..on a plate of loaded jo-jo’s. A, potatoes, like tomatoes are not our friends anyway: make the joints ache. B) neither is low carb, and particularly potatoes have starch, not our friend on this diet. The good news is, a typical small potato is 12 carbs, and these were converted baked potatoes rebaked with cheese and bacon and jalapenos, so they weren’t as bad as french fries, which add grease to the pile…but…it would have been better to have fewer. The waitress accidentally (she gave it for the same price) brought the larger order. So Jane and I both indulged.
The good news is, A, we left a third of the plate, which once would have disappeared. B, we both concluded while it felt nice and ‘free’ to pig out, it wasn’t really enjoyable as an experience: our over-indulgence didn’t make our tummies happy. It made us think we didn’t want the same tomorrow: we actually want to go back to our strict diet.
It’s good news when the overindulgence starts looking unappetizing. Our eyes are starting to adjust to smaller portions, to match what our stomachs and appetites have already adjusted to. Too much really has become too much in perception as well.
Back to splitting a half order of whatever it is…
You left a third on your plates!! A big NSV or Non-Scale-Victory!
Every once in a while you have to indulge or else you start feeling deprived and then pig out making you feel even worse.
Some friends and I are doing a survey of bread pudding around T-town. The best, so far, is McGills which has a goodly amount of bourbon in the sauce. I have a couple of spoonfulls and take the rest of my share home to the other half.
My tummy seems to have gotten more “sensitive” as I’ve gotten older. I read this a few days ago from Science Daily:
Research in Aging Fruit Flies May Explain the Roots of Metabolic Dysfunction in Aging Humans
“Findings provide a rationale for ‘Why We Just Can’t Eat What We Used To’
Oct. 14, 2013 Novato, California — Have you ever wondered why young children can eat bags of Halloween candy and feel fine the next day — compared to adults who experience all sorts of agony following the same junk food binge? Evolution and a gene called Foxo may be to blame. Working in fruit flies, scientists at the Buck Institute have identified a mechanism that helps the flies adapt to changes in diet when they’re young; they’ve discovered that same mechanism gets misregulated as the flies age, disrupting metabolic homeostasis, or balance. …”
More by clicking the tag above.
That explains why more than a few tablespoons of milk in coffee make me feel bloated — I may be developing some lactose intolerance as I age. Fortunately, altered milk products aren’t as touchy; buttermilk, which I actually drink on its own and use in cooking, doesn’t seem to affect me badly yet, I can have a scoop of ice cream if I want, and cheese is still thankfully okay (if cheese is off the list, there will be wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth!) My boss has been going through months of food allergy tests; the barrage resembles ‘throw it at the wall and see what sticks’, but they seem to finally be narrowing it down.
I developed lactose intolerance after about 55 or so. My sister isn’t. My Dad may have been. He didn’t believe adults need milk, though he usually had ice cream in the fridge. 😉
(The numbers for “Northern Europeans” is about 20% intolerant.)
I don’t drink milk or eat ice cream :(, but a bit of firm cheese seems to be OK, usually.
I called the state extension and Dept of Ag about how much galactose remains in lightly “processed” milk products such as yogurt, cottage cheese, etc. Because there’s no regulations about that they don’t have to measure, and don’t. But the Ag guy guestimated maybe half.
Thank goodness my northern European heritage has not betrayed me: lactose intolerance is not our problem. My central French heritage (and Jane’s) probably delivered the onion allergy. But so far cheese is a major (and enjoyable) part of our diet.
Very little in the way of soups or frozen dinners get past my tendency to put cheese or more pepper or spice on whatever it is. 😉
I’m with you in that lactose intolerance isn’t a problem. One of the best Braum’s ice creams around is Dulce de Leche Cheesecake. I have at least a spoonful or 2 every night. The other half has a bowl of it.
I stopped having cereal with milk for breakfast some years ago – one morning I woke up and didn’t want it any more. Cheese, however, is fine, and I have several chunks of various kinds in the fridge – it depends on the market having some for sale when I’m buying groceries. Results in meeting some interesting stuff, too: white Stilton with blueberries is very tasty as a treat.
I used to wait for milk to go on sale at the groceries. Between about four local stores, about the time I’d go through a gallon, a week or two later one of them would have it on sale again. Then one time I ran out, so I waited a week, then two, then three, then around the fourth week I started to notice my tummy wasn’t such a problem. 🙂 And I haven’t bought any milk or ice cream since. 😉
Have you done broccoli-cheddar soup? A bowl or two of that will fill you up good without much else on the side. I am an inveterate maker of stock; whenever I have a turkey carcass or meat drippings, they are decanted or simmered, thence to the freezer for later use. I simmer the broccoli until tender in whatever broth I have handy, and the cooking juices become part of the soup. This is also a good place to toss in those quarter cup portions of vegetables you have malingering in the fridge; it is one of the few places I will use the maligned canned vegetable medley. I use a potato masher to smash the broccoli down, but a stick blender will do also. A dash of flour to thicken the vegetables and pepper to taste, and at the last a bag of Cheddar shreds. Stir until the cheese melts, and voila! It freezes nicely, too.
I grew up with farmer born and raised grandparents on both sides. This probably influenced my food choices a lot.
Food and aging: Both sides of the family used buttermilk and “clabbered milk,” which I never hear about these days, city-boy that I am. Cheese was used about as much. Regular milk was called “sweet milk,” to distinguish it from buttermilk. My point in this is that older folks kept using buttermilk and clabbered milk, yogurt and cheese, so perhaps something in how they are produced makes them more tolerable as we age. On the farm, there was homemade butter and cream, cottage cheese and (I think) cheese. However, I notice they were all happy to give up hand-churning butter in favor of getting it from the store! As far as I know, neither family made ice cream at home on the farm. It was a treat bought on trips into town.
There were also canned vegetables and fruits. Some pickled vegetables. Sauerkraut. (Imagine my surprise to find out kim-chee is a cousin of Sauerkraut…but kim-chee is stronger and spicier, IMHO.)
Chondrite’s soup suggestions have me interested in soups, now that fall and winter are *finally* here. I’ll copy her recipe down and save it for my next soup-making batch. — Though I’m thinking of a pot of beans this week.
Also, one had much success this morning with chopsticks. One managed not to feel like a barbarian. One’s technique has not yet acquired finesse, or evenness and control of the tips. But one got through a bowl of ramen soup with veggies with decent technique. One was not over-thinking it and one did not thus have a death grip on the chopsticks. One at last felt like they were utensils like a pencil, pen, or brush, and one could simply eat without concentrating too hard on the (formerly) “foreign” implements. One has grown to appreciate their usefulness. They are no longer “peculiar” or “just sticks.” — One has already been using them occasionally in the kitchen for stirring and such, or other uses in crafts. One has come to appreciate how handy, simple, and well thought out they, and much else of Asian culture are.
However, one has a pair of nice, slightly longer chopsticks for which one needs a case. So far, they are too long for the plastic(?) cases one has found, and too crowded if one tries to put them in with a set (case and chopsticks). One wonders, by the way, why the cases don’t seem to have room for a small chopstick rest. Perhaps one is missing a point of “of course one simply does this” of chopstick etiquette? One has taken to keeping the longer chopsticks and a rest in a long ziplock baggie in one’s desk drawer, in case one is busy and eats at one’s desk, as happens now and then. One would rather have something more refined and expressive than a mere plastic baggie, as chopstick cases can be elegant and compact.
With both BJD’s and the chopsticks, one has noticed also a cultural difference between Japanese (or Asian) and American culture in how certain things are wrapped in plastic. The Japanese preference is more like an envelope, resealable with a taped/gummed edge, intended for reuse and slightly thicker and more permanent, and still very neat and tidy; while the American version is either thin throwaway or built as an impenetrable fortress. The Japanese versus the American versions imply three cultural assumptions one finds more appealing on the Japanese side: (1) Neatness, orderliness, utility, an attention to craftsmanship and detail both for the usefulness of the items and as a reflection of esteem between giver/seller and recipient/buyer/client. These show art and functionality and excellence, all in one. (2) The assumption of longer-term use, of more permanence than disposability or ephemera or planned obsolescence (even if the Japanese version has planned obsolescence). (3) An assumption that a customer will *not* shoplift or damage the goods, that a product can be demonstrated or examined in-store between buyer and seller, rather than requiring major hardware and risk to life and limb to get into a package once one has bought it. One finds the Japanese approach altogether more desirable and admirable. One wishes it could be so over here. One is reminded there was a time when one’s ancestors, two or three generations back, would have done much the same as the Japanese do now, had plastic been and other modern conveniences available back then.
One is being supervised by one’s felines, who approve this post. 😀