Thursday, March 26, 2009

Day 17 - Cereal, Satay Noodles, Blintzes

I woke myself up at 4:30 AM today to work, so when I was finally able to remove myself from my textbooks, I indulged in Trader Joe's 9 Whole Grain Crunch or whatever they call it. I say "indulged", because the cereal is pretty processed. Corn syrup and modified food starch are among the ingredients, for instance. Tomorrow I know I'm doing something with cottage cheese, peanut butter, blackberry jam, and bananas, but I am not sure how they all will fit together yet.

In foods class, we made satay noodles (with Skippy. Can you spell hydrogenated soybean oil? Euch.), but the dish did not come out fantastically, so I do not believe myself to be doing any disservice by not posting the recipe. If you're wondering about the chili, the recipe is coming...

I placed myself on dinner duty again. We're still in the midst of a freezer tirade, so I really only had to heat the blintzes up, as far as those are concerned. I did make some fresh salad from the CSA box goodies (same ingredients as yesterday, except I added some mushrooms which were about to go bad). I dressed the salad with organic extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar, but the vinegar did not tast that good, so I'll be picking up some organic balsamic in the next couple of days.

For "Da !@#$ am I eating?", I've chosen an old favorite. Since today is the first time since starting my diet that I had partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (as far as I know, at least), I'm taking this oppurtunity to bash the stuff. What's wrong with it, you say? Well...
  • trans fats: this is where they come from. Even if the nutrition facts say "trans fats 0g", chances are the product still has trans fats. They are basically normal fat molecules (which we need) grossly misshapen.
  • trans fats inhibit the body's ability to digest essential fatty acids (which we need), interfere with the functions of cell membranes, have zero nutritional value, and can quickly lead to obesity.
  • of all hydrogenated oils. hydrogenated soybean oil can be considered the worst, as it has been shown to depress the thyroid, making the body more sluggish and obese.
To avoid hydrogenated vegetable oils (at all costs), don't ingest food that lists hydrogenated anything as an ingredient. Recently, manufacturers have begun using the terms "monoglycerides" and "diglycerides", because, as consumers, we're beginning to avoid anything with hydrogenation in the name. But these are hydrogenated oils, so don't eat these either.

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