Subject: Diet and Nutrition

• Breakfast Buffet: Wednesday, 7/15

  July 16, 2008

• Culinary school diary: week ten

  November 5, 2008

• Nothing whets the appetite like fish balls

  If fish balls aren't your thing try fluffy mackerel pudding or cabbage casserole czarina. Just three of the many dishes featured on Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. I lost my appetite just looking at these cards, and pretty soon the pounds will be coming off like the blood-and-milk looking sauce comes off the roast chicken.Back when Weight Watchers was featuring these recipes, the Grammy record of the year was "I Honestly Love You" by Olivia Newton John, which pretty much sums up all you

  December 5, 2008

• Drink versus dessert; which one is actually worse?

  Holidays ain't the greatest time to be dieting. Still, a lot of people are hoping not to gain that five or 10 pounds over the holidays, and that involves some concessions. Instead of giving up entire meals, most people will try to cut back on one thing or two. The foods with the most calories are alcohol and sweets. Preferably, hardcore dieters would give up them both, but you don't want to be a total calorie Grinch. So you're at the Christmas table and the wine starts flowing. Do you pass and w

  December 11, 2008

• Drinking and smoking

  The word "taxes" makes people act irrationally. Take, for instance, this wide-ranging tax plan from New York State, which would tax everything from clothes to boats to license plates to caloric (non-diet) soft drinks. It's already got a catchy nickname -- the obesity tax -- and, not surprisingly, has already the ire of soft drink manufacturers. I received this dandy of a press release yesterday from the Center for Consumer Freedom. Titled "Taxing Soda May Shrink New York's Bloated Deficit, but I

  December 16, 2008

• Best Healthy Lunch

  January 27, 2000

• Best Place for Vegan Dining

  January 27, 2000

• Best Home-Grown Product

  October 19, 2000

• Krazy for Kombucha

  Over the holidays my uncle came to visit from Los Angles. Within a few minutes of arriving, he handed me what at first glance looked to be a Snapple. But it said Synergy on the label, and the liquid inside was gold-colored had a bunch of flecks floating around in it. "This is going to blow your mind," he said. "It's called kombucha."Having drunk kombucha every day for a week now I can say it hasn't blown my mind so much as confused it. I can't decide whether I like it.Kombucha is essentially a t

  January 5, 2009

• Best Juice

  October 19, 2000

• Best Place to Get Organic Veggies

  October 18, 2001

• The FTC Hates Whole Foods

  The confusing sign outside the grocery store at 43rd and Main says it's a Wild Oats but it's actually a Whole Foods. But if the Federal Trade Commission gets its way, it could be a Wild Oats again after all. After years of legal wrangling over antitrust allegations, Whole Foods was allowed to buy out its biggest competitor, Wild Oats, in 2007. After millions were spent merging the two chains over these past two years, the FTC is now trying to halt the merger. To recap: The two companies complete

  January 15, 2009

• Breakfast Buffet: Thursday, 01/22

  The next big weight-loss craze could be purposely ingesting bacteria. Remind us how this is any different from losing weight due to illness? [Time]Smoking therapies are about to undergo a revolution now that scientists have positively identified nicotine receptors in humans' taste buds. [Scientific Blogging]Toothpaste erases crayon marks. Nail polish tightens screws. From Woman's Day, it's great uncommon uses for 16 ordinary household products. Errr...not that I read Woman's Day. [Woman's Day]An

  January 22, 2009

• What has 2,600 calories, 135 grams of fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats) and 1,700 mg sodium?

  The answer is a large Baskin Robbins' chocolate Oreo Shake.Once, I tried to eat an entire 2,400 calorie Baskin Robbins Heath Shake, believing it to be the worst thing on Baskin-Robbins menu. Although I only finished three-fourths of it (my estimate was 1,800 to 2,000 calories), it resulted in multiple brain freezes, stomach cramps and avoidance of Baskin Robbins ever since. Now I find my effort was for naught, because the Baskin Robbins chocolate Oreo Shake comes in at 2,600 calories and, accord

  January 22, 2009

• Best Guilt-Free Pleasure

  October 17, 2002

• Diet Soda wine = Slender

  The biggest downside to booze -- besides the hangovers and accidental pronouncements of love to secret crushes -- is the calories. A couple of beers contain as many as a meal, and wine has nearly twice as many calories per ounce than soda. Enter Slender. It's a wine made by Chateau Thomas Winery out of Indiana and it's advertised as having "no sugar, no carbs, no aftertaste, no kidding." Impossible you say. Wines need sugar so the yeast can metabolize it and emit alcohol as a byproduct. To t

  February 5, 2009

• Best Banana Split with a Japanese Twist

  October 9, 2003

• Best Candy Innovation

  October 9, 2003

• Sweet baby Jesus it's King Cake

  Not being Catholic or southern, I'm not too familiar with King Cake. But since it's Mardi Gras time and King Cake is a subspecies of my favorite thing in the entire world -- cake -- I knew I had to have my own this year. That and I've always wanted a naked baby Jesus.But seriously, why the plastic baby? When I bought a King Cake from Whole Foods, the box just said the baby was supposed to bring good luck to whoever finds it. Hiding a small plastic figurine in an edible food seems more likely

  February 18, 2009

• The government still beating down Whole Foods

  Flickr: CompujerameyWhen I was in Whole Foods two days ago picking up a King Cake, I ran into a cooking classmate of mine who is a chef at the grocery store. I asked what was going on with the Whole Foods-Wild Oats-FTC thing. Sadly, my classmate wasn't sure of anything (or if he was, wouldn't divulge) but said he heard something about settling the case.    Sure enough, last week Whole Foods CEO John Mackey told an audience at Yale that the company was close to an agreement with the Fed

  February 19, 2009

• Gatorade: a cure for what ails ya

  Flickr: DJ Linda LovelyGatorade has been promoting its new G line of low-calorie drinks with a team of athletes -- the Super Bowl ad featured 16 different stars. But athletes aren't Gatorade's real target audience. It's hungover people!Our sister blog The Snitch in San Francisco did some research among store clerks and estimates that 50 percent of all Gatorade sales are for hangovers; the percentage goes up on weekends. For most out-of-shape people, it's the only reason they have to drink Gatora

  February 20, 2009

• Carb Barbs

  June 3, 2004

• Best Low-Carb Tailoring

  October 7, 2004

• Whole Foods says screw it. Agrees to FTC's demands.

  I hope I don't have to write the word "FTC" for a long time, now that the governmental organization that's been out to get that devious Whole Foods company has won. Sort of. No one's really a winner here.Whole Foods, which has publicly regretted taking over rival Wild Oats, agreed to give up use of the name and sell some former Wild Oats stores. Kansas City had two Wild Oats before Whole Foods bought them. The store at 6621 w.119th Street will remain Whole Foods, while the 4301 Main location, wh

  March 9, 2009

• Healthy news about doughnuts!

  Flickr: Chotda Lately, I just feel too guilty eating a doughnut. As delicious as they are, they vanish in, like, two bites and they are loaded with calories. But this new article states that a good night's sleep burns off enough calories to eat three Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I don't care if it's true or not. I want to believe it!

  March 9, 2009

• Calories on menus: suggestion or gospel?

  Flickr:PnoericMore restaurant chains are under fire for misrepresenting the calorie counts on their menus.  This time it's Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts who are in hot water after a news station in New York found "caloric inaccuracies." New York City was the first city to require calorie information on the chain menus, and similar bills have been proposed all over the country, including Missouri.Local chain Applebee's faced similar criticism over items on its special Weight Watcher's m

  March 16, 2009

• Whole Foods tuna sandwich: not worth stealing

  I've been thinking a lot about the case of Whole Foods versus employee Ralph Reese, who was fired from a New York City store for misconduct after a supervisor accused him of "trying to steal a sandwich by taking it from the trash at the end of his shift as a deli clerk." I wrote about this incident, which is now playing out in the courts, on Tuesday. The store accused him of taking a tuna sandwich out of the trash; Reese argues he set it aside, it was never in the trash and he was completel

  March 18, 2009

• Darden Restaurants finally post calorie information online

  Flckr: William HartzWhile nutritional information must be present on packaged food and beverages, until recently there were no laws requiring restaurant chains to disclose the same information. Most chains released information voluntarily but several did not. Darden Restaurants, the holding company for Olive Garden and Red Lobster, gave out virtually no nutritional information. Quietly, it's finally changed that policy.

  March 30, 2009

• Wash away the pounds and other crazy notions

  Flickr: Jill GreensethI'd guess most people have a friend who's always on a diet. When it comes to weight loss, dieters are willing to do crazy things and quack inventors are happy to oblige.Neatorama has tabulated the 10 craziest diets in history and yes, at one point in time, some people did believe they could wash away the pounds. The pseudo science (emphasis on pseudo) is that certain seaweed soaps they can penetrate the skin and break down fat. Real scientists have found no evidence of the

  March 30, 2009

• Breakfast Buffet: Wednesday, 4/08

  That new yogurt shop Mochi-Yo really knows how to guerrilla market itself. [Hot Blog on a Stick]In what is virtually the only bright spot in travel, gay tourism is still strong and cities are fighting to get the business. [Chicago Tribune]It's a pretty well-known fact that Americans consume more calories than they did 20 years ago. But did you know the extra 200 calories per day we now consume comes mostly from liquids? [CNN]So you walk into a restaurant, order and ask the bartender what types o

  April 8, 2009

• McRibbing

  A man eats fast food for a month. Guess what happens.

  May 20, 2004

• The Deepest Cut

  Obese patients trusted Dr. Timothy Sifers for the best weight-loss surgery available. It was too good to be true.

  February 26, 2004

• A Market Economy

  The Troost Community Market offers an alternative to convenience stores.

  May 3, 2001

• Eat Right

  May 14, 2009

• Breakfast Buffet: Friday, 5/29

  College and high school students, here's an addendum to the Fat City post on interning at farms. This went up on KC Food Circle's blog yesterday: "Greater KC Area Students, if you are looking for summer work on a local organic or free-range farmstead or in an urban/community garden, post your work wanted ad by e-mail to HarvestHotline@KCFoodCircle.org."Four rules for healthier eating include stopping a habit I'd never heard of -- people gorging on unhealthy food while watching healthy meals prep

  May 29, 2009

• The extreme debate about alcohol in moderation

  For years it's been accepted wisdom that drinking in moderation, especially red wine, helps lower the chances of heart disease. But now that presumption has been flipped on its head, as doctors are wondering whether moderate drinking is not a cause of lower heart disease but merely a byproduct. Studies show that moderate drinking is most often done by people who live moderately in other aspects of their life. It may simply be that leading a moderate life of not eating too much, exercising some a

  June 16, 2009

• Fortified with nonsense

  The blog Consumerist has recently been poking some holes in the idea that Naked Juice is as natural and healthy as it claims to be. One astute reader noticed that the nutrition label for Strawberry Kick showed that it contained zero vitamin C, even though it supposedly contained 14 whole strawberries, a fruit packed with vitamin C. The company responded that the vitamin C is lost during pasteurization, but added that another Naked Juice flavor, Power-C Machine, has "added boosts" of vitamin C. "

  June 16, 2009

• Sweeteners in disguise

  Avoiding sugar and its cousins doesn't sound like it should very complicated. All you need to do is look at the ingredient list and see if sugar is one of the items. Easy, right? Wrong. Sweeteners can be labeled under a score of different names, making certain products seem healthier than they are and causing problems for diabetics.IVillage Total Health has put together a list of 24 ingredients that are really sweeteners in disguise. Some are sugar-based, some crop-based and some artificial. The

  June 23, 2009

• Best Place to Blow a Diet 2008: The Peppercorn Duck Club

  January 15, 2009

• A week without corn

  ​The challenge sounds easy. Can writer Carey Jones avoid consuming any corn, or products that contain corn, for a week?The real question is how much would she actually have to change her diet? Not many of us eat corn every day in its original stalk or cob-form. Cornbread probably isn't on the menu unless you're enjoying barbecue, and sadly, grilled corn has not caught on as a street food yet in Kansas City. But it gets harder when you think about having popcorn as a snack or sodas sweetened wi

  July 27, 2009

• Talking raw food with chef Rachel Fracassa

  ​Some people make you feel healthier just talking to them. That's the case with raw/vegan food chef Rachel Fracassa -- who, in addition to catering, teaches a series of food preparation and healthy living classes. Fat City caught up with Fracassa via e-mail to talk about the raw food movement in Kansas City and how someone's diet might change while working with her.   Fat City: Why Raw Food? Rachel Fracassa: Raw food is in its natural state, no processing, no preservatives or chemicals,

  August 3, 2009

• Frozen coffee drinks are closer to meals than drinks

  ​As kids, we kept hearing that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Now it turns out the choices we're making in the morning can have some big ramifications on our health. From Eat This, Not That  (the sister blog of the book by the same title) comes a list of frozen coffee drinks that can take up a big chunk of your recommended daily calorie intake. Consider the Oreo n' Cookies Cappuccino Blast from Baskin Robbins -- which runs you 950 calories, 37 grams of fat, and 111 gram

  August 6, 2009

• An unhealthy obsession with eating healthy

  ​We all know the mantra for how to eat healthy. Eliminate fat. Eliminate carbohydrates. Only shop the outer aisles. Stick to raw food. Cook everything as thoroughly as possible. While most of us yo-yo between nutrition axioms, a small percentage of the population can't dismiss any of them. News.com.au notes that British experts are seeing a rise in orthorexia nervosa -- an eating disorder wherein people can't stop focusing on eating healthy foods, restricting their diet based on what they deem

  August 18, 2009

• More energy drinks, less taurine

  ​Pick a synonym for "movement" and there's probably an energy drink or shot attached to it: Amp. Charge. Go Fast. Explosion. Even Steven Seagal has a Lightning Bolt energy drink (with the disquieting flavor of Asian Experience). The energy drink market has blown up this decade, with sales increasing 240 percent between 2004 and 2009. Analysts have predicted it will be a $10 billion (that's billion) market by 2010. With that much money being poured into game fuel, companies are considering the

  September 1, 2009

• A nation of calorie counters is still fat

  ​The results are in from New York City's great experiment to determine whether posting the caloric content of menu items actually affects customers' behavior. New York University and Yale University recently studied the purchasing habits of people at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and Kentucky Fried Chicken in the neighborhoods of New York City with the highest rates of obesity.  About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of

  October 7, 2009

• Thai truck drivers and energy drinks

  ​If it seems like energy drinks have taken over the world, that's because they have. But one place where the growth of energy drinks has stalled is Thailand. Now a study from market research firm Zeneath suggests that might be the reason for an international energy-drink slowdown. Energy drink sales in Thailand declined 41 percent in 2008 as a sluggish economy impacted truck drivers -- the country's largest consumers of energy beverages. And although this feels a bit like chaos theory, wherei

  October 15, 2009

• Soda a larger part of our lives than we think?

  ​The number of calories that soda contributes to our daily intake is a hotly debated topic. Soft-drink manufacturers don't believe that soda should be singled out in relation to the nation's obesity, and critics argue that Americans are slowly drinking themselves into a world of motorized scooters. The Center for a Livable Future (CLF) recently took issue with an argument from Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent that only 5.5 percent of our daily caloric intake comes from soda -- a statistic attributed

  October 20, 2009

• Smart decision to shelve 'Smart Choices'

  ​Score a victory for the Food and Drug Administration, as the food industry group behind those "Smart Choices" labels has decided to voluntarily halt promotions while the FDA seeks to better define nutritional claims in the marketplace.In August, the FDA sent an open letter to the Smart Choices program -- a rebranding/marketing campaign underwritten by nine major corporations including Kellogg's and Kraft -- explaining that the agency would be monitoring the nutrition label campaign. One of th

  October 26, 2009

• Battle of the Dishes: Fast-food breakfast

  ​Does a fried chicken biscuit sandwich really sound that appealing for breakfast? Not really, unless you're a serious fan of Chick-fil-A and love to start the day with a little cardboard box of Chick-n-Minis: three little buttered biscuits, about the size of a 50-cent piece, stuffed with a ball of not-so-crispy fried chicken, slightly larger than a marble. Very salty, with 2.5 grams of saturated fat and 260 calories. Even with a container of orange juice, not so good for you. The bre

  October 29, 2009

• Forget horror movies, the scary is in the popcorn

  ​A study released yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a medium popcorn and soda sold at the Regal Entertainment Group was the equivalent of eating three Quarter Pounders from McDonald's topped with ... wait for it... 12 pats of butter. And that's before we compulsively press the handle of the buttered topping dispenser.Kansas City-based AMC fared slightly better in the tests, although that's mostly because of the smaller portion sizes at the chain. A Regal med

  November 20, 2009