Rebel With a Fork Blog

Archive for November, 2009

 

Butter is bad…

 

Don’t cook with butter…

 

I say Phooey!

 

It’s already been proven that real butter is better for you than it’s lethal fake cousins – margarine.

 

It’s already been proven that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart attacks.

 

It’s a fact that your body needs some fat to properly absorb and utilize the nutrients in vegetables.

 

Now I’m not advocating eating a stick of butter. You don’t want to start loading up on fats. Your body only needs a little.

 

But what really burns me are these people putting the skull and cross bones on cooking with butter.

 

Let’s do a little math here.

 

If you put a tablespoon of butter in a pan and cook 4 pork chops in that butter – how much butter do you actually ingest? Heck, most of it is still left in the pan.

 

I use a whole pound of butter on a 24 lb. Turkey. Yes, I do. So, that comes out to 1 1/3 tablespoons per pound. Except at least 2 cups are left in the pan and disposed of – never to be eaten.

 

If a couple tablespoons of butter is all that stand between your family shoving the green beans around the plate, or loving green beans – c’mon! Throw in some heart healthy slivered almonds too!

 

It does not have to taste bad to be healthy.

 

Yep, I’m a Rebel.

You can be one too >>>

 

 

There was a time – about 50 years ago – when fat was gross, and obesity was an oddity. There was Mama Cass, and the fat lady at the circus – but you really didn’t see many obese people. We didn’t even know what the word meant.

Back then, if you were creeping up to a size 14, you were getting big girl! Pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to buy clothes. Clothing went to a size 16 in the stores. It was very hard to find anything bigger.

Oh sure, throughout history there were always a few fat people. They were usually associated with extreme gluttony. People who could afford to eat themselves silly and had no regard for how they looked. Those people were looked at with scorn and disgust.

Suddenly everything changed. It seemed almost everyone was getting bigger. Clothing got bigger. Big clothing stores started expanding.

Before that the most common causes of death were heart attacks and pneunomonia. Diabetes was something old people got, and cancer was unheard of. When people first started getting cancer there was tremendous fear. People thought that it was contagious.

What happened so suddenly?

MacDonalds, Burger King, Hamburger Helper, Shake-n-Bake, and all of the other convenience foods, that’s what.

Do you know that back then only ‘poor’ people ate that stuff. No respectable family would serve that in their home!

You got potato chips with your sandwich if you couldn’t afford fries. Seriously!

But thanks to the miracles of marketing and slick advertsing – those ‘foods’ caught on. And so did the fat and sickness we see all around us.

There are still a few of us remaining that will not serve those foods in our homes. We’re thinner, healthier, and running circles around people much younger than us.

We love to eat, but we never count a single calorie.

And we cannot understand for the life of us how anyone actually likes the chemical taste of lab created foods or why people choose to live with the consequences of eating that garbage.

I guess slick advertising is really that powerful.

That’s why I won’t have it at Rebel With a Fork.

Rebel With a Fork is member supported – not advertiser supported.

You won’t see the latest miracle from the Amazon Rain Forest, or the hottest ab gizmo, or the lastest healthy eating craze. You won’t find paid celebrity endorsements. No Oprah. No Bob Greene. No Dr. Oz.

And you won’t find recipes for pan fried tofu with collards. Are they serious?

If you’re tired of trying everything that doesn’t work and you want good ol’ common sense healthy eating tips, advice, and fast and easy recipes – come on in and join us

 

Tis the season for tons of misinformation designed to destroy your enjoyment of holiday eating.

Is holiday eating unhealthy?

In my opinion, holiday dinners are probably soem of the helathiest meals that most people eat all year.

When else do people go out of hteir wya to make fresh real foods?

When else can you stuff your family and friends full of healthy foods like turkey, green beans, broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes and cranberries? You tell me when else people eat that many good for them foods in one sitting?

About the only thing that’s really bad for you about holiday dinners is stuffing yourself full of desserts after you’re already stuffed. But if you’re going to eat dessert, the time to eat it is when you’ve got food in your stomach. That will prevent the sugar spike you would normally get if you eat sweets on an empty stomach.

Is the practice of stuffing yourself healthy?

Of course it’s not. But like I said – you can sneak in a lot of healthy foods in that feast – and if you’re only stuffing yourself a couple times a year, and you eat relatively healthy the rest of the time – It’s not going to cause that much harm.

Use some common sense -

Don’t stuff yourself so much that you’re in pain.

Make sure you’re taking a good share of the healthy options.

Stick with seasonal favorites that you only get this time of year. You can have mashed potatoes or bread anytime. Skip them and fill your plate with sweet potatoes and cranberries.

Eat smaller portions of the ‘bad’ foods.

Don’t let guilt ruin your holidays. There are a good 360 days of the year that you can eat  healthier.

Now if you would just take better care of the other 360 days….