Happy New Year!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season!  I did, however I'm ready for things to get back to "normal"  One step for me is to get off my not quite as fat as it once was, ass and start writing again!

Over the summer, I strayed form my healthy eating regimen.  Too many bar-b-cue's and cookouts to resist!  I still drank lots of water; as a matter of fact it is closing in on one year since I have had a soda or a glass of juice.  However I did but on some of the 35 pounds that I lost.  Nine of them, to be precise.  My goal for the new year is to try and stick closer to my self imposed healthy eating manifesto.

By the way the burger is still in my drawer!  It's one desiccated fucking hamburger!  This is what it looked like near the beginning:

This is what it looks like today:

Yum!

Moving on...

I have been doing a lot of reading (In case you didn't know, I screwed up my right wrist and have not been working much of late) about vitamin D.  There seems to be some doubt if D is really a vitamin as the human body can make it, albeit with the assistance of the sun.  If you have no exposure to the sun then you need to take it (D) in supplement form which then meets the criteria of a vitamin.  D2 is the man made as opposed to the made by man D3  Got it? Clear as Mud, right? D2 is the supplement form of D and D3 is what your body makes when you are out in the sun.  D2 (ergocalciferol) is made from yeast sterol ergosterol by chemical procedures. D3 (cholecalciferol) is made in the human  body from cholesterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol. Does it matter?  I have no fucking idea!  If I had to guess, I'd say that the more you body makes the better

It seems that one reason we "catch" more colds in the winter time may be related to lower levels of vitamin D.  Vitamin D also lowers inflammation.  Vitamin D produces over 200 anti-microbial peptides, one of which is Cathelicidin, which is a natural broad spectrum antibiotic. D also helps regulate insulin levels, and prevents heart disease.  People that live in northern countries have higher incidences of heart failure in the winter months.  I am going to make an effort to get out in the sunshine more often this winter.  Naked sledding anyone?

One thing that I am happy to see is an overall increase in the availability of organic foods and grass fed beef.  The Swarthmore Co-op even has ground, grass fed local beef in the freezer case.  I'm hoping that as more and more people eat it, they will start to carry it fresh.

One thing that pisses me off it my inability to find a decent stainless steel water bottle.  Why won't they make a water bottle out of stainless that looks like a regular plastic water bottle?  Those dumb ass contrivances that they choose to use as lids drive me nuts.  It's like sucking at the tit of the Borg.  On most, you suck until your head is about to implode and then pull free while the bottle sucks air back in.   I don't know about you but I don't seem to have a problem removing the cap on my plastic water bottle, taking a sip and then replacing the cap.  Then there is the other end of the spectrum, the stainless steel bottles with the wide mouth lid.  These are a fucking treat to use when you are driving!  I can drink and shower at the same time! Here is a tip to the stainless steel bottle manufactures:  Take a regular old plastic water bottle (not those one molecule thin ecco plastic bottles, a real one) now make one out of stainless steel!  Trust me, you will sell a shit load of them.

That's it for now.  Check back often as I promise to post regularly.  In the mean time, Eat REAL food!

After a summer long hiatus, I'm back!

This summer was event filled, to say the least.  With all the BBQ's, summer parties and all, it was very hard to stick to a strictly healthy foods regimen...

As far as the healthy, organic eating goes; I have fallen off the wagon but I have managed to hold on to the rear bumper.  I put on six pounds... and have since lost two of them as I try to get back to eating only "real" food.  I'm currently in Gilbert Arizona and eating tons of Mexican food, loaded with extremely hot peppers.  I'm sure that this trip will out on a few pounds but I am equally as sure that I will shed them quickly once I return home.

Cutting out all forms of sugar that do not naturally occur in foods, similarly, not eating anything containing an ingredient that is not immediately recognizable by a fourth grader (the original premise of this experiment) and drinking lots and lots of pure water; seem to be working well.

Please check back often!  I promise that I will post informative and hopefully funny posts with much more regularity.

Thanks for reading!
Eat REAL FOOD!

Regards,
Bald Bill

6/5/2010 Holy shit, it has been awhile!

When I first started this weight loss experiment, I thought it would last a month or so.  I planned to update this blog every day.  Life got in the way.  Here we are four months later, I'm still eating as much unprocessed foods as possible and eating as much organic food as is practical (financial and geographic).  In the same span of time work has picked up (which is a very good thing) and after a 10 to 16 hour day, I can't bring myself to sit in front of the keyboard.  That's not to say that I do not have several rants queued up and ready to go, I do!  It looks like I have at least one more week of "must get it done, no mater what it takes" and then I will get back to frequent updates. 

As of Monday I am down 32.5 pounds.

After a raft of shit from friends about cutting back on beer and drinking vodka, claiming that is was the lack of beer that accounted for my weight loss, I have forsaken vodka in favor of my elixir of choice; Hop Devil.  I'm happy to report that the weight is still coming off!

This is really not a diet, it is more a decision to eat healthy, non processed foods.  If you want to drop 10 or 20 pounds and still enjoy eating and drinking, just follow these few simple guidelines:

1. Drink a lot of water.  A decent rule of thumb is to take your weight in pounds and divide by two.  The result is the number, in ounces, that you should drink per day (water).
2. Cut out all added sugar.  Read the label, if it contains any form of added sugar eg: Sugar, HFCS, Fructose, Sucrose, Glucose or any other "OSE" don't eat it!  Fruits and vegetables have more than enough sugar for your body, you do not need any extra.
3. Cut out all artificial sweeteners!  This shit is worse than sugar!  Avoid it at all costs!
4. Don't eat any food that contains an ingredient that a fourth grader would not recognize.

Below is what I had to eat today.

Breakfast:  Steel cut oatmeal with cut up apples.  Cottage cheese with Pineapple.  20 or so ounces of coffee and 16 ounces of water.

Lunch:  Grilled pork tenderloin with Jim Beam barbecue sauce (home made), iced herbal tea and a small salad with an Italian vinaigrette.

Mid Day Snack:  A banana and several pickled okra, 16 ounces of water. 

Dinner:  Toasted, sprouted, whole grain bread, smeared with home made mayo.  Sliced chicken breast, Bleu cheese and Romain lettuce.  With a health dose of Tabasco!

Beer:  Wild Devil, Hop Devil and Orval Belgian ale... Life is good!

I need to take a shower and hit the sack!  Please keep checking back, I promise I will post more often!  Until then; EAT REAL FOOD!

Thanks for reading, 

Bald Bill

5/16/2010

This morning noon I awoke, eager to watch the Monaco Formula One Race, which I DVR'd (I'm not getting up at 7:30AM on a Sunday). As I was brushing my teeth, I noticed the bathroom scale... which was taunting me as it sat smugly in the corner of the bathroom. True,I had a good bit of Hop Devil & Vodka over the weekend not to mention chicken Parmesan, baby back ribs soaked in a Jim Beam Bourbon sauce among other tasty foods; I fully expected to have put on a pound or two four. With a bit of trepidation I stepped on the scale. Much to surprise I found that I have lost a total of Thirty pounds! I stepped on off and on the scale three more times to make sure it was not an error. It was not, I have lost thirty fucking pounds!

My earlobes are back to vertical (they had been splayed out sideways like the miniature wings found on F1 cars a few years ago) & I can once again see my penis! Speaking of that... you know what they say “for every twenty pounds of weight loss, you gain an inch of penis length” I'm not bragging but I'm down 30 pounds! I can now also run up two flights of stairs and not be so fucking winded that I need a half hours rest and a bottle of Oxygen.

I would have to go back and look up the exact date that I started this little experiment but it has to be around three months. In that time I've learned more about food than I had in 44 years. I ate as much, if not more food than I had previously. I still drink like the Polish / German that I am. All I did was cut out the manufactured, processed shit that big business markets to us as food.  It does take a few weeks to get into the rhythm but after that, it is not to hard to do!

All in all it was a great day, which have been few and far between lately. I crossed the 30 pound weight-loss barrier, the Monaco Grand Prix was pretty damn good and then the Flyers kicked the ever loving shit out of Montreal. Not a bad day at all...

If you are looking to lose weight and are having a hard time, do this one thing:  Don't eat HFSC or any other refined sugar.  Sugars from fruits and vegetables are fine in moderation.  If you have not read all of this blog, you may want to go back several posts and see the many forms that HFCS and refined sugars take in the ingredients lists.  Cut them out as much as you possibly can!

Just today I read something about "Veggie burgers" that really surprised me.  Many, if not most of the veggie burgers that are sold in this country (except those that are 100% Organic, not including the ones that say; "made from organic ingredients") and contain soy, are processed with Hexane.  Yeah, I'm sure that the residue is just fine to ingest! 

Thanks for reading! I really do hope to be able to post more often. Check back soon!

"Eat Real Food"

Regards,
Bald, I lost 30 lbs. Bill

Next up: Sunscreen and bug spray.

5/9/2010 Mothers day

Happy Mothers day to all the mom's out there!

Lisa and I had her parents over for dinner this evening.  Garlic soup, Grilled pork tenderloin w/horseradish sauce, collard greens with garlic, oil and hot peppers and mashed potatoes. It went well and we all had a great time... however my mom was absent.

I left a note and a box of chocolates at my mothers door; she lives across the street.  I did not hear from her, nor do I ever.  She prefers the bottle to me. I still love her.

Some days just suck!

Cinco de Mayo 2010

Today was one of those, healthy eating be damned days.  We had lunch at a Mexican Bodega/Restaurant.  We both ordered tacos but only ate one tortilla per taco (If that last sentence does not make sense to you, you have never eaten Mexican food, you have been eating Tex-Mex)  After lunch we went back to work and as fate would have it we found ourselves in a place where we could continue to honor Cinco de Mayo; Downingtown, PA.  So after work we stopped by Victory Brewing  After all, Cinco de Mayo is an American holiday... Okay it did not start as an American holiday.  It is the celebration of the Mexicans defeat of the French in 1862, though in Mexico it is only celebrated in the Pueblo region, Americans use it as an excuse to consume Mas Tequila!  Anyway, I digress... Cinco de mayo is the celebration of Victory!  So after a lunch at a Mexican "joint" it seemed only natural to stop in at Victory Brewing (in Downingtown) later in the day.  Are you buying this shit?  Though while at Victory we did order Nachos... which were invented here in the good ole USA.   Yea, I know that "Nacho" was a Mexican ex-patriot but I'm trying to justify stopping for nachos at Victory!

My point is that even when you are trying to eat as healthy as possible, there are times when you need to take a day off.  Today was one such day.  We still tried to do the best we could.  As I mentioned earlier we only ate one tortilla per taco and we ate less than half of the order of nachos.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must include the following:

After not eating deep fried food for two months and limiting the amount of fats we consume, todays meals did have a few effects on me.  One thing to note, we eat hot peppers with almost every meal, the hotter the better!  Peppers and or spicy food are not the issue... That said... on our way home, I had a bit of rumbling in my (now smaller) belly.  As the miles rolled on the rumbling got worse.  I was now experiencing contractions.  The closer we got to home the closer and more intense the contractions got, I broke out in a cold sweat.  By the time we got to our street, Lisa was laughing her ass off while I was crowning.

How is it that our bowels know when we are close to home, and exponentially increase our pain?  The closer I got to home, the worse the contractions became.  To the point where I was doubled over in pain, cold sweat pouring out of me and praying to God that I would not shit myself.  I am proud to say that I did make it!...barely... moments later I gave birth to the son of the Blob.  (if you don't get that, search the movie: "The Blob" and read where it was filmed back in 1958)

One a completely different note but following the same thread, watch this for a laugh, the relevant part is between 50 seconds and 65 seconds but the whole bit is really funny!

"Eat Real Food"

Thanks for reading,

Bald Bill

5/4/2010 part two...

If you have been reading this blog for even a few weeks, you already know that about 90% of the soy raised in this country is "Roundup Ready" as is around 70% of all corn.  If you are not familiar with this, 90 and 70 percent, respectively of our soy and corn crops are grown from genetically modified seeds that are resistant to Roundup.  The same company that patented Roundup is the one holding the patents to the seeds that are genetically resistant to Roundup, draw your own conclusions.

So, what we have now are crops that can be planted and then sprayed with a toxic herbicide which will kill all of the weeds but the planted crop will survive.  Gee, wasn't there a problem with agent orange (a defoliant e.g. weed killer) being sprayed on humans?  We have been growing this shit for years now, do you think that we may have absorbed some of this shit?   All of a sudden, up sprang weeds that were unaffected by Roundup.  Well no fucking shit!  Haven't we seen this for decades with human antibiotics?  One good thing that seems to be coming out of this is that now that there are roundup resistant weeds, farmers are less likely to buy Roundup ready seeds.

Big business is driving our food production and they have no interest in our health, only profits. Do you think you are unable to effect change?  You are!  Vote with your wallet.  Buy as much food as you can from local farmers and ranchers.  Buy organic as often as you can (look at my past posts for list of the most important foods to buy organic)

I started this experiment thinking it would only last a month or so.  Now, two and a half months on, I have lost 26 pounds and read several thousand pages of health information.  The more I read the harder time I have injecting humor into my posts.  We are being fucked without so much as a kiss!  Several big corporations control most of our food market, they are geared toward profits, they could give a shit about you and your kids.

Fuck me!  I never thought that I would become a social advocate.  I'm an independent conservative!

Please do the following for your family:

• Filter your water and drink half your body weight in pounds, in ounces every day.
• Cut all High Fructose Corn Syrup out of your (and more importantly, your kid's) diet.
• Buy as much organic food as you can afford (keep in the back of your mind the later health costs, due to obesity, diabetes etc...)
• Search out and go to local farmers or farmers markets.  Ask questions, look at their animals.

"Eat Real Food"

You know... there is a comments box below this post.  Ask a question, I'll research it and report back.

Thanks for reading,

Bald Bill

5/4/2010

I think that we can all agree that eating more fruits and vegetables is a good step forward in the healthy eating direction.  So I was shocked... well, not really shocked, more accurately; the word "Figures!"ran through my mind, when I read an article in the New York Times.  It contained information on federal food subsidies in the good ole US of A.

I was actually surprised that the Grains Industry was not the most subsidized, after all the stories of farmers being paid not to grow corn ($1.3 Billion over the last decade).  Or the fact that most of the corn sold in American is sold below the production cost; thanks to subsidies.  It was the Meat & Dairy industry that receives the most federal money, to the tune of almost 74%.  Sugar, Starch, Oil and Alcohol are up next at near 11%.  Nuts and Legumes receive about 2%.  Bringing up the rear are Fruits and Vegetables which receive subsidies amounting to 0.4 %

That is why struggling family's finds it easier and cheaper to eat and a major fast food joint, than to buy fresh produce.  Don't think that you upper middle class kids is fairing any better at school!  The low prices of federally subsided foods make the very foods that your kids should be eating less of, more attractive to the school board bean counters.

This same article went on to say that as recently as a decade ago the average womans waist was two inches smaller.  Eighteen year olds are now 15 pounds, on average heavier than they were in the 1970's.

Changing the subject.... Last night we attempted to eat some 100% organic, grass fed, ground beef.  93% lean.  When I saw it in the bowl, I honestly thought it was some sort of cat food.  It was like plasma in that it was not a solid, liquid nor a gas.  We made a small "test" burger, which tasted like cooked, old dog food.  We decided to scrap the burger idea and instead make chili.  The chili was a little better but it still had a weird semi-solid yet still gritty texture.  The insinkerator seemed to enjoy it.  The next time we will buy the beef and then have it ground or grind it ourselves.

Tonight it is chicken parm!  All organic and baked not fried but still delicious.

As of yesterday I have lost 26 pounds and have dropped into the 220's for the first time in a long while.

"Eat Real Food"

Thanks for reading,

Bald Bill

5/1/2010 Damn it's been a while!

I really must apologize to you, I'm sorry to have taken so long to post an update!  Work has had us swamped (a damn good thing)  Speaking of work; we just finished a job, that... well let me start from the beginning.  One of the things that we do is assist Realtors.  Say that they have a homeowner looking to sell their property but the roof leaks, the electrical service is inadequate, the place needs painting and landscaping, etc...etc...etc...  This is where we come in.  We fix everything and get the property ready to sell. Well, this week we had one such property.  However this property was one of a select few that made it into our hall of shit shame.

The kitchen had a stench that could only be described as a combination of rancid fat and puss.  Our shoes stuck, I'm not kidding, to the floor.  The carpets (close to white, originally) were dotted with a mixture of cat vomit and a sampling of every fucking meal that they every ate in the place!  Picture five frat guys living in a house for six years.  They are Martha Stewart compared to this place.

Shit and piss were hanging from the toilet seats like stalactites .  Seriously, is this how you would leave a house that you were selling?  What the fuck is wrong with people?!

Here is the best (worst) part; we found several used tampons on the floor of the linen closet!  How the fuck does that happen?  She's naked, putting away the linens, while doing jumping jacks... and sneezes... not once but several times?

Okay, on a different note:  An update on the new eating regime. (That had to be the worst segue in history!)

I am still getting lots of people asking me "how is the diet going?"  This is not a diet.  I'm eating "real food"  My criteria is simple: eliminating any processed foods, foods containing HFCS or any other ingredient that could not be readily identified by a fourth-grader. I still eat roast beef, sausage, cheese, pork, eggs, chicken and tons of other "real" foods.  I am only eliminating fucked with (processed) foods.

Is it a pain in the ass?  Yes.  Can we eat out? yes, with difficulty. Do we cheat, on occasion?  FUCK yes!  Were human!  If we can eat "real food" 90 to 95 % of the time, we are doing much. much better than we did before.  The world we live in has the deck stacked against us.  If you want to start trying to eat healthy, real, natural foods, look for these things:  The name of the farm, dairy or ranch.  Are they organic? do they use antibiotics or growth hormones?   Avoid any and all artificial sweeteners as well as any ingredient that ends in "ose" (one exception is dextrose)

Eat real food!

Speaking of real food, here is the burger:

The lettuce and tomato are deteriorating, yet the burger and fries are holding their own.  I have started a new test, without the lettuce and tomato.

One last thing, I'm down 23 pounds but I have stagnated in the last few weeks.  I need to get back on my self imposed program, I've been remiss. However, this is my attempt to find a healthy way to eat for life.  I fully expect that there will be week or two where i don't loose weight or even gain a pound or two.  I'm looking for a sustainable way to eat healthy for the rest of my life.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for sending this link to your friends.

Bald Bill

4/24/2010 What does one ounce look like?

It's been a crazy week!  I have not had any time to devote to reading, let alone writing anything.

In my last post, I pointed out just how much sugar is in some of the most popular foods and drinks we consume. A can of Coke has over one ounce of sugar in it, some Starbucks drinks have over two ounces of sugar in them.

You already know that there are roughly 28 grams in an ounce but what the fuck does an ounce look like, you ask?  We'll I'll show you... Keep in mind that these photos are of ONE ounce, your 12 ounce can of soda has more, your capa-frapa-chino likely has more than two ounces.  And these are just beverages!  Remember that HFCS (sugar) is in close to 90% of all foods you buy in the supermarket!

This is what an ounce looks like:

This is one ounce of wasabi rice crackers

This is a one ounce jalapeño pepper

One ounce of butter

One ounce of raw almonds

One ounce of dark chocolate

 One ounce of natural sea salt, complete with sand

One ounce of Kosher salt... no sand

 ONE OUNCE OF SUGAR!

One ounce of chicken breast (post cooking weight)

One ounce of... I have no fucking idea!  Lisa and I measured all of this stuff out a few days ago and for the life of me, I can't recall what the fuck this is!... But it is just one ounce.

One ounce of coins (a half dollar and a quarter)

One ounce of Russian 7.62 X 39 ammo

One ounce of cocaine flour

One ounce of DVD's

One ounce of cyphering sticks

A one ounce, total weight of a 3/4 empty bottle of Lidocane

Imagine swallowing one, two or three of these items, That is how much sugar you are consuming when you drink a soda or an energy drink or any one of the thousands of commercially available bottled drinks.

If you do nothing else, try to cut your sugar consumption down.  Be aware that it is in most of the foods for sale in your local supermarket, read the labels.

Don't consume any "diet" sweeteners.  They are worse than natural sugar.  They have no nutritional value, they tax the Hell out of your liver, not to mention that they have been proven to fail to trip your "I'm full" sensors.  So you might actually gain weight eating/drinking this shit.

READ THE FUCKING LABELS!

Corn syrup can show up in numerous ways, look for these:

Cellulose, Xylitol, Calcium Stearate, Ethyl Lactate, maltodextrin, saccharin, xanathan gum, sucrose, gluten, sorbital, ethel acetate, high fructose corn syrup, citrus cloud emulsion, citric acid, ascorbic acid, di-glycerides, baking powder, fructose, sorbic acid, vanilla extract and starch.

All of these compounds can be made from corn, and are basically sugar.

EAT REAL FOOD! 

Go to PBS.org and search Food Inc.

You can watch the entire movie online there for free.

(you know the one ounce jalapeño pepper in the above photo?.. I ate it)

On that note, I'm heading to bed.  Thanks for reading!

Bald Bill

One last thing.... here is the burger:

4/16/2010 Cheeseburger update

Well at least the stench is finally gone!  Hindsight has shown me that this experiment left a little to be desired.  Putting fresh tomatoes in you office drawer will stink.  And it will stink a lot!  Have you ever driven by a dead possum, that has been on the side of the road for several days?  Take that smell and multiply it by ten, now you are close to the smell of my office, at least what it smelled like for the last week or so.

After our cat, George, ate the first burger and we substituted a stunt double, we decided to add fresh, real lettuce and fresh, real tomato to the plate (Bad idea).  We also decided to keep it in one of my office drawers.  After a few days, holy shit did it stink!.. mercifully it has finally dissipated.

Here is the burger on its first day:

Here is the same burger a few weeks later:

To be honest, I am surprised that the burger developed mold.  It may be that the juices from the "real" lettuce and tomato were absorbed by the bun and that is what prompted the mold growth.  I will start a second cheeseburger experiment without the lettuce and tomato, in the same drawer and see if the same mold develops.

Am I the only person that finds it odd that of all the foods on this plate and stuck in a drawer, the only ones that rotted were the "real" lettuce and tomato?

Instead of stopping at the "Burger joint" to pick up dinner for you and the kids, stop at the local co-op or butcher.  Buy some fresh ground (most pre-packaged ground beef is made from old dairy cows) beef.  Grass fed is best (Omega 3's vs. Omega 6's, blah, blah, blah, you have heard my rant before...) and rolls made by a local baker.  They may not be the best health wise but they are leaps and bounds ahead of the commercial buns.  Will it cost more? YES, in the short term but in the long run, NO.  Is it more of a pain in the ass?  YES, but come on; how fucking lazy are you that making burgers is "too" difficult?

Think about this:  For thousands of years Humans not only existed but thrived eating "natural foods".  Now we eat processed foods and are getting fatter by the day.  You could diet... however...  Diets suck!  They are not the answer.  Common sense is the answer!  Eat and drink "real" food, in moderation, exercise in moderation and you will loose weight.

Will you be able to eat at your favorite local restaurant?  Perhaps a few things but really, NO.  However if enough sheep people demand (by not eating there) that restaurants serve "real" food, things will change.

Don't be a sheep!  Every time you go to a restaurant, ask "is this organic, non processed and is it HFCS free"? if not, don't order it.  Will this limit your choices? YES... for awhile but if enough people do it restaurants will get the message that this is what their patrons want and they will provide it.

I never said that I thought that this would be easy.  Some parts of eating healthy are hard but I think the trade off is worth it.

Thanks for reading!  Please pass this link along to others: http://bald-bills-blog.blogspot.com/

"Eat Real Food"

Bald Bill

4/15/2010

In my continuing quest to find out what shit the major food manufacturers are loading into the food we eat, I am noticing things like "iso glucose, glucose-fructose syrup, fruit fructose" and a few others.  Guess what?  They are all High Fructose Corn Syrup!  It's getting to the point where in order to avoid eating HFCS you need a dictionary, thesaurus and an organic chemist!

I have found the following information in several, well respected publications:  "Americans' number one source of calories is...HFCS"  No wonder we (as a nation) are so fucking fat! Our main source of calories is sugar!  No wonder we have so many ADD kids, the little bastards are on the mother of all sugar highs.

For reference: 1 ounce = 28 Grams

These numbers are "per serving"

• Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream -- 16 grams
• Starbucks caffè latte grande (16 oz) -- 17 grams
• Subway 6″ sweet onion teriyaki chicken sandwich -- 17 grams
• Yoplait original yogurt -- 27 grams (WTF? That is basically an ounce!)
• Vitamin Water (20 oz bottle) -- 33 g (Fuck me!  Water with more sugar than yogurt?)
• Oscar Mayer Lunchables crackers, turkey & American cheese -- 36 grams
• Coca-Cola Classic 12 oz can -- 39 grams
• California Pizza Kitchen Thai chicken salad -- 45 grams
• Jamba Juice blackberry bliss 16 oz -- 49 grams
• Odwalla SuperFood 450 ml bottle -- 50 grams
• Starbucks caffe vanilla frappuccino grande (16 oz) -- 58 grams (more that two ounces!)

And finally the one that will fuck you up, pinch your nipples and or kick you in the nuts; The Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut.........ready?....................(grab the Vaseline).......are you sure that you are ready?..............Okay, here it is.................don't say I did not warn you......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... A Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut has,,,,,,,, 10 grams of sugar (per serving).

JUMPING JESUS ON A FUCKING POGO-STICK!   A bottle of "Vitamin water (you  fucking lying ass bastards, vitamins my ass!) has three times the sugar of a fucking glazed doughnut!!!!!!!  How the fuck can a person eat healthy, without spending hours a day decoding this shit?.... (other than you, who read this blog religiously) 

I'm working on a little side project,  I'll post it A.S.A.P.  And i am sorry that i have not posted more often this week.  Work and personal obligations have kept me from the keyboard.  I have gone so far as to get an app that converts voice to text, so that I can work on the blog throughout the day and email it to myself to edit later. 

Thanks for reading!  Pass this link on to friends.

Bald Bill

4/14/2010

Yesterday, work brought us into Philly.  We decided to treat ourselves and have lunch at the White Dog Cafe.   The White Dog was one of the first Philly restaurants to buy as much as possible of their foods from local farmers.  I started with the "Crisp Narragansett Bay Calamari" with Kalamata olives, oven dried tomato, hot cherry peppers, artichoke hearts and lemon-caper aioli.  Yeah, I know, it is not the most dietetic first course on the menu.  Remember my goal is to find a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.  Once in awhile I have to be able to drift a little off center.  The Calamari, olives, artichokes and peppers were cooked perfectly.  Two minor complaints. First was the omission of the oven dried tomato, not a big deal at all.  The next thing is one of those little things that can just drive you nuts.  They buy their cherry peppers with the stems on.  We once owned a restaurant, and I know why they buy these, they are cheaper.  When you get one of these in your mouth it's like biting down on a knotted shoelace.  Now imagine frying that shoelace.  Normally this was a problem for me when ordering a hoagie or cheese steak, not at a "high" end cafe.

For my entrée, I went with the "Blackened Bistro Steak Salad" with baby iceburg (sic) lettuce, organic toy box tomatoes and Birchrunhill farms blue cheese dressing.  Steak, medium rare.  It arrived on a nice big rectangular plate and served "de-constructed".  If you are not a dyed in the wool foodie, and are not familiar with that term, allow me to 'esplain.  Instead of putting all of the ingredients in a bowl or on a plate and then pouring dressing over it, you instead pour a little dressing on the large plate and then place each ingredient separately on the plate.  What's the difference?  'bout $10.00.  I'm only half kidding.

The salad was great.  Lisa had the "Free Range Amish Chicken Cobb Salad" with Satur farms organic bibb lettuce, Nodine bacon, Cluster (not to be confused with toy box) ten minute egg, Danish blue cheese, avocado and sherry vinaigrette.  Holy shit!  When the fuck did chickens take up religion?  Amish free range chickens! (however, I am glad that they let them outside)  First of all how do we know that they are not Mennonite?  Does this mean I should look out for Hasidic Jewish chickens for chicken liver pate... or Rastafarian chickens for Jamaican jerk chicken... Southern Baptist chickens for Southern fried chicken?

It is hard enough to search out good, natural, healthy foods but now I have to check if my chickens are circumsized, stoned or hiding beer?  This healthy eating thing is harder than I first thought!

I guess I'll have to cut nuts totally out of my diet, as the must surely be Muslim extremists.  I'm not even going to touch "extra Virgin olive oil"!

Before I digress into fart jokes, I'll sign off for the night.

One last thing,  remember what Confucius said: Man who fart in church, must sit in own pew.

Thanks for reading,
Bald Bill

4/11/2010

Well, another weekend shot to Hell!  I had great plans, however none of them seemed to come to fruition.  We did have a great night out with friends and also missed meeting up with other friends, Yin and Yang, I guess.

As you know, i am trying to read several hundred pages a day on the subject of food and nutrition.  A few things are starting to become clear.  This is not just for people trying to loose weight but for everyone.  If you like living and wish to continue to do so for a long time, I offer these suggestions.

• Cut out all soda.
• Go out and expose your flesh to the sun; in moderation.
• Drink more water!
• Take Krill oil (Omega 3's) supplements.

Does this sound like a lot of my previous posts?  It should!  I keep running into these four everywhere I look.

Today I was researching eczema for a friend whose child has it.  In a nut shell here is what I learned:

• Eczema is "the itch that rashes"  It's not really visible until you scratch it.
• Put a compress of warm water and natural sea salt on it to stop the itching.
• Stay hydrated.  eg: drink more water.
• Increase the amount of animal based Omega 3's in your diet.
• Increase the amount of vitamin D, sunlight is the best source.

So it doesn't matter if you are a fat fuck, like me or a "normal" person just looking to get a little healthier, there seems to be overwhelming (what comes before overwhelming? whelming?  I've heard of underwhelmed and overwhelmed but never whelmed?... Just a thought) evidence that these things are really fucking good for you.

So here is what I want you to do:

• Every morning when you wake up, drink a glass (plastic cup, half a bottle etc...) of good clean water.
• Before you eat breakfast, drink a glass of water.
• Before you eat lunch, drink a glass of water.
• In mid afternoon, drink a glass of water.
• Before dinner, drink a glass of water.
• Before bed drink a glass of water.

This should not be difficult.  Remember, it takes two weeks to start a habit but only two days to break one.

I also encourage you to add the following things to your routine.

• Get natural sunshine.  Yes you need to use sunscreen but you still need sunshine!  Because I am such a magnanimous individual I humbly invite all cute nubile... scratch that... all women to sunbathe on my lawn.  Clothing optional.
• Either take krill oil or eat real natural line caught fish, once a week, or more.
• Kick that shit out of anyone you see spit in public!... Okay maybe you shouldn't do that, but you could...

One final thing.  Read the nutritional information for everything your eat or drink!  If you don't immediately recognize any ingredient, put it back on the fucking shelf.

Companies do not give a flying fuck about you!  They want to make shelf stable, cheap, highly profitable food.  It is up to you to wake up and start making smart decisions.

You may feel that you do not have the time to implement a fully healthy diet.  You can still drink all the water.  You can bring a few organic apples with you.  

Do the best you can at every meal.  If you are female, sunbathe on my front lawn (Guys, go to my friend Bob's) eat good fresh fish and or krill oil.   Most important: read this blog!

Tomorrow I'll have some killer recipes for you!

Night all!

Thanks for reading.

Bald Bill

4/10/2010

Our first meal out in almost five weeks!

Tonight we met two (four if you count their kids) of our closest friends, for dinner.  This was our first meal "out" since we embarked on this healthy eating experiment.  Before hand we agreed to each get a healthy salad and share a healthy entrée.  This proved to be a good plan, to the outside world we seemed to be a "normal" couple out to dinner with friends.  After that we even stopped at our local brew pub and met up with several other friends.  I had my first "real" beer in five weeks.  Yes, it was fucking great!

Real quick, back to the grass fed beef;  We tried some grass fed ground beef today and it did not suck!  I need to double check what farm it came from, but i will let you know.

With each passing day i find more evidence that all soda is pure fucking evil!  If you decide to eat at the local fast, overly, processed food restaurant; do your self a great big favor, don't drink soda!  Drink water! Depending on your age, you are somewhere between  55 and 75% water.

So, if you are between 55 and 75% water, would it not make sense to drink a large percentage of your daily needed fluid intake pure water?  Call me a fucking nut...but water tastes good (provided you have a good filtration system.  If you do, be sure to change it as often as needed, as not doing so can result in the "dumping" of all the shit it filtered out, back into your water)

Speaking of water, allow me to speak about the other end of consuming water... No! not peeing.  Spitting!  What the fuck is with so many people spitting?  What the fuck is wrong with parents?  Do they no longer teach their children basic manners.  I think most people can accept a person spitting if they ingested a foul substance, or an errant bug.  However in most cases that does not seem to be the case, I can't count how many people I see everyday that spit in public.  Call me crazy, but if you "need" to spit in public, you need to see a doctor.

Thanks for reading, please refer this site to a frend.

Bald Bill

The burger experiment....

Holy Fuck, is this thing starting to stink!  i think it is actually the fresh tomato that is the cause of the oder.  I don't know how much longer I can take it

An overview for the new comers.

Wow!  Although I only have ten people following my blog, it seems that many more are reading it.  Thank you!  The people that read this are the people that keep me focused and on track.

I'm getting several emails a day, either complimenting me on my quest or asking questions about specific food details.  However the most common subject is that they do not have the time to eat right.  I get it.  Been there done that.  If the economy was not in the shitter and I did not have a gourmet cook for a wife, this would be soooo much harder.  To that end, I will try to outline what I have learned as the most important first steps, to a healthy eating lifestyle.

Please remember: I am not a doctor or nutritionist.  I'm a fat guy, sick of these fucking fad diets.  I'm reading everything I can about diet and nutrition.  I do my best to vet everything I read, three times.  I pass along the things that I think are relevant.

So, from everything that I have read, what would be the "best" first steps?

• Take your weight in pounds and divide by two.  The result is the number, in ounces, that you should drink per day.  For me, when I started this experiment I weighed 250 pounds. 250 divided by two = 125.  I drink a minimum of 125 ounces of water a day.  You can do that without spending a penny (yea, yeah, yeah, if you are buying bottled water, it will cost you a buck or two)
• Cut out all soda.  Regular or diet, it does not matter, it is all toxic.  This will actually save you money.  While you are at it, cut way down on fruit juices, you can get the benefits of fruit juices in other ways that do not have so much (natural) sugar.
• Stop eating "prepared foods"  Yep, that means; no fast food, no Wawa food etc...  

I know that this is not practical for most of us, however it is an attainable goal.  Read the label, if your fourth grader does not recognize the ingredient, don't eat it!

I will continue to due my best to read all I can, and cull the best nutritional information from what i have read, and vetted.

Please challenge me on any of the topics, that I have posted.  I'm not claiming to be an authority, I just want to find a healthy way to eat and lose weight.  My email is: baldbill@verizon.net 

Think about this; for almost 200 years Americans were not fat. Now it is an epidemic, what changed?

The answer?  We started to fuck around with food in order to increase profits. (Don't get me wrong, I am an independent voter that firmly believes in capitalism)  Okay, I'll get off my high horse...

My parting thoughts;

Eat as much natural food as you can, drink lots of good clean water and do not drink any soda.  If you do this for a month, I guarantee that you will loose weight.

Thanks for reading,

Bald Bill

4/8/2010

This whole grass fed beef thing has me pissed off!

I typed "why does grass fed beef taste like shit?" into Google and got 1,610,000 hits.  I am not alone in finding the taste "off putting" to say the least.

As I dug deeper looking for the reason so many of us don't like it.  The first thing I ran into was our old friend Omega 3 and his nemesis Omega 6.  I wrote about these two guys before; Omega 3 is very good for you.  Omega 6 is very bad for you.

Grass fed beef is high in Omega 3, when that cow is finished with corn feeding at a feed lot, he packs on the pounds and much of that weight is Omega 6.  So it looks to me that the very thing I love about beef is the very thing that is the worst for me!  Fuck me!  Next they are going to say that vodka is bad for your liver!

Just when I was about to resign myself to a lifetime of eating my old boots grass fed beef, I stumbled upon this site: Blackwing  I'm going to order some and see if it is as good as they claim.  Notice that even on their site they mention the balance of Omega's 3 and 6.  I keep bumping into a ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 that should not exceed 4 to 1 with 1 to 1 being the ideal.  I'm going to email Blackwing and ask about their meat.

That said, I am still going to try a few more purely grass fed steaks.  Which got me to thinking, I wonder how close to my home, I could find an organic herd of walking New York Strip steaks?  That search led me to this site; Here!  Within an hour and a half drive I can get to all kinds of fresh organic foods!  I found that many of these farms sell directly to many of our areas "better" restaurants.  Places like "The Whip", "The White Dog" and "Southwark".  I just might be able to eat outside of our own four walls!  I may take a drive this weekend and visit some of the farms, if I do, I'll take pictures and report back to you.

One last thought for the day.  Summer is fast approaching and that means corn and tomatoes.  I'll likely blather on endlessly about both as they are two of my favorite foods.  Yeah, I'm a little worried that I'll find that eating too many tomatoes will cause my testicles to roll out my pant leg, or something else equally horrifying.  Anyway, this summer, go out of your way to find a corn stand that sells Mirai corn.  The season is absurdly short, something like three weeks.  It is the best corn I have ever eaten.  You can read about it here.  In short it is a cross between two types of corn, they were trying to get a breed of corn that would be ready for picking before the 4th of July.  Mirai (Japanese for "taste of the future") was the result, there is a downside... it is too tender to machine harvest.  That is why you will only find it "roadside" farms and stands.  And try it raw.  Yes I said raw!  Trust me, just do it.

Thanks for reading!

Bald Bill

4/7/2010 (Lame post, feel free to skip)

Last night we ate a grass feed, no antibiotic, hormone etc... etc... etc... New York strip steak.  I cooked it to a perfect medium rare, leaning toward rare.  It was like eating a baseball mitt!  My jaw is still sore from chewing it.  And to top it off it had a lousy flavor.  Meal failure number two.  Still not a bad average for just over one month.  I am going to have to do more research on grass fed beef, so far, I'm not a fan.

Tonight we had meatballs, cooked in the oven and then fried, finally finished by a bath in a butter, red wine and beef broth reduction. We also had a nice spring mix salad and some blanched asparagus.  Delicious! 

This morning, I got curious and stepped on the scale.  Good news!  I'm now down 17 pounds!!!!

I had every intention of working on the bicycle today but as so often happens the day got away from me, tomorrow is not looking very good either.  Maybe over the weekend.

I have a question for you:  What month is it?  I could have sworn that it was April, but I may have over slept by a month... or three.  It feels like July!  It is 10:00 PM as I write this and my office is sweltering.  I'm going to cut this short and go back downstairs, where it is cooler.

Thanks for checking in!

Bald Bill

The one month mark!

Damn!  Has it been one month already?

Today was weigh in day and I am pleased to report that I have lost 14 pounds.  A few of my friends have commented that they "don't know how I can live on oat bran and fruits and vegetables".  My answer is "I could never survive that diet!"  I've tried to keep from boring you to death with what exactly I'm eating everyday but let me just recap some of the food I have eaten in the past few days:  Chicken and Feta cheese sausage with fried potatoes and sautéed peppers and onions.  A filet mignon sandwich with cucumber and horseradish mustard.  Oatmeal with raisins, dried cranberry's and cream.  I sure don't feel like I'm dieting! I'm eating plenty, and often can't finish my meals.  The best part is that I feel fucking great!

Don't get me wrong, there are a few things that suck.  Having to shop for "real" food is time consuming.  However I was pleasantly surprised to learn that even places like BJ's wholesale club carry some organic foods, so I imagine that it will get easier as more and more Americans buy local and or organic foods.  We (and by we I mean Lisa) needs to prepare and cook damn near all of our meals.  There is no, we are in a rush, let's grab a pizza.  At least until we reach our goal weights.

A few friends have also brought up the fact that I have greatly reduced my beer intake.  Yes I have.  Beer is now a treat not a staple.  But let's crunch the numbers:  I used to have, on average four "good" beers a night, none of this light beer bullshit!.  4 X 120 (calories) = 480.  Now I have six ounces of vodka a night.  6X 73 (calories) = 438.  That is a 42 calorie difference per day.  Come on!  Do you really think that makes a fucking difference?  I lost 14 pounds in a month by cutting my alcohol calories by 1,260 calories a MONTH?  If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.  That is exactly two "premium grilled chicken classic" sandwiches (from a big fast food restaurant that employs a red haired clown) a month.

You would think that your "friends" would be more supportive.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a good healthy debate on any subject, and the vast majority of my friends have been behind me 100%.

I'm not reading several hours a day and then trying to write a semi coherent blog to prove a point.  Quite the contrary, I don't know shit!  I've read a ton of material and the one thing that most seem to agree on is that the more natural your food is, the better.  So I decided to test this hypothesis and document my results here.  I'm no fan of eating healthy per se , I just want food that tastes good and if I can eat some foods and still lose weight, then all the better.  If I did not lose weight or even if I put weight on, I would have posted that as well.

Fer fucks sake lets move on to another topic!

The Cheeseburger experiment:  Well dip me and call me stinky!  I thought it would never happen.  The burger is growing some mold!  The cheese, roll and bun... none.  The burger does show some mold, though not as much as the "real lettuce and tomatoes".

I really do appreciate your taking the time to read my blog!  I you like it, are amused by it or find any useful information, please pass the link on to friends and family!

"Eat Real Food"... and quit drinking soda!

Bald Bill

4/4/2010

As I am about to add some exercise into my new health plan and my finances are not what they once were, buying  a new bike is not in the cards.  So, I've decided to "tune up" my old mountain bike.  By old I mean early 1980's.  Then it was a state of the art mountain bike, now it is more of a beachcomber.  No suspension, no brake rotors and then there is the fact that it is day-glow orange with purple handle bars!  Holy shit!  Is this thing atrocious!  I decided a tune up was not enough.  A complete rebuild was in order.  I began taking off stuff: seat, derailer, wheels, handle bars, brakes, cables etc...  Soon I had quite the pile of bike parts sprawled out in front of me.  Then it crossed my mind that it probably would have been best to take some pictures of the bike before I started taking the thing apart.  This will be fun.  I've done the important work, I've decided on a color scheme.  Satin black with gloss black highlights.  More to follow...

While working on the bike, I of course had my ubiquitous bottle of water with me.  What the fuck are these assholes doing to my water bottles?  Have you bought bottled water lately?  In an effort to reduce the impact on the planet, they are using less plastic in the bottles and caps.

Depending on how well or if you even know me, you may or not know that I have lost a lot of the feeling in my right hand.  The best way I can describe it is; it feels like I'm wearing a thick rubber glove.  Also, the longer I hold something small, like a pen ( I wrote PEN.  I'm just clarifying), the tighter my grip gets.  My handwriting was never great but now it is horrible. Doctors looks at it and say "Damn that is some bad handwriting"  Okay, back to the fucking plastic water bottles.  If I have one open, the odds are pretty close to 50/50 that the next time I grab it, I will  squeeze it too hard and send a geyser all over myself.  This happens a lot.

I decided to weigh the "old" style and the new style bottles.  Empty with the lid on, the old bottle weighed 14 grams, the new "Earth friendly" bottle weighed 12 grams.  Two grams difference.  24 bottles in a case X 2 grams = 48 grams.  That is a savings of 1.69315 ounces per case.  Save the planet my ass!  Those fuckers are just trying to save a buck.  Don't most of us recycle plastic anyway?  That two gram difference makes a difference to me.  I either look like a semi normal person drinking a bottle of water or I look like a person having a Gran Mal seizure drinking a bottle of water.

They must be using rocket scientists to develop these new and "improved" water bottles.  I swear they are only one molecule thick.  I'm pretty sure that you don't have to open them, you can just suck the water right through the plastic.

That'll do it for tonight.  Thanks for reading!

Bald Bill

4/3/2010

A few things tonight...

First we had a fantastic dinner!  Broiled Sockeye Salmon with a red wine reduction sauce.  A Shallot, Crimini, dried cranberry (rehydrated) rolled oat and wild rice side dish, finished with crushed raw walnuts and a little cold pressed walnut oil.  And a salad of Campari tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, spring mix, Extra virgin olive oil , vinegar, etc...etc...etc...

I think that what I am  getting at, as the nutritional guru that I am middle aged fat guy trying to live a healthy life style.  I really am starting to believe that EVERYTHING they are telling us is BULLSHIT!

Fuck these assholes telling you that you can't eat pizza! or eat steak.  You can, You just have to do your homework and just do it in moderation, and here comes the fly in the ointment; Your probably going to have to make it yourself.  One hundred years ago, the majority of people were not fat, today they are.  A small percentage may be because we are eating more food, but the overwhelming evidence is that it is not how much we eat, but WHAT we eat.  I can hear you now;  "What the fuck happened to bald bill?  He seemed to be a normal (in context) guy but now he seems to have become a tree hugging, green living, Eco-Nazi.  Trust me, I'M NOT!  It is just that after reading a shit load of material; And being a skeptic at heart, questioning everything, I'm learning how bad most of what we eat is!

The next paragraph I vetted, as well as I could.  If you doubt it, vet it for yourself.

Think of America as a whole, east coast, north east, mid-west, south, north west, south west, north west and south west.  Take all 300,000,000 of us.  What do you think is the number one source of the total daily caloric intake of Americans is?  Fried food?  Nope.  Fast food?  Nope.  The answer is SODA.  If you do nothing else, stop drinking soda!

Have you heard about Genetically modified foods?  Some of them are great!  They (Bill Gates) are developing a strand of rice that will deliver as much beta carotene as a carrot.   That will be great for the people of Africa.  The benefits clearly outweigh the detriments.  Google it, you will get it.

How about what we are doing here in the good old US of A?  85% of all the corn we grow is genetically modified.  91 to 93% of all US grown soybeans are genetically modified.  What does that mean to us?

Most of the soy we grow in this country is GM (genetically modified; 91 to 93%)  They call it "Round-up Ready"  What does that mean?  It means that the crop has been modified so that after it ha taken root and begins to grow... it is sprayed with "Round-up" (Round-up is a very effective herbicide.  It is our big box version of agent orange) which kills all plants, however the soy lives on. Great, The weeds were killed, but what about the soy which we eat?  Well thanks to our modifications, the plant that lived and will now pass along all of the toxins found in Round-up, yum.  The people selling us food, could give a shit!  They are just concerned with the bottom line.  We need to learn to select good natural foods.

Who the Fuck would want to eat a plant that survived being sprayed with round-up?

Look at it this way; would you willingly squirt two shots of Round-up into your mouth?

Buy organic foods from local farmers as often as possible!  Ween yourself off soda; 21% of all the sugar Americans consume is from soda.

That's it for tonight.

Eat well, live well.  Thanks for reading.

Bald Bill

4/3/2010

As I write this, it is Friday night but the clock tells me it is Saturday Morning.

We just got back from our first party, since we began this new eating regime.  I have to admit, I was worried.  I knew that there would be tempting food, Pizza, Pretzels, Chips, etc... not to mention good fresh beer!.. and good whiskey, bourbon, tequila and vodka.

We decided to have a hearty meal before hand.  Grilled Buffalo sausage, Grilled red onions, yellow and red peppers and grilled zucchini.  Yeah, yeah, yeah... Grilling food over charcoal is carcinogenic.  What the Fuck?  I'm eating organic, sprouted from mother earth's own bosom, as healthy as I can find... even going so far as to start reading organic chemistry (Shannon, you must be out of your mind!)  I have to keep some vices.  We like to grill and to barbecue (if you don't know the difference click here: Outdoor Cooking   We use only natural hardwood lump charcoal.  We never use briquettes or lighter fluid.  We have not do so for years before starting this diet.  Use natural lump charcoal and light it with a small propane torch.  Never use Lighter Fluid!!!  it will make your food taste like shit!  Remember; I'm a "Joe average" guy, trying to find a way to lose weight.  I'm not a health nut.  I love a lot of food that is "bad" for us.  I am trying to find a way to eat as much as you like, within reason, and still loose weight.

As far as the charcoal, as long as it is 100% natural lump, it is up to you.  What kind of flavor to you want?  Are you looking for a high heat or a low heat fire.  Here is a site that you should check out if you are interested in good charcoal: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lumpindexpage.htm?bag

Now that I have derailed this train... How did I do, tonight at the party?  First off, we brought own 'Lemon Lime seltzer" which we both drank all night.  I did have one vodka on the rocks and a small shot of vodka.  However, I can say that I did not eat anything!  And, you know what?  I wasn't hard.

Hey One last thing.  I had stopped writing down how much water i was drinking.  My water intake declined.  Though now, I am not recording everything that i am eating, I will go back to recording how much water i am drinking.  (take your weight and divide by two. e.g. 240 pounds divided by two = 120 pounds.  120 ounces is how much water you should drink a day).  This number varies depending on who or what you read, but I have found  nobody disputing this.  It is not "TOO MUCH" water.  Felling hungry?  try eight ounces of water, weight 20 minutes and see how you feel.

Fuck me!  It is late and i have to work in the morning!  Pardon the typo's, no time to re-read this post

Thanks for reading!

Please "follow" my blog and post and or send the link to your friends!

Thanks for reading,

Bald Bill

3/31/2010

As you know, we are trying to eat as much organic food as possible (available, convenient and affordable) so we did some web surfing and found that around a million websites contain lists of the 12 foods that you "should always buy organic"  As an aside; The list changes yearly as farming practices do.   Almost none of them had the list in the same order of importance.  That got me to wondering, just how many combinations can you get out of twelve items? Answer: 479,001,600.  So I randomly picked a webpage to quote.  Here they are in one of the 479,001,600 possible combinations.

• Peaches
• Apples
• Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Cherries
• Strawberries
• Lettuce
• Grapes (imported)
• Pears 
• Spinach
• Potatoes

Then we started looking around at what foods are least important to buy organic.  Go back and re-read the first paragraph but change the 12 into 15 and 479,001,600 with 2.44796 to the 16th power.

• Onions
• Avocados
• Corn on the cob
• Pineapples
• Mangos
• Asparagus
• Sweat Peas
• Kiwi (that one surprised me)
• Cabbages
• Eggplants (Even though 2/3 of the Worlds eggplant is grown in New Jersey!   Did you know that there are actually two types of the common eggplants we eat? The first has an oval dimple at the blossom end and has less seeds.  The other has a very round shape and more seeds.  Some people say that there are male and female eggplants with the males being the ones with fewer seeds.   It is also widely believed that Thomas Jefferson was the first person to bring eggplants to America.)
• Papayas
• Watermelons
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Sweet Potatoes

You should really wash your fruits and vegetables before cooking or eating. If you use any of the commercially available "Veggie" cleaners, Stop.  It has bee proven that a quick bath in distilled water or a quick spray with a mixture of 1/4 white vinegar to 3/4 distilled water (we use tap water as it is purified "in house") then a rinse in clean water, is just as, if not more effective than the commercially available fruit washes. 

That's it for tonight, eat well!

Bald Bill

3/30/2010

Reading all the opinions of various nutritionists, dietitians, and doctors is like listening to two politicians debate.  I just read on one website that agave nectar, while high is fructose it has a low glycemic index and is fine in moderation.  Not five minutes later a received a newsletter with the heading: "Shocking! This 'Tequila' sweetener is far worse than high fructose corn syrup.  Luckily, for me I'm not a sugar junky.  So cutting sugars (except for naturally occurring sugars in whole foods) out of my diet is pretty easy.

I think that my head is going to explode!

The 'Oses'.
You are probably familiar with; sucrose, fructose and glucose .  I have been reading up one the properties of each.  In my head I think of them as the three stooges, read on, it will make sense.

Sucrose (common table sugar): is broken down in the stomach, by a process called "acidic hydrolysis" into glucose and fructose.  Turns out that their are two forms of fructose.  Monosaccharide (free fructose) or as a disaccharide (sucrose).  Fuck me! these bastards are going in a fucking circle!   Your body will readily absorb "Free" fructose and use it as fuel.  When the disaccharide version of fructose, which is really sucrose hits your small intestine some fucking enzyme cleaves it into one part glucose and.... wait for it... it's coming... one part fructose!  This 2,347,817th version of fructose gets spat out of your intestine through the portal vein and sent to the liver, where it gets turned into fat.  But wait!  it gets better!  I got this next bit from the British Medical Journal:  In order for the liver to process fructose, it must be phosphorylated by removal of phosphates from adenosine triphosphate.  The adenosine triphosphate gets converted into adenosine monophosphate, and then into inisotol monophosphate, and were not dot quite yet...finally into uric acid.  Too much uric acid and you get Gout.


So, what did I get out of all that?  A headache.   Actually I think that I may have a tiny grasp of what's going on.


There are two types of fructose, monosaccharide (free fructose) and disaccharide (sucrose).  Free fructose walks on through the small intestine unscathed and is then easily absorbed by the large intestine.  Sucrose walks in to the small intestine and promptly gets mugged by a bully an enzyme called sucrase (NOT sucrose) in the small intestine, where it is split in two.  One unit of glucose which you body can use and one unit of fructose, which some fucking reason I still don't get, it gets kicked out of the small intestine via the portal vein before it could get to the large intestine.  It then gets sent to the principals office liver where it gets detention stored as fat... and uric acid.


Fruc, gluc and suc (sounds kinda dirty when I put it that way!)can all be present in a food, in varying levels.


So, the sugar found in your sugar bowl and soda can will make you fat.  The sugars found in fruits and vegetables are better for you...unless (you knew this had to be coming) your a guy and your triglycerides are high, then you may not want to go on an all fruit diet.  As apparently; "fructose can produce much higher fasting plasma triglycerides when compared to glucose".


Aw...come on!  This is more fucked up than a football bat!


I just found this:


Says Meira Field, Ph.D., a research chemist at United States Department of Agriculture, "but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic." While a few other tissues (eg, sperm cells and some intestinal cells) do use fructose directly, fructose is almost entirely metabolized in the liver.


BOOM! That was the sound of my head exploding!  


Heres what I'm going to do: (once I clean up the blood and brains, which are splattered all  over my office)


I'm going to stay away from fruit flavored vodka.  That shit must be a double whammy!


Until next time...


Bald Bill
P.S. I did lose two pounds last week.