Shopping, Cooking, Baking

Handle Food Carefully – Or Run A Big Risk

May 7, 2010 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

How You Handle Food Really Matters

Here’s a great big reason why paying attention to how you handle food is so important:

Just give ‘em (bacteria) the conditions they like: warmth, moisture, and nutrients, and boy will they grow. A single bacterium that divides every half hour can result in 17 million offspring in 12 hours.

Putting food in the refrigerator or freezer will stop most bacteria from growing — except for Listeria (found in lunch meats, hot dogs, and unpasteurized soft cheese), and Yersinia enterocolitica (found in undercooked pork and unpasteurized milk). Both will grow at refrigerator temperatures. Cooking food to a temperature of 160 F will kill E. coli O157:H7. Don’t let that container of take out food hang around on the counter, either. Put it in the fridge and heat it up when you’re ready.

Safety Tips

Cut produce, like half a watermelon or bagged salad, should be refrigerated or surrounded by ice – don’t buy it if its not
Separate your raw meat, poultry, and seafood from the other food in your shopping cart and in your refrigerator – packages do leak
Store perishable fresh fruit and vegetables (like berries, lettuce, herbs, and mushrooms) in a clean refrigerator at a temperature of 40F or below
Wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and warm water after you prepare any food
Wash fruit and vegetables under running water just before eating, cutting, or cooking, even if you plan to peel them. Don’t use soap (it leaves a residue). Produce washes are okay, but not necessary.
Scrub firm produce like melons and cucumbers with a clean produce brush and then let air dry.
Toss the outer leaves of heads of leafy vegetables like cabbage and lettuce.
Thoroughly cook sprouts. Children, elderly people, pregnant women, and people with a weakened immune system should avoid raw sprouts.
Drink pasteurized milk, juice, or cider.
Lower your pesticide exposure by 90% by avoiding the dirty dozen: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears. Think about buying organic for the dirty dozen and conventional for the foods with the lowest levels of pesticides: onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, mango, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwi, cabbage, eggplant, papaya, watermelon, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes (Environmental Working Group).
Eat locally grown food: food is well traveled – the average mouthful has a 1400 mile journey from farm to plate. Locally raised food is fresher, closer to ripe when picked, requires less energy to get to you, and is not as likely to be treated with pesticides after harvest.
Wash all produce well before eating – be careful with nibbling the unwashed grapes or berries in the market or on the way home.

More information on handling produce safely

What The Heck Is The Difference Between Low Fat And Reduced Fat . . . and light, lean, and extra lean?

April 27, 2010 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 1 Comment

The Signs Are Everywhere

How much time do you spend in the supermarket aisle confused by the labels on mayo — or yogurt — or milk? Reduced fat, low fat, light, fat free, low in calories. You need a spread sheet to sort out the calories and the nutritional stats.

The same thing is true on menus, in deli cases, and the little labels perched next to the choices in salad bars. Are the calories in the low calorie tuna salad less than the calories in the reduced calorie? Can you even believe those calligraphied labels behind the glass cases?

Check The List Of Ingredients

Most packaged food labels list ingredients in descending order by weight, not amount. The first ingredient listed has the greatest amount by weight, the last ingredient is the one with the least amount by weight.

Fatty Labels

Labels have to include the total amount of fat, saturated fat and unsaturated fat. This carves the way for the low, reduced, and fat free categories.

Low fat means 3 grams of fat or less per serving (or per 100 grams of food)

Reduced fat means the food product contains 50% (or less) of the fat found in the regular version

Less fat means 25% or less fat than the comparison food

Fat free means the product has less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, with no added fat or oil

Salty Labels

Reduced sodium means at least 75% less sodium

Low sodium means 140 milligrams of sodium or less per serving

Very low sodium means 35 milligrams of sodium or less per serving

Sodium free (salt free) means there is less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving

Sweet Labels

Sugar free means there is less than 0.5 gram of sugar per serving

No sugar added means there’s no table sugar added but there may be other forms of sugar like dextrose, fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, or corn syrup

The Low down On Low, Light (Lite), Lean, and Reduced

A label that screams reduced calorie means there’s at least 25% fewer calories per serving than in the regular product

Low calorie means 40 calories or less per serving and less than 0.4 calories per gram of food

Light (fat) means 50% or less of the fat than in the regular version

Light (calories) means 1/3 fewer calories than the regular version

Lean means less than 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol in a 100 gram serving of meat, poultry or seafood

Extra lean means less than 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol in a 100 gram serving of meat, poultry or seafood

SocialDieter Tip:

Confused by the ins and outs of labeling? Why shouldn’t you be – it’s downright confusing. Try to be as savvy as possible. For instance, take the reduced fat label, which means a product contains at least 25% less fat than the original version. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that the reduced fat version is low fat. For instance, you buy what is labeled as a reduced fat muffin. If the fat content in the original full fat muffin is 30g, and the fat has been reduced to 15g, which, with a 50% reduction allows it to say it is reduced fat, the reduced fat muffin still has a fat content five times higher than the 3g of fat per serving that officially qualifies as low fat. The trick is to look carefully at the calorie count and fat breakdown on the nutrition label and note the numbers for each. A check of the ingredients label will also give valuable information. Remember, these regulations are for packaged food, not prepared food like you find in salad bars and deli cases. Those foods may be labeled, but you are putting your trust in the preparer of the food to be approximately accurate (and truthful). In New York City and other municipalities, fast and chain food outlets of a certain size must give caloric breakdowns. The new Health Care Reform Act will require this nationwide for restaurants with more than 20 outlets.

Turn Your Nightmare Salad Into A Delicious Daydream

April 23, 2010 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

If It Says Salad Does It Mean It’s Healthy?

Short answer: No. Maybe your salad is healthy and delicious, or maybe it’s just delicious and far from a healthy meal.

This is something I see all of the time: You are in line at a buffet or waiting to order your meal in a cafeteria. The person in front of you hems and haws over his or her choice – mumbling about trying to “be careful about calories.” He or she then goes on to say, “Oh, I guess I’ll have a salad,” like it’s the best choice of “diet food” even though it’s not really what the belly and mind seem to be craving.

In the pursuit of cutting calories, the salad might be a far worse choice than, for example, a turkey or ham sandwich with mustard and veggies, or grilled chicken with veggies.

There are some very nice choices of healthy salads and there are some pretty bad choices, too. In many cases you can do well or horribly in the same restaurant, depending on what you select to eat.

Here are some examples of fast/chain food salads — but remember that each is just one menu item. In each restaurant you have plenty of other options.

Calorically Good To Reasonable Choices:

Panera Bread’s BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad, with mild BBQ sauce, no dressing (350 calories, 10g fat)

Wendy’s Chicken Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken Fillet, with home-style garlic croutons (490 calories, 32g fat)

McDonald’s Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken, without Creamy Southwest dressing (320 calories)

Burger King’s Tendergrill Chicken Garden Salad with Ken’s Ranch Dressing (490 calories, 30g fat)

Then there’s the: “how many calories, you’ve got to be kidding” salads.

Outback Queensland Salad with Bleu Cheese Dressing (1075.8 calories, 81.6g fat)

Cosi Signature Salad (130 calories, 45g fat)

Ruby Tuesday’s Southwestern Beef Salad (1139 calories, 81g fat)

Wendy’s Southwest Taco Salad (680 calories, 39g fat)

Olive Garden’s Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, without Caesar dressing (850 calories, 64g fat)

SocialDieter Tips:

If you are putting together your own salad at a salad bar – or making your own at home – here are some tips to keep your salad healthy and delicious.

Dressings are not just decorative – they can be disastrous. If you have enough flavorful stuff in your salad, you may not even need dressing. If you do, the creamy stuff usually is more caloric (you can always dilute it with vinegar). Most vinegar has almost no calories so pour it on. There are many choices of light or calorie free dressings. Most places glop on dressing – you’d be surprised how little you need for taste. A dieter’s trick is to ask for dressing on the side and dip your fork into the dressing before you snare a mouthful of salad.
Mayonnaise has around 90 calories a tablespoon. Think about how much goes into chicken or tuna salad. Use light mayo, mustard, or low fat yogurt instead.
Go for reduced fat or fat free cheese instead of liberally sprinkling on the full fat stuff. ¼ cup of reduced fat (2%) shredded cheddar has 80 calories, 6g fat, 7g protein; fat free feta has 40 calories, 0g fat, 7g protein.
If you are going out to order a salad order from a place that has low fat dressing choices and lean proteins (grilled chicken, tuna without mayo). You can always use only half a package of salad dressing instead of a whole one.
Lay off the croutons and wontons. Sure, they’re crunchy, but you’re not getting anything nutritious from them. Get your crunch from carrots, cucumbers, or a very light sprinkling of sunflower seeds or nuts (caloric but healthy).
Salads with dark green lettuce and colorful vegetables add more vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.
Make your salad more of a meal by adding lean proteins: poultry (grilled), seafood, a hardboiled egg, or beans. Add whole grains like brown rice or quinoa, without dressing, to really beef it up. Leftover lean proteins and veggies can be chopped up and added to salad the next day. Keep a supply of canned tuna, anchovies, and beans for quick calorie sparing protein additions.
Certain extras pile on calories. You could have fries and a bacon cheeseburger for the same calories as a salad loaded with creamy dressing, shredded or crumbled cheese, bacon, avocado, mayonnaise salads, meat, nuts, and croutons. Instead, heap on tomatoes, asparagus, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, scallions, onions, mushrooms, peppers, cucumbers, arugula, spinach, and herbs. Olives add about 4 calories apiece – but, add an enormous amount of flavor and may help you forego dressing.
Check out the nutritional info before you order – and remember to add in the totals for dressing, croutons, and other “extras.” Some municipalities currently require calorie counts to be posted in fast/chain food restaurants. The new health care bill will require posting in fast/chain food restaurants with more than 20 outlets. Almost all chain restaurants list their nutritional stats online.

Is Your Salad A Nightmare?

April 20, 2010 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 2 Comments

A Healthy Meal Or A Caloric Fat Fest?

It’s time for lunch or perhaps to pick up a bite for dinner on your way home. It’s Monday after a weekend of a bit of overeating. Time for something light and healthy.

How about a salad? Here’s a chance for plenty of vegetables, other healthy stuff, and a chance to save some calories, too. Yeah, right!!! Think again and read on.

Wonderful Reasons To Have A Salad

There are a whole bunch of good reasons to chow down on a nice big salad.

It’s easy to make your own from the salad bar at the local market, to order one for delivery, or to rip open a bag of lettuce and plop a piece of grilled chicken on top.
The nutrient rich plant foods that make the base of a salad are high in antioxidants — especially the dark green and orange vegetables, and legumes.
Most of the vegetables are full of fiber – good for your cholesterol, your GI functioning, and as a way to feel fuller for a longer period of time.
Salads take a long time to eat – much longer than sandwiches or pizza that you can scarf down far more quickly.
Salads can look really appetizing and can cost very little (they can cost a lot, too, depending upon the add-ons).
Salads are a great way to recycle leftovers – just toss them in the mix.

Where’s The Nightmare?

Answer: Hidden in the fatty and sneaky high caloric add-ons and dressing.

Generally, at least ¼ of a cup (frequently more) of dressing is added to a tossed salad. A ladle of creamy dressing has about 360 calories and 38g of fat (a cheeseburger’s worth). Vinaigrette dressing, usually 3 parts oil to one part vinegar, adds its own fat blast.
Tuna, macaroni, and chicken salads, the holy grail of delis and salad bars, are loaded with mayonnaise, which of course, is loaded with fat. On average (for a half cup): chicken salad has 208 calories, 16g of fat; tuna salad has 192 calories, 9g fat; tuna pasta salad has 397 calories, 9g fat; macaroni salad has 170 calories, 9g fat.
Cheese, please – or maybe not. For a 1/4 cup serving: Shredded cheddar has 114 calories, 9g fat; blue cheese has 80 calories, 6g fat; feta has 75 calories, 6g fat.
Portions: The calorie counts above are for ½ cup of salad, ¼ cup of cheese. Those are pretty small portions. Do you have that kind of restraint?
Croutons and Crispy Noodles: ¼ cup of plain croutons has 31 calories, 0g fat; 1 serving of McDonald’s Butter Garlic Croutons has 60 calories, 1g fat; ¼ cup of crispy noodles has 74 calories, 4g fat
Dried cranberries: ¼ cup has 98 calories, 0g fat
Nuts and Seeds (1/4 cup): Sunflower seeds have 210 calories, 19g fat; chopped walnuts: 193 calories, 18g fat
Avocado (1/4 cup) have 58 calories, 5g fat
Bacon: 1 tablespoon of bacon bits has 25 calories, 2g fat
Bread (often used to sop up leftover dressing): 1 piece of French bread has 82 calories, 1g fat; 1 dinner roll has 78 calories, 2g fat
Dressing sopped up by the bread or roll: lots of extra fat calories!

Should Salads Go On Your “Do Not Touch” List?

No way, absolutely not. The healthy stuff in salad tastes great, fills you up, and is good for you. There are plenty of ways to cut down on the fatty and caloric add-ons and still end up with a really tasty meal. There are even good choices in fast food and chain restaurants (and plenty of really, really bad ones).

SocialDieter Tip: don’t stop eating salad, just be aware of what add-ons and dressing can do. Check my next post for some very helpful info on choosing and making salads and for the low down on a few fast and chain food “good” and “don’t even think about it” choices.

The Goat

April 6, 2010 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Katsikaki: Kid Goat

It all started last fall on a trip to Washington DC. I had dinner at Komi, a fabulous Greek/Mediterranean restaurant. The highlight (or one of the highlights, there were many) was katstikaki, Greek for a kid goat. I have had goat before, but this preparation was memorable.

Fast forward 5 months. I paid a visit to a butcher in New York City to order lamb for Easter dinner. This particular butcher only sources from the Northeast. “No lamb,” I was told – “Easter is early and the local lambs are not ready – but we are stocking goat for six weeks through Easter.”

I’ve never prepared goat before, but was up for the challenge. However, animal lover that I am, I had to dissociate the image of the animal from the meat. Goat would be fine as long as it did not bear any resemblance to the animals at the nature center or the ones I’ve seen perched on the sides of cliffs.

I placed my order for two legs of goat (they’re small), which I later had to increase to three – everyone I invited was so intrigued by the thought of goat, they agreed to come. I even tried for four legs, but ended up with a tripod – the supply was exhausted!

Goat: the most widely consumed meat in the world

Goat is a staple of Mexican, Indian, Greek, Southern Italian, Middle Eastern, Caribbean, and other cuisines. Baby goat, also called cabrito or capretto, is low in fat and cholesterol. It is similar to venison in its flavor and texture, but it isn’t gamey. Kid goat meat is tender and delicate like young lamb and is similarly prepared. Mature goat meat is tougher and more strongly flavored. Goat meat (also called Chevon), can be stewed, baked, braised, grilled, roasted, and barbequed. Some cultures roast the goat on a spit or in a pit.

Goat Nutrition

Goat is nutritionally superior to beef or chicken, with a low fat content. Since goat is a red meat, it contains iron and B vitamins.

According to the USDA:

3 oz. cooked (Roasted)	Calories	Fat (Gr.)	Saturated Fat (Gr.)	Protein (Mg.)
Goat	122	2.58	.79	23
Beef	245	16	6.8	23
Pork	310	24	8.7	21
Lamb	235	16	7.3	22
Chicken	120	3.5	1.1	21

Cooking Our Goat

How to cook our three legs of goat prompted much family discussion. One son suggested roasting the goat on a spit in the front yard, another suggested digging a pit in the back yard, the third, wisely, suggested braising it, indoors, in a large pot. I was on a quest for goat info. I googled and talked. I asked a couple of chef acquaintances. I went to primary sources: a couple of Greek mamas who own diners and cook lots of goat.

Bottom Line

You can cook goat, especially baby goat, much like lamb. When it came down to the wire, we ended up making goat stew – two different ways. We browned cubed goat, along with onion, garlic (lots), carrots, and celery. With a house full of people crowding the kitchen and eating constantly, we did the prep work and browning the night before and the stewing the next day. Because we couldn’t decide on our preferred flavorings, we made two stews – one with red wine and tomato paste, the other with white wine and lemon. We also made liberal use of oregano. We served the stew(s) with orzo, asparagus, and sautéed kale.

No Leftovers

Everyone – from an eighteen month old to an 85 year old – ate goat – both kinds. No clear favorite for red wine/tomato stew vs. white wine/lemon stew. A great meal, flavorful, satisfying, and quite nutritious. Room for dessert.