunk of calories in fat grams, up to half or more, a quarter so of daily fat guidelines. although the sweeteners tend to be ingredients like honey. The bars, sold in dozen-count single flavor or variety boxes, range in the pricier $3/bar range. I could do without food politics in the sales pitch; I'm not one of the anti-GMO crowd (I occasionally discuss the issue in my political blog), the organics or the lovacore (buy local produce) crowd. I have decided to order a sampler and may give my independent review in a future post.

Lab-Grown Burgers?

I covered this topic recently with some British video clips; what intrigues me is not so much the scientific process (not that it doesn't interest me: see sample clip below) but how you could scale up the process to mass produce product for supermarket distribution. The cost of a burger has come down from nearly a third of a million dollars to about $11:

Post expects to be able to produce the patties on a large enough scale to sell them for under $10 a piece in a matter of five years. "Once we can grow the tissue in a reactor the size of an Olympic swimming pool, we should be able to achieve that sort of volume," Post said. "For perspective, half a swimming pool would allow us to feed about 20,000 people for a year."

While the price of the burger has dropped to almost-reasonable prices, Post told ABC that it will still be another 20 to 30 years before it's commercially viable. Among the hurdles still left to overcome: figuring out how to produce test-tube meat at scale, and coming up with a way to produce it that doesn't use fetal calf serum (currently, cells are grown in the serum, which is taken from cow fetus blood).

Some human testers argue that they miss the juiciness and the satiating fat of a regular burger; others think that consumers will be too squeamish to try "frankenmeat"; as for me, I would try it in a heartbeat (see above segment).



Do Artificial Sweeteners Interfere With Nutrtition or Metabolism?

This is an interesting topic, although I rarely use artificial sweeteners beyond an occasional cup of coffee and low-calorie drink mixes. I drink a lot of ice tea, which I normally sweeten with stevia. I rarely eat artificially-sweetened foods or soft drinks; over the last 4 or 5 years, I've almost never bought soft drinks unless traveling or moving between cities (which hasn't been that often). Even when I drank soft drinks more frequently (always diet versions), I normally rationed myself to one glass or can a day.

The research from what I understand is far from comprehensive and suggestive that the significant use of artificial sweeteners may desensitize the body from more efficient metabolic responses, not unlike the boy who cries wolf one too many times. See this WebMd source for a more detailed, technical discussion. There is enough there to want me want to taper down the nominal use of sweeteners I'm now consuming.

Plateau Month on the Renewed Diet

This has been an exasperating month with little or no loss over the past month, after an early 10-pound or so drop in restarting my diet in August. On a positive note, my weight is down for the year, but I'm still triple-digits away from my goal weight.  I've been cycling up and down roughly the same 6-pound interval all month extending from late last month. For example, yesterday I lost nearly a pound to find myself up 2 pounds this morning. Obviously I didn't binge yesterday. Mid-month I stopped weighing myself  out of frustration, and I found myself at the tail end of a whoosh the other day, nearly taking out my month low. In the past, I've been in similar ruts when all of a sudden I get a monster whoosh/drop of 10-12 lbs.over a few days. I figure I'm overdue a 5-6 lb. drop any day now. So I thought I was going to crash through the month low this morning, but found myself back up two, which sucks. I'm not happy with the scale I have--I can get consecutive readings up to 2 lbs. apart; I usually log a repeated scale readout. Yesterday my first reading was a new month low, but I had to revise it up a pound because it wouldn't repeat.

The Renewed Diet and Dealing With Bounces and Plateaus

I don't know what it is about my latest digital scale--my latest scale measures to fifths of a pound and it's not unusual to see consecutive weigh-ins to differ by up to a pound or more. Usually I look for a repeated weight confirmation before registering my weight, first thing in the morning.

About 10 days back, I reached a yearly low--only to see my weight literally bounce up over 5 pounds overnight. I was stunned--it's not like I binged on my diet, ate too many carbs, etc. I quickly dropped off a quick 1.5 pounds, just to see me bounce back up a pound. For most of the rest of the period I dropped down a half pound or so, except for another bounce or two. I finally got back down to my starting point yesterday and went down another half-pound or so to another diet low this morning. Obviously I hope I have another 2-3 pounds to go on this whoosh. I was hoping for a steady 1.5-2 lb. lost a week; I still recall my successful 2003-2004 low carb diet when I seemed to lost about 3.5 lbs. a week; I stalled a few weeks shy of a major anniversary for my folks and basically took a break; one of the problems with a low-carb lifestyle is that it can be boring. The problem was when I tried going back on the regimen  I stalled out again. I don't think I ever completely abandoned the lower-carb lifestyle, but most of the 90-odd lbs. I had lost eventually returned. I have attributed some of it to a lower exercise rate and a thyroid deficiency; at one point over the past year, I developed a painful heel spur, enough to spend $40 on xrays. Did overeating play a role? Clearly yes. At some jobs I ate out more, and in IT pizza is a staple for business meetings etc.--I didn't necessarily restrict myself to one slice.  My Mom would mail the occasional care package of cookies or other treats around holiday times. During the first few months of my Nutrisystem diet, I quickly took off 40 lbs. but once again I stalled; I'm not sure whether my body at some point just adjusts to the new normal. The problem is sticking to the diet once I've stalled or gotten bored.

The Fat Shaming Video and My Ongoing Battle of the Bulge

It just occurred to me I haven't posted in this blog in some time; I've since moved to 2 different states for new jobs (and might do it again soon). I'm probably up 30 pounds since my last post (and that's after a 10 pound loss since the beginning of the year). It was likely due more to lessened physical exercise, particularly since I developed a painful bone spur; I also have a thyroid condition, and I haven't had a prescription refill since I left Maryland.  I had restarted weight charting at the beginning of the year (infamous New Year resolution to lose weight) and resumed after the middle of August with a new scale; my weight was consistent before and after the interim, meaning that the weight gain mostly happened last year. (I should note that I had bounced hard off my diet low around my last post in November 2013 so about 8 pounds of the interim gain occurred before I started my new job in late 2013.)

I don't think I've addressed fat shaming in this blog, Nicole Arbour, a Youtube comedienne, posted the infamous video above and reportedly lost a movie role in the ensuing firestorm. I consider myself an amateur humorist and often poke fun at myself. But weight is not a funny topic; it's not that I'm overly sensitive, and I certainly don't go around agitating for the civil rights of over sized citizens. The idea that obesity is simply a matter of overeating the wrong things, a lack of self-control, etc, as Ms. Arbour suggests, is uninformed. For example, I almost never eat baked desserts, ice cream, packaged snack foods; I don't load up at all-you-care-to-eat restaurants. On a typical day, I might eat a 2-egg omelet in a low-carb tortilla for breakfast, a turkey burger on whole wheat sandwich thins with a salad (olive oil dressing) for lunch, and for dinner, a baked piece of salmon on a bed of shirataki noodles with a bowl of broth including veggies, like Brussels sprouts, broccoli, or green beans. Over the past week, eating on this regimen, I've seen my weight climb gradually rise from a month low about 1.5 lbs before a 2.5 lb. whoosh and new diet low this morning. But if Ms. Arbour saw me at over 100 pounds overweight, she would no doubt ridicule my appearance. It doesn't really affect me; she's not someone whose opinion matters to me. Everyone saw Jerry Lewis in one of his final MDA telethons who had put on serious weight, mostly in response to his meds; I have a little sister who did the same.

We don't need lectures on the health risks of obesity; our doctors check our weight every visit, they give us diet plans. It can be almost impossible to get individual health plans if your body mass index exceeds a certain benchmark, even if you've been mostly healthy all your life. When I had to make last-minute flight arrangements to see my dying father last year, I had to take whatever seats were available, especially the dreaded middle seats--not to mention the indignity of asking for  a seat extender. Buying clothes can be a serious hassle; a lot of mine have been ordered through the Internet.

I have mentioned in my blogs some of my experiences. One of the ones that sticks out in my memory was when I drove down to LA from Silicon Valley on a project back in 2000. On an isolated stretch in the middle of nowhere on I-5, I had a major blowout--and it was all but impossible to loosen the flat tire's lugnuts under a broiling sun.  To make things worse, I didn't have a cellphone. (I've had one since the incident.) As I was out there, one of the cars traveling north, slowed down, the driver rolled down his window to yell "Oink! Oink!" at me, and he and his passengers were laughing at his witty behavior. It was annoying, but to be honest, I was an assistant professor for 5 years, and I've had my fill of obnoxious adolescent behavior.

More recently, in my political blog, I noted some Chicago area union workers were spamming my opinions in a free market Facebook forum. One of my brothers took a picture of me with one of my beautiful grandnieces at a Knights of Columbus brunch following my father's funeral mass which I used for my profile picture. These jerks were saying things like I looked hungry enough to eat my niece; there were other sophomoric attempts to mock my size, like I must get winded going to the bathroom, that I couldn't find my penis under my rolls of fat, etc. And one of the women, much like Ms. Arbour, condescendingly lectured me how bad obesity was for my health, that I was a heart attack waiting to happen. [I'm not exactly sure they picked that up from a picture that cropped most of my body.]

I'm sure people like Ms. Arbour are well-intentioned, but please don't give unsolicited advice. Obesity is a complex phenomenon.  For those of us who are middle-aged, a slowing metabolism is a natural consequence of the aging process. There are individual differences; people with the same diet and exercise regimen can lose weight at different rates. Often when we eat less food, the body adjusts by a starvation defense in slowing metabolism. Believe us, we know that there is a social stigma over obesity; as a man, for example, I've noticed that most women are not attracted to obese men, and in the past the closer I got to my ideal weight, women were more likely to flirt. People won't make eye contact, they don't want to sit near you. You walk onto a plane and you see dozens of people silently praying that you're not in their row.

As for me, Ms. Arbour and her type have every right to express their opinions. Mocking other people's appearances, however, is mean-spirited and doesn't win friends or influence people.

Diet Update: 11/17/13 Grinding It Down

I finally broke through my diet low--not by much, maybe a half pound, but I was almost motivated to publish a celebratory post. Over the past 4 mornings, I've been within that half-pound range (right at my old low this morning). Considering over the past 5 weeks I've spent getting no closer than a pound above the old low, it has been a relief to finally see progress, but hopefully things will pick up from here to meet my goal of an additional 10-pound drop by New Year's.

I'm slowly transitioning to a more Paleo style diet--I'm down to my last loaf and two packages of wraps, maybe another two weeks away. I've cut all dairy except maybe the equivalent of a slice of cheese to my daily omelette, and I'm almost done with legumes. I'm not convinced maybe 10% of my caloric intake is responsible for my sluggish progress over the past 2 months, but I'm willing to experiment.

I purchased an inexpensive Chinese digital weight scale a time back, mostly for a higher capacity that hopefully I'll never need again (40-odd pounds ago). The only drawback is that it measures in tenths of kilograms. I've made the necessary conversions in my daily weight spreadsheet.

Diet Update: 11/09/13 Following the Bouncing Ball

In the early 1960's Mitch Miller had a signature show on NBC, directing a men's group of singers and encouraging viewers to sing along, as lyrics appeared on screen and a bouncing ball kept pace with the singers. (I saw a canned holiday show one Christmas season while I attended high school in south Texas.) I find watching the results of my early morning weigh-in to be similar.

Today marks the one-month anniversary of my big 5-pound gap down and I have only come within a pound of that diet low twice since.then; the only positive thing is that the tops of the bounces are declining. I may have prolonged it when I bought a few small tins of heart-healthy nuts when I went to pick up my latest prescriptions; the paleo diet gurus recommend a handful of nuts with meals. I  hadn't eaten nuts in a while and wasn't as disciplined. They weren't salted, and some diet gurus advocate "cheat days" to counteract the body slowing metabolism to accommodate dietary reductions. My weight didn't really surge during my nut days but the change to my diet probably didn't help. The last few weekends  I've been between bubbles, and this week I'm at a peak.

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a doctor's appointment this week. What is it about weigh-ins at doctor offices? Granted, I'm not weighing in nude, I had a burger for breakfast after my own weigh-in on a digital scale, but 8 pounds? Still, I think even with a consistent scale bias, my weight was down another 16 pounds since my last visit earlier in the summer, and he was pleased with the progress.

Nevertheless, I am unhappy with no net loss over the past month although there were other signs of progress, like having to take in my belt another couple of notches. I'm continuing to phase out grains, although I still have a couple of loaves and packages of flatbreads in the freezer. I'm also trying to phase in more veggies. My latest Internet order focused on low-carb salad dressings and yam (shirataki low-carb, high soluble fiber) noodles. But obviously I need to up the nature and extent of my daily exercise. I wanted to phase it in; I can still remember when I resumed my jogging routine as a graduate student at Texas, I was nauseated and felt a bit dizzy my first day back on schedule, and I weigh more now. I finally feel ready to take it up a notch. I'm setting a new target of dropping 10 pounds by New Year's.

Diet Update: 11/02/13 Descending Triangle

Not much progress to report; I once again bounced off last weekend's relative low; it's rather odd that over the last few weeks, I've been at bounce points on weekends, but I'm still a couple of pounds higher than last month's gap down low and I've only come to within a pound of the low over the past 3 weeks--but the pattern of lower bubble peaks has the appearance, using my financial analysis analogy, of a descending triangle, which could break through to a new low. Still, I've been frustrated  by the slow pace of weight loss over the past 2 months.

I do have a doctor's appointment in the near future. The only thing that bothers me about the inevitable weight check-in is that the scale usually puts my weight about 5 lbs. more than my digital home scale. Of course, I have clothes and shoes on, wallet, keys and maybe ate earlier. Still, my doctor should be pleased with my progress, although I'm still more than 40 pounds off his target. I would like to chop off a third of that by New Year's.

I may resort to a meal replacement regimen (with one regular dinner) for an upcoming week, just to see if my body has become accustomed to my diet over the past few weeks. I also subscribe to Tom Woods' podcasts (Woods is an historian with a libertarian political philosophy). He recently had on Mark Sisson of the Primal Blueprint, which the Woods have followed, and, separately,  Robb Wolf of the rival  Paleo diet. I haven't fully contrasted the approaches; both approaches seem to emphasize protein (especially lean grass-fed meats and wild-caught oily fish, which are regular parts of my diet--and I rotate in organ meats), primal is more liberal on dairy and fats, and generally grains and legumes are eliminated. The latter are the major differences with my current regimen, but I'm working through (and will not replace) my remaining whole grain tortillas and breads (although I rarely eat more than 30 net carb grams daily in daily servings); I have also included a daily serving of beans lately, but other than a small supply of dried black beans, I'm almost out and will not replace them.

Diet Update: 10/26/13 Bouncing Down the Staircase

The good news is that with nearly a 2-lb. drop overnight, I'm at my lowest weight in over 2 weeks.  The bad news is that I am still nearly 2 pounds over my month/diet low. So unless the current whoosh is sustained past my low, the chance of any new monthly low over the remaining week of the month, never mind another 4-5 lb. drop, seems low at this point.

It has been a frustrating 2 weeks because it seems every time I've had a minor whoosh down, the next 2 or 3 days the weight crept back up. The good news is that (using my financial analyst analogy) my new support line held (roughly my weight just before the 5-lb. gap down) and my bounces are putting in relatively lower lows, so it is possible I could break through my resistance (the major gap down) over the coming week.

No major tweaks in the foods I've been eating; I haven't done a meal replacement in a while, and I'll probably factor in those more over the coming month. More recently I've started out my day with a grass-fed beef or turkey burger followed by fresh berries or kiwi. I'll usually fir in an omelette with some flatbread variation as one of my other meals. I factor in veggies (lots of tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, mushrooms, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, etc.) and occasional servings of legumes (more recently, pinto or black heans) and take a daily multivitamin.  I try to hold down grain carbs to less than 250 calories a day, most of those a mixture of whole and/or sprouted grains; I don't think those are related to my long string of bouncing over the past few weeks. But I've been influenced lately by Mark Sisson's discussion of good carbs and will be working more servings of veggies and salads into the diet and eliminating wheat gluten totally from my diet (I didn't realize how common a medication levothyroxine is; my doctor hasn't discussed gluten with me--and given my diagnosed hypothyroid condition I'm sure he's had the blood workup done, but I'm sufficiently concerned about the thyroid-gluten connection to want to take preventive dietary steps.) I also need to be stepping up my anaerobic exercise regimen and getting in more sleep time.