Thursday, May 8, 2008

Chicken Spaghetti Mediocrity


Last night I attempted to make Chicken Spaghetti and the results were mediocre at best.

I used Tyson Chicken which I've found to be hit or miss in terms of the cut and excess fat. Your better bet is store brand from somewhere like Target or Wal-Mart.

The name of the dry spaghetti I used slips my mind for some reason, but I have no complaints about it really as it's pretty hard to mess that up...unless you just try to over-cook it.

The spaghetti sauce was "Garlic and Herb" by Hunt's. Not an overly sophisticated sauce, but also not horrible by any means.

I cooked my chicken first in a pan with a little butter, sea salt and multi-color pepper corns. This turned out well despite the fact that pan-fried chicken isn't easy on such a limited budget and limited spices and herbs.

I then set the spaghetti on for 8-9 minutes and prepared the sauce to put on the heat. After everything was done, I put the spaghetti down, then salt and peppered it, added sauce and then put on the chicken.

The result wasn't inedible...it was just dull...maybe I didn't use enough salt or pepper...maybe I should have seasoned the chicken better...or even made more chicken to put in. I'm not sure, but one this is for sure, the next time I make spaghetti, I'll be using good old fashioned meat balls.

Bon Apitité, as long as you're not eating with me on this streak...

(((03))) (photo by Quan Nguyen)

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Calorie Bombs


Article from Men's Health by David Zincenko

What does the restaurant industry have to hide? One of the true issues behind obesity is the fact that many chain restaurants — which provide one-third of all restaurant meals, according to the New York Department of Health — obfuscate the fat and calorie counts of their menu items, and fight any attempt to shed light on what, exactly, is going on between their buns and inside their taco shells.

Through scientific testing, consultations with nutrition experts, and good old-fashioned snooping, we uncovered some of the secrets these mega-restaurateurs have been keeping.

It's no wonder . . .

1) T.G.I. Friday’s

. . . doesn’t want you to know the nutritional impact of any of its dishes, which they have made a policy of not revealing to customers for years, despite the fact that major competitors such as Chili’s and Ruby Tuesday’s do just that. Thankfully, new legislation in New York City forces restaurants with 15 or more branches nationwide to provide calorie counts for all dishes and drinks on their menus.

We popped by T.G.I. Friday’s the day the law went into effect and saw some real shockers: 2,270 calories for Potato Skins, 1,670 calories for Double-Stack Quesadillas, and, most appalling of all, a Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad with 1,360 calories! Now we see why they worked so hard to keep these numbers hidden.

2) Burger King

. . . doesn't want you to know that its French Toast Sticks (which deliver more than 4 grams of fat per stick) share a deep fryer with the pork sausage, pork fritters, Chicken Tenders, Chicken Fries, Big Fish patties, hash browns, onion rings, and Cheesy Tots — and that all of those items contain harmful trans fats.

But there is hope: After the company was sued by the Center for Science in the Public Interest for moving too slowly to remove trans fats from its menu, Burger King promised to phase them out by the end of this year.

3) Red Robin

. . . doesn't want you to know the nutritional impact of its gourmet burgers. "A gourmet burger starts by being an honest burger," Red Robin's Web site declares — but not, apparently, a burger that will come clean about its nutrition facts.

When contacted, Red Robin's senior vice president responded that nutritional information for the menu would be available in October 2007. As of May 2008, however, nutrition facts were still not posted on the site.

4 ) Maggiano's Little Italy

. . . doesn't want you to know just how many calories and carbs you're consuming in those massive pasta portions. (As the menu puts it, "Family-style service or individual entrees are available . . . Whichever you choose, you'll have plenty to share or take home.")

In Italy, a standard pasta serving means 4 ounces of noodles with a few tablespoons of sauce. At Maggiano's, a large order of pasta translates into 2 pounds of noodles piled high on a hubcap-size dinner plate (15 1/2 inches in diameter). A Maggiano's PR rep responded to our request for nutritional information a week later: "Sorry for the delay. I had to wait for corporate's approval. Unfortunately, they have declined to participate."

5) Sit-down chains

. . . don't want you to know that their food is actually considerably worse for you than the often-maligned fast-food fare. In fact, our menu analysis of 24 national chains revealed that the average entree at a sit-down restaurant contains 867 calories, compared with 522 calories in the average fast-food entree. And that's before appetizers, sides, or desserts — selections that can easily double your total calorie intake.

For more reasons to insist on nutritional transparency from the food industry, check out these shocking secrets they don’t want you to know.

(DZ) (photo by ClayTaurus)

Monday, May 5, 2008

When is calling something 'fatty' not bad..?


by Christine McKinney,
M.S., R.D., C.D.E. Johns Hopkins Medicine

Just the other day, I was reading the label on a loaf of bread I bought and noticed it was fortified with omega-3 fatty acids, a type of polyunsaturated fat.

You can now find eggs, cereal, waffles, milk, margarine spreads, and even orange juice fortified with omega-3s. But do you know what these fatty acids can do for you and how much you are supposed to consume?

Researchers have identified a number of benefits from consuming omega-3 fatty acids:

  • Improving inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and asthma
  • Lowering blood pressure and triglycerides
  • Increasing HDL (good) cholesterol
  • Reducing depression, as well as the symptoms of bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease
The American Heart Association recommends we consume the following amounts of omega-3s:
  • for people without heart disease, at least two servings each week of a fatty fish such as salmon
  • for people with heart disease, 1 gram each of DHA and EPA (types of omega-3s) daily
  • for people with elevated triglycerides, 2 to 4 grams each of DHA and EPA daily, in capsule form

This supplementation should be done under your doctor's supervision.

Foods that naturally contain omega-3s include fish (salmon, tuna, white fish), flaxseed, walnuts, pinto beans, and broccoli, as well as canola, soybean, and flaxseed oils. To find out how much omega-3s are in some of the foods you eat, look up particular foods in Nutrition Data.

(CMc) (photo by Amanda Rudkin)