A Merry Bacon Christmas

A Merry Bacon & Sauerkraut Christmas?

"Remember
This December,
That love weighs more than gold!"
~Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

Brownbagging

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.”- Orson Welles

If you bring your own lunch to work like I do, you'll enjoy the article, Sex Up Your Sandwich: Ideas for Budget Conscious Brown Baggers with dozens of ideas for a more exciting sandwich.

1. Use spreads with zest like avocado, guacamole, Dijon mustard, hummus, and hot buffalo wing sauce.


2. Add tasty extras to the sandwich like banana pepper rings, basil leaves, pre-cooked bacon, leftover cranberry sauce and stuffing. Be imaginative.


3. Bored with ham & cheese? How about meatballs, grilled vegetables, or meatloaf?


4. Wonder bread? No way! Buy artisanal breads, bagels, tortilla wrap or rolls. Why pay Panera good money for a fancy sandwich you can easily make?


5. Pack tasty (and healthy sides) like tomato soup, apple wedges, carrot sticks. Or go unhealthy with potato chip, potato salad, coleslaw, pudding, yummmmm.....


6. Don't eat that sandwich cold! Try an open face tuna melt, a hero warmed in the oven, a grilled cheese, etc. You might have to bake or grill at home and reheat in a microwave at work.

Bottom Line

Break out of the rut. Look at a diner menu for sandwich ideas and try to make them yourself. Or surf the web for new sandwich recipes.

Be creative. As a teenage baby sitter, I was feeding one child that wanted a baloney sandwich, the other P&J with grape jelly. For myself I combined the two and discovered I really liked it.

Salty Foods

“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.”- Buddha

Salt is essential for life but like most things, salt in excess is unhealthy. It can raise blood pressure, which is bad for the heart, and causes you to retain fluids, edema, which is also bad for the heart.

MensHealth.com has published a list of 10 Sinister Sources of Salt:

10. Parmesan Cheese – the wheel of cheese is aged in a brine bath to absorb salt for 20–25 days. Then aged in air for a year or more.

9. Smoked Salmon – three thin slices contain 1000 mg sodium (half the daily recommended limit)

8. Ramen Noodles – I love Thai and Oriental foods but they frequently have high sodium content. If you eat an entire package of Ramen noodle soup, you’ve just consumed your daily limit of salt in one dish. Consider making the noodles without the seasoning packet.

7. Pork Bacon – 4 slices is 1000 mg sodium. And how about Virginia ham? One of the saltiest foods I’ve even eaten.

6. Salami – think about it, nearly every deli-meat is smoked and/or salted to preserve the meat without refrigeration. Five thin slices of salami is about 1000 mg sodium.

5. Turkey Bacon –bacon is salty regardless of what animal it comes from. Just three slices of turkey bacon contain over 1000 mg sodium.

4. Capers – these little guys are stored in salt brine. Four tablespoons equals about 1000 mg sodium.

3. Canned Anchovies – not to my liking but 7 of these little fish will put you over 1000 mg sodium.

2. Teriyaki Sauce – One and a half tablespoons = 1000 mg sodium

1. Soy Sauce – One tablespoon is nearly 1000 mg sodium

Bottom Line

Watch out for Asian seasoning and sauces in restaurants. I also find that most of the soups I order for lunch – be it Chinese Wonton or Deli Chicken Noodle – have way too much salt in them.

For alternatives to the salty foods and seasonings above, check out the full article at 10 Sinister Sources of Salt.

Holiday Food

“Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living!” - Amanda Bradley

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and if you’re a normal person, you’ll look back at the end of the day and think, “I can’t believe I ate all that!” In college I met with a dietician to lose weight and she said that best I could hope for during the Holiday season was not to gain weight. No one loses weight over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So in the hopes of not gaining weight – here are some food tips from me and MensHealth.com,
The Best and Worst Holiday Foods.

Eggnog – this tasty concoction of milk, cream and eggs has 350 calories per glass, equal to three cans of soda. Hot Chocolate can have one-third the calories if you make it yourself at home. If you order Hot Chocolate at Starbucks for example, ask that it be made with skim milk and skip the whipped cream. For even fewer calories, try an herbal peppermint tea spiked with a cinnamon stick.

Crab Cakes – a healthy crab is made much less healthy with mayo, breadcrumbs, and cooking in a vat of bubbling fat. Try a shrimp cocktail instead but go light on the dipping sauce. It is loaded with salt.

Mixed Drinks – these pack a lot of calories; a Gin and Tonic or a beer has 210 calories. And consume these slowly (if at all). A simple drink (beer, wine, one shot of alcohol) raises the blood alcohol content (BAC) by .02% and takes one hour to dissipate. A policeman told me that he’s arrested people during the morning commute with BAC above the legal limit (.08% in NY). The four to five hours of sleep after a late party were not enough to burn off all the alcohol consumed.

Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip is loaded with mayo, sour cream and cream cheese (and oh so yummy). Try melon balls with Prosciutto instead.

As a fourth generation Idahoan, I’m disappointed to see Backed potato with butter and sour cream on the list to avoid. The potato is OK, just be careful of what you put on it.

Prime Rib – my favorite cut of meat is also the fattiest cut. There is no escaping that fat = flavor. Men’s Health recommends a Tenderloin cut but I find most tenderloin to be flavorless (unless wrapped in bacon which adds the fat back in.)

Worst Dessert – Pecan Pie a la Mode at 800 calories a slice! You could enjoy a chocolate fondue with fruit and angel food cake for just 340 calories.

Bottom Line

The holiday foods with the most flavor are most likely those with the most fat and sugar and salt. Stick to simpler, natural foods and avoid gorging out on the deviled eggs and other appetizers. Take small samples and eat in moderation.

Bacon!

“And Now for Something Completely Different” – Monty Python show

The blog post, Bacon Survival Kit, answers the question many of you have been asking, “How can I satisfy my bacon cravings during extended trips in the wilderness?” For short ventures away from home you could use ice packs to preserve fresh bacon and cook it over a campfire (wrap it around sticks if you have no pan). For long trips when the ice runs out, you can travel with pre-cooked bacon or bacon flavored bits. There is also bacon flavored spam, Baconnaise, bacon salt, and even bacon flavored lip balm.

The Bacon Survival Kit goes “whole hog” and makes a creative snack of bacon & cheese flavored crickets (yes crickets), covered in Bacon & Cheddar cheese flavored spread, with a dash of bacon seasoning, and wrapped in a strip from Yoder’s Bacon in a Can. Yum!

Bottom Line

I’ve eaten many odd things but not crickets (yet). For something more conventional and cost effective try Bacon TVP (Texturized Vegetable Protein). It is produced from soy flour after the soybean oil has been extracted, then cooked under pressure, cut into crumbled bits, flavored and dried. It can be cooked with scrambled eggs, tossed into salads, sprinkled over vegetables, or eaten directly just like Bac-Os. To learn more, check out the site Using TVP.

How to Eat Healthy when Eating Out

“No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.” - George Bernard Shaw

http://www.menshealth.com/ recommends 10 Ways to Make Fast Food Healthy

• Hamburgers & Sandwiches – skip the special sauces and mayo. Use BBQ sauce, ketchup and mustard instead. Stay away from high calorie bread like Panera Asiago Cheese Foccacia. Avoid any sandwich that says “melt” – the bread is soaked with melted butter. Try eating your hamburger or sandwich open face and toss away one of the buns.
  
• Pizza – Reduce the crust calories by ordering thin crust. Skip the high fat toppings like pepperoni (yum!) and sausage. Order ham or vegetables instead.
  
• Salads – omit extras like cheese, bacon, and fried chicken bits. Make sure your salad dressing is lite or fat-free
  
• Burrito – split a giant burrito with a friend – most are way too big for one person. Or ask for a burrito bowl where the fillings are mixed with salad greens.
  
• Breakfast Sandwich – for diet ham beats bacon and bacon beats sausage. Skip the cheese and ask for an English muffin instead of a bagel, biscuit or croissant.
  
• Chicken – go for grilled or skinless. Watch out for anything fried.
  
• Beverages – many “fruit” smoothies are loaded with sugar or corn syrup. For fancy coffee drinkers, ask for skim milk or milk foam. Don’t add whip cream on top. If you like a shot of syrup flavoring, use a sugar-free flavor.

Bottom Line

As mentioned in an earlier post, fast food places can take healthy food items and create a calorie nightmare with butter soaked bread, cheese, added sugar, salt, etc. Order the simplest food possible with the fewest mystery ingredients.

My wife & I went to Taco Bell recently and shared a burrito and tostada from their dollar menu for less than $2 total. We could have (should have?) spent a little more and ordered from their new “Fresco” menu which lowers the fat and calories by using salsa instead of cheese and sauces. It’s nice to see Taco Bell trying to market “healthy” items again.

The Value of Cooking

"Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard!" - Oliver the musical

As the modern world becomes ever more urban, most of us have little experience in the skills our ancestors once knew: cutting firewood, building a fire, hunting, farming, etc. Today another basic skill is disappearing - cooking. Walk through a grocery store and you'll see precooked bacon, pre-sliced vegetables, instant meals and microwave meals.

During an emergency the no-cook food items will be quite useful; the microwave meals less helpful without power. Stocking up on precooked foods is a good idea BUT are you aware of the price premium you are paying for having someone else make your meals for you? Here are some prices for one year food supplies taken from the catalog Emergency Essentials:

• $ 800 "Traditional" Dehydrated Food Basics (12 cases of grains, veg, beans, dairy, fruit)
• $1,500 "Premium" with basics plus freeze dried meals, dessert mixes, flavored pancake mixes, etc,
• $2,400 "Ultimate" with 25 cases of "just-add-water" cooking meals including Western Omelets and Hash Browns.
• $3,400 MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) Year Supply

Bottom Line
There is a four times price difference between the Traditional combine-the-ingredients-on-your-own and the 100% MRE food supplies. Knowing how to cook meals from basic food stock will save you money when building your food storage.