Eat Out Eat Well

Restaurants, Diners, Fast Food

Why Not A Non-Fat Caffe Latte?

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Valley Of Fatigue

When I was a kid there was a commercial on TV for Welch’s Grape Juice.  The gist of the commercial was that when you hit your 3 or 4PM energy drain – or what they called the “valley of fatigue” — a nice glass of Welch’s grape juice would help you climb right out of the bottom of that valley.

Of course, an 8 oz glass of the purple juice with 170 calories, and 42 grams of carbohydrates (40 of which are sugars), will certainly give you a pop of energy.  However, since it’s all sugar, that immediate blood sugar spike will quickly turn into a dropping blood sugar – leaving you with less energy – and probably crankier – than before.

Here’s A Better Choice

How about a non-fat skim caffe latte instead.  You could be at a mall, in a train station, an airport, sitting at your desk, or walking down the street.  There’s a Starbuck’s or a Dunkin’ Donuts, or a zillion other coffee shops if not right in front of you, then most likely around the next corner or down the road apiece.

Why Is A Non-Fat Skim A Good Idea?

Three reasons — maybe there are more, but here are three good ones:

  • Easy to find – coffee shops are everywhere
  • It’s a finite size – you ask for a certain size, you get it, you drink it and then it’s gone (unlike the rest of the cookies remaining in the box that will continue to tempt you)
  • You get a nice satisfying, long-lasting, and portable hot drink to sip with a good amount of protein and no fat; whether it’s caffeinated or decaffeinated is your choice

Nutritional Stats For a Non-Fat Caffe Latte

Starbucks’ Non-Fat Caffe Latte (espresso and non-fat milk)

  • Tall (12 oz):  100 calories, 10 grams of protein
  • Grande (16 oz):  130 calories, 13 grams protein
  • Venti (20 oz):  170 calories, 16 grams protein

Note:  Try to avoid flavored lattes which add (in sugars) 50 calories to the tall, 70 calories to the grande, and 80 calories to the venti and drops the protein count for each by a gram.

What’s For Lunch At Amusement Parks?

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Boardwalk, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York

The Boardwalk at Coney Island

I spent most of Saturday at Coney Island.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and I was there for a birthday party.  What a fantastic idea.

We all had lunch at a Peruvian chicken place.  Chicken, rice and beans, plantains, and some French fries thrown in for good measure.  The chicken was marinated and roasted, the plantains sauteed in butter and brown sugar.  The rice and beans were just that — white rice and brown beans.

Given the other options, this was not a bad meal.  The chicken was very tasty and not fried.  The plantains were very sweet and the rice and beans were not greasy.  The French fries were crispy — but still French fries.  No green food or other veggies in sight.

Birthday cake:  Homemade and decorated with jelly beans.  Birthday girl:  Loved it.

The Alternatives

These are pictures of  what was mostly available.  Although all of these photos were taken on the boardwalk   at Coney Island (near the New York Aquarium), this kind of food is what can be found at many amusement parks.  Peruvian chicken was certainly the best food option in this case.  An even better one could be to bring your own lunch if you want to — otherwise, build this type of meal into your eating for the day.  Whichever choice you make, enjoy.  I certainly did.

Are You Going To Cook That Or Do A Chemistry Experiment?

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Do you watch Top Chef?  I do.  I also watch Top Chef Masters.  And, because I happen to live in the New York City area, I’ve been fortunate enough to eat at wd—50, Wylie Dufresne’s restaurant in Manhattan. Dufresne, a contender on Top Chef Masters and a guest judge on Top Chef, is one of America’s most famous chefs who routinely uses molecular gastronomy in his food preparation.

What The Heck Is Molecular Gastronomy?

It’s a scientific discipline that studies the physical and chemical processes that happen during cooking.  According to Wikipedia, It tries to figure out things like:

  • How different cooking methods alter ingredients
  • What role the senses play in appreciating food
  • How cooking methods affect food’s flavor and texture
  • How the brain interprets signals from the senses to tell us the “flavor” of food
  • How things like the environment, mood, and presentation influence the enjoyment of food

“The Scientific Study Of Deliciousness”

This is how Harold McGee, author of  the book, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, describes MG. Gourmet Girl Magazine gives these examples of MG techniques:

  • Flash-freezing which involves quickly freezing the outside of various foods, sometimes leaving a liquid center.
  • Spherification: Little spheres are made by mixing liquid food with sodium alginate then dunking it into calcium chloride.  A sphere looks and feels like caviar and has a thin membrane that releases a liquid center when it pops in your mouth.
  • Meat glue: Wylie Dufresne’s “shrimp noodles” are noodles made of shrimp meat and created using transglutaminase, or meat glue, as it’s called at wd-50. It binds different proteins together and is commonly used in foods like chicken nuggets.
  • Foams: Sauces that are turned into froth by using a whipped cream canister, sometimes with lecithin as a stabilizer.
  • Edible menus: Yep, eat your menu. By using an ink-jet printer, inks made from fruit and vegetables, and paper made of soybean and potato starch, your menu can taste like your dinner.
  • Dusts and Dehydration: Dehydrating ingredients into a dust changes the way to use them, for example, making a dust of certain mushrooms and then sprinkling it on food.

The Bottom Line

According to Environmental Nutrition (EN), if you’ve wondered what makes glossy white peaks form when you whip egg whites, or how an ordinary milk can  turn into rich, pungent cheese, you’ve wandered into the world of molecular gastronomy (MG).

MG, “the scientific study of the pleasure giving qualities of foods—the qualities that make them more than mere nutrients,” analyzes long standing culinary practices and old wives’ tales and deconstructs classic recipes. As you lick that delicious ice cream cone do you stop and think about ice cream’s complicated physical structure that includes ice crystals, protein aggregates, sugar crystals and fats in a condensed form?  You don’t, but molecular gastronomists might.

What Does MG Look Like On Your Dinner Plate?

Grant Achatz, a James Beard award winning chef might serve these foods at Alinea, his Chicago restaurant: tiny bits of cauliflower served shaved, fried, dehydrated, and coated in three kinds of custards; Chinese beef and broccoli plated as a traditional short rib, the plate dotted with dehydrated broccoli and peanuts then covered with a clear gelatinous sheet of Guinness beer.

Got you thinking as you lick your lips?

Some Summer Trivia: Key Moments In The Life Of Junk Food

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Junk Food Has Been Around For A While . . .

Quite a while, as a matter of fact.  It’s been around for centuries in all cultures and all over the world, but America has done one heck of a job coming up with a whole slew of varieties of junk food;  then branding, mass producing, and eating it. According to the New York Times, the history of junk food as we know it is an American back story interlaced with genius, serendipity,  and plain old cleverness.

Junk Food:  A Phenomenon That Changed America

Andrew F. Smith, author of the Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food includes soft drinks, ready made burgers, salty snacks, candy, and ice cream – foods with little or no nutritional value and/or high fat and calories — in his definitions of junk and fast food.  He sees junk food “as an incredible phenomenon that’s changed America, for better and worse.”

A Look Back At Some Favorites

From the New York Times

  • 1896:  Cracker Jack – America’s First Junk Food?

Yes indeed, according to Mr. Smith.  The molasses, popcorn, and peanut combo was first sold by street vendor brothers at  Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair.  They perfected it by 1896 and called their treat Cracker Jack.  They ultimately created a product that was, and is, salable and commercially viable and salable.

  • 1905:  Tootsie Rolls — The First Individually Wrapped Penny Candy

Originally manufactured in New York City,  their production changed junk food because they were the first individually wrapped penny candy. The chewy chocolate taste was — and still is — a bonus.

  • 1923:  Popsicle Patent

By accident, on a cold night in San Francisco in 1905, an 11 year old left a powdered soda drink on the porch with a stirring stick still in it. The next morning: frozen sweet stuff on a stick.  Years later, Frank W. Epperson applied for a patent for his discovery.  He initially called the treats Epsicles but his children called them Pop’s ’sicles.  Unilever now sells two billion of them each year in the US.

  • 1928:  Dubble Bubble, Stretchier Gum

Walter E. Diemer, an accountant for Philly’s Fleer Chewing Gum Company, fooled around trying to produce a gum base that could be blown into bubbles.  When he finally had a batch that was  stretchier and less sticky than most other gums, he sent 100 pieces to a candy shop and they sold out in one afternoon.

Fleer started selling the gum, calling it Dubble Bubble. Even though it became a global sensation, Mr. Diemer never received any royalties and retired from Fleer in 1970. He felt that he’d done something with his life by making kids happy around the world.

  • 1930:  Twinkies, Two For A Nickel

James A. Dewar, manager of a Chicago baking plant during the Depression, saw that shortcake pans used during strawberry season just sat around the rest of the year. He put them to use by baking little cakes injected with  banana cream filling, and called them Twinkies (inspired by a billboard that advertised Twinkle Toe shoes).  Price:  two for a nickel. Bananas were rationed during World War II so he replaced the banana cream with vanilla cream. Hostess now bakes 500 million Twinkies a year.

Do you have any favorite junk food trivia?

Table For 8? You Might Eat 96% More!

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No kidding.  You tend to eat for a longer amount of time — and eat more — when you’re with people you like compared to when you eat alone.  It could be because you mindlessly nibble while someone else talks, you’re using the good manners you were taught in fifth grade about not letting someone else eat alone, or you’re just having fun and enjoying your food. Most of us tend to stay at the table longer when we’re with others.   Bottom line:  The longer you stay at the table, the more you eat.

Losing Track

Here’s the other thing:  friends and family influence what you eat.  Sometimes, it’s so easy to get involved with the conversation (or argument) that all the monitoring of what goes into your mouth goes out the window.  Look down at your plate.  Did you ever wonder where all the cookies went or how you managed to work your way through the mile high dish of pasta or the four pieces of pizza?  How many tastes did you take of everyone else’s meal and dessert?  Those tastes aren’t like invisible ink.  Those calories count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

You tend to mimic your table companions.  They eat fast, you eat fast. They eat a lot, you eat a lot. Ever wonder why you look at some families or couples and they’re both either heavy or slender?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

96% More

Wansink reports on a study that shows how strong the tendency is to increase the amount that you eat when you eat with others.  Compared to eating alone, you eat, on average:

  • 35% more if you eat with one other person
  • 75% more with four at the table
  • 96% more with a group of seven or more.

SocialDieter Tip:

Think about who you are eating with – and why you’re eating with them.  If you want to have a blast and don’t care about how much you eat – eat with a big group and chow down.  But, if you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with a salad (dressing on the side, please) friend rather than the large pepperoni pizza group.  Remember, without thinking about it, you tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  So, sit next to the slow eaters rather than the gobblers if you are trying to control how much goes into your mouth.