Tag Archives: eating healthy

We Don’t Know Shit About Food

“[T]he thinkings and unthinkings and giving and taking of the diet industry and numerous health experts and peer-reviewed journals and your mom and my mom and that guy over there and your yoga instructor have turned into a veritable cluster fuck of information that all circles around food, but never actually settles down to just talk about it. It’s quickly leading me to believe that we literally (in the actual sense of the word) don’t know shit about food.” – Nikki Steele, “We Don’t Know Sh** About Food, Do We?” on Food Riot

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m about to give up on food and just consume Soylent for the foreseeable rest-of-my-life.  Keeping up on “this is bad for you” and “that is bad for you” is like standing with one foot each on a Volvo semi-truck, but without the balance and flexibility of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s stunt double.  No matter what, you’re going to fail, and you have no idea how horrible the consequences might be. For all I know, they’ll come back in a year and tell me Soylent is bad for me too (but at least this version isn’t made of people).

I hear I’m supposed to drink water all day—but plastic is bad for me (and even worse for the environment).  I should make my own meals instead of buying so much fast food—but don’t even think of microwaving that in plastic Tupperware.  Don’t you know you’re supposed slowly heat everything up on the stove, dirtying a pan, a spatula, a pair of tongs, a plate, and a fork and knife?  But, by the way, your city is in a drought, so don’t overuse water when you clean all those dishes.

And that’s just how you eat.  Don’t even get your mother, brother, cousin, mailperson, dog, registered dietician started on what you eat.  Paleo and keto are all the rage (I can’t even tell how they’re supposedly different).  It’s like Atkins 2.0—I think.  For a carboholic like me, it’s hell: I tried giving carbs up for Lent a couple years ago, and it turned me into an angry ball of stress.  My friends highly encouraged me to quit a week early in order to preserve our relationships.

The only thing that’s obvious is that culture and society have fucked us up.  We’ve been encouraged at a young age to suppress our natural full indicator and “clean your plate, because children in Africa are starving.”  Our own food industry is more interested in a profit than in healthy consumers, so Lord Monsanto calls all the shots.  I change my mind on GMO foods every other week.  And, as a 20-something female, I’m pretty sure it’s physically impossible for me to achieve the idealized American femme fatale physique without seriously impacting the happiness I find in the bottom of a bowl of ice cream.

How do you deal with the information overload?  Do you have a resource with whom you entrust your health and happiness? Please enlighten me!

Meggyn Watkins is the Managing Editor of the UNDERenlightened. Fiction reader, local art prowler, concert-goer, BBC watcher, world traveler, and San Jose Sharks lover! @meggawat

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Fridgeology 101

Last month, I moved into my own studio apartment. Contrary to popular belief, the best part about living alone isn’t the ability to walk around pantsless or let dirty dishes pile up in the sink for a week. Actually, it’s that—for the first time in my life—I indulge in the privacy of my own fridge and freezer. Having spent significant time over the past six years sharing fridge space with roommates (some friends, some strangers), employers, coworkers, and other people who have flickered in and out of their lives—and therefore mine—I have come to learn that a glimpse into other people’s refrigerators reveals the most essential, and sometimes most intimate, facets of their lives.

We’re probably all familiar with the proverbial scene in a rom-com in which a girl snoops through her love interest’s medicine cabinet to uncover the skeletons in his closet. If I were getting ready to launch into a serious relationship, though, I’d look through his fridge and freezer to find out what he’s hiding.

Freezer full of chicken soup in Tupperware? His mom still delivers him prepared meals every week.

Dannon Light and Fit? There’s definitely another woman in the picture.

Based on an unofficial ethnographic study, conducted over a six-year period, across several neighborhoods across New York City, what this reporter has come to deem the “fridge-forage” has proven to be a surprisingly accurate litmus test for the habits and personalities of the test subjects. Names have been removed from the vignettes that follow in order to protect the identities of the people who failed their diet plans, served their children expired yogurt, and drank their roommates’ milk.

Chapter 1: City Parents

My first case study comes from when I was a freshman in college, babysitting for a couple with a newborn baby on the Upper East Side, and naïve enough to fall for the “help yourself to anything in the fridge” trap. As soon as the parents headed out, and the baby was fast asleep, I excitedly tiptoed into the kitchen, thinking I’d whip up a meal with the groceries I imagined working adults in New York kept on hand. Instead of the freshly baked hearth breads, heirloom vegetables, and mélange of dips I’d envisioned, I found moldy cheese (and not the good kind of mold), a jar of mustard three years past the expiration date, and a half-finished bottle of white wine. Conclusion: Despite being proud parents, this couple, a little older than the average first-time parents, were not ready to give up certain aspects of their New York routines from life before parenthood. Living in the one-bedroom apartment he’d owned since bachelorhood, and subsisting on a steady diet of takeout and leftovers were vestiges of their former life stage, anachronistic next to the baby food on the bottom shelf of the wine rack and Lipitor next to the takeout menus. “Transitioning Your Fridge: An Emotional Journey” is, apparently, lacking on the millions of “How to Prepare for Life with a Baby” blogs.

A second family, which I’ve tracked over the entire six-year period, lives in a large apartment on the Upper West Side with three kids under the age of five, and they keep Kosher, a set of Jewish dietary laws that I also observe. When I first met the family, I imagined their pantry would resemble the one in my house growing up. The first Saturday night I babysat for this family, the kids were finishing up their eggs, ketchup, grapes, and mashed peas, and the parents told me to “seriously help yourself to anything.” As had become my babysitting routine, when the kids headed to bed, I headed into the kitchen with an empty stomach and a head full of ideas about the bounty of treats I might find in a large household. In this case, sure that I’d find something that people over the age of 10 would find edible, and expecting lots of snacks, I peered into the fridge, only to land upon a grocery aisle’s worth of Gogurt, string cheese, bananas, ketchup, whole milk, Grape-Nuts, and Slim Fast shakes. There was one apple in the drawer. Conclusion: Busy parents who order Fresh Direct for Sunday delivery and have kids with nut and sesame allergies, do not have peanut butter and hummus on standby, end up eating like their kids most of the week, and have babysitters so they can eat out on Saturday nights. As they’ve moved past the pregnancy stage and into the world of Soul Cycling moms, these parents have exhibited a nod to health-conscious eating habits through the proverbial apple a day and cottage cheese. (Note that I have since opted to bring my own dinner for this babysitting gig.)

Chapter 2: The Roommate Experience

Observing life in someone else’s home is enlightening, but there may be no greater human experiment than the roommate experience in New York City, and from an ethnographic research perspective, living with the study subjects is the best way to gather evidence. Essentially, New York living boils down to people who consider each other to be friends—in the traditional sense, or, more likely, in the Facebook way—sharing the amount of space that people in the rest of the country call a closet. You quickly learn quirks and habits that you wish you didn’t know about the people you live with, and the fridge partition encapsulates that dynamic.

The apartment I shared with five roommates—not including my roommates’ boyfriends—made our fridge a Petri dish ripe with samples for my study. Each sixth of the fridge was an accurate reflection of the person who occupied the space. One roommate’s parents would drive into the city from Long Island every other Sunday with an SUV trunk full of Shop Rite brand yogurt. Conclusion: Parents from Long Island, having conducted a cost-benefit analysis of delivering groceries into the City on heavy traffic days, found that this arduous process relieves their children of the task of grocery shopping, allowing the students more time to study, and, as a result, earn better grades and ultimately higher-paying jobs.

A second roommate kept little in her section of the fridge. Instead, she would purchase a frozen burrito, microwavable Indian dish, or instant pad Thai every night, based on what she was craving. Conclusion: To become the highest achiever in the academic and extracurricular spheres requires allocating fewer brain cells to more mundane, organizational aspects of life, such as meal-planning and nutrition facts.

I would be remiss not to share a few of the high notes from my most recent post-college roommate situation, which jarringly brought to light the idiosyncrasies and extremes of each of our personalities, and ultimately the reasons I needed to find a room of my own. The fridge, never a clean three-way split, was constantly littered with remains of leafy greens, drips of coconut oil, and stains from dietary supplements, based on whichever made-for-TV diet one roommate was swearing by that week. She juiced everything in her NutriBullet and then separated the pulpy mush into small containers, which would topple out of the freezer every time I opened it. Curiously enough, all of her diets seemed to involve nightly consumption of an entire pint of chocolate ice cream, the traces of which would appear stuck to the counter every morning. Conclusion: All evidence pointed to an adult who was haphazard, scatterbrained, and searching for something life-changing—maybe weight loss—as she was single, approaching forty, and living with two twenty-something roommates who had to remind her to pay her bills on time.

Chapter 3: The Real World

Between roommates and siblings, friends and subletters, I entered the working world thinking that as green as I was in professional experience, I was seasoned at facing the interpersonal challenges of office life. At a company where the majority of my coworkers are under the age of thirty and don’t have children, I quickly appreciated the inspiration for episodes of The Office. My coworkers’ profiles were similar to mine in age, educational background, and social values. Within my first week of work, though, I was shocked by my observations of the way other people ate, and by what they thought of me because of my food choices. The single fridge, shared amongst 100 employees, was a steaming stank of half-eaten McDonald’s burgers, forgotten fountain sodas, moldy cheese from last Christmas’s potluck, expired Greek yogurts, half-finished juice cleanses, soggy tater tots, frozen mini tacos, a forgotten Tupperware, and beer.  Conclusion: We are the typecast weight-watching, microwave “cooking,” starving by choice and by default, young urban professionals of NYC.

Even a surface-level fridgeology of my current, personal refrigerator would enable you to draw accurate conclusions about the person who inhabits this apartment. My fridge is neatly sectioned off by product type—produce, fruit, dairy, grains, and, for the most part, condiments—each of which is then ordered by expiration date. Vegetables are peeled, sliced, and placed in Tupperware on Sunday nights. Lunch is prepared before bed in Scandinavian BPA-free containers, placed on the shelf that I can reach with most efficiency on my way out the door each morning, and promptly shoved into the fridge upon arriving at work in order to secure prime real estate before the sticky leftover-bringers roll into the office. Conclusion: The first sweep of my fridge would reveal an Upper West Sider captivated by kale, quinoa, and Greek yogurt, somewhere on the spectrum of genuine and trendy health-conscious vegetarianism. A more detail-oriented look speaks to the measured and calculated way I approach decisions, which extends to how I choose what to eat. You’d see the struggle with balancing being on a budget and indulging in the Whole Foods groceries that are equally as expensive as they are nutritious , between regretting that I didn’t settle for takeout and feeling proud when I was determined to cook beans from scratch at 11 pm on a work night, and, ultimately, coming to terms with calling frozen yogurt and granola “dinner” two night in a row.

Reviewing this analysis, it’s not surprising that our refrigerators are gateways to our most genuine sense of self. It’s the fridge that knows first when we’re grazing like we’ve just gone through a break up, munching like we feel fat, snacking like we feel poor, or binging on our “skinny days.” We eat our feelings in the privacy of our own fridges, doors flung open, digging directly into that pint of ice cream, jar of salsa, or lame bag of salad we eat because we should. I don’t pretend to think my library-like fridge conveys more of a sense of “normal” than my coworker’s unassuming obsession with McDonald’s or those parents’ half-hearted ingestion of Slim Fast. What I have learned from this study is that, as people come in and out of your life, and jobs, relationships, and living situations are precarious, it’s important to have a strong sense of self, grounded in the way you keep your fridge. And, it’s probably best to keep it clean—after all, you never know who may be peeking inside.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Remotivation: Jumping Back on the Health Bandwagon

It’s 11 pm. You stand in front of the open refrigerator, rub your distended belly and wonder what just happened to the fifteen Darth Maul cookies left over from your boyfriend’s “May the Fourth Be With You” Star Wars party. Oh yeah, you just ate them all, despite your determined declaration just last Monday that “It’s time to start fresh!” They somehow found their way into your mouth, and on the fourth day in a row of not working out, too. What bad luck! Evil cookies!

If you have ever tried to begin living a healthy lifestyle, you are probably familiar with one of the two following scenarios. One is to say “Screw it, I’ll start next month” and throw out your entire health plan (so you might as well cram in that last cupcake, too). The other is to spiral into a fit of self-loathing and overcompensation, involving weird cleanses with exotic spices and citrus and two hours every day on the elliptical.

Stop! There is a healthier way! Stop binging or purging (or a combination of both) and follow this easy, healthy method to remotivate yourself in the days immediately following a slip-up. And if you’ve never tried to live a healthy lifestyle for the first time, you can apply these same principles to begin in an appropriate, non-Nicole-Richie way!

That Night

Don’t beat yourself up. You are human, and humans make mistakes. Don’t make yourself throw up (or even try) and don’t continue to binge—you know you’re uncomfortable anyway. Take that food baby to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

And stop doing jumping jacks; it’s just going to give you cramps. You’ll know it’s futile when you have to stop after three of them.

The Next Morning

First of all, I’d like to reiterate last night’s message: don’t beat yourself up. Realize that one day of overeating (or even a couple of days) isn’t going to morph you into Jabba the Hut. That being said, it doesn’t give you a pass to keep screwing up. Those calories count, and so do calories for the rest of that week, and all those extras add up quickly. This is a new day, a day to forgive yourself and start out with fresh determination.

With all of that in mind, start with a healthy breakfast. I know you might still feel kind of bloated and gross from the night before, and eating might be the last thing you want to do, but starting your day with a light but nourishing meal will give you energy, keep your metabolism going, avoid the 3 pm hunger attack, and remind you that food is not of the devil. If you don’t usually eat breakfast, now is a good time to start. Most people think that they will lose weight by cutting calories earlier in the day; however, most people who skip breakfast end up making up those calories later in the day, and often even more than usual because starvation leads to very poor choices later on. Intense hunger pangs tend to make you go for the fastest food option. Keep driving past that McDonald’s, and don’t you dare stop!

Make sure your breakfast includes a lean protein, which will help keep you full, and a complex carbohydrate (any whole grain or fibrous fruit or vegetable), which will slow your digestion, keep you full, and create a slow-release energy that will hold you over ‘til lunchtime. Some great examples are:

  • Nonfat Greek yogurt, with a handful of berries (I use frozen for convenience), a sprinkling of granola, and a drizzle of honey.
  • Two whole grain toaster waffles spread with a tablespoon of peanut butter and sliced banana.
  • Scrambled egg whites with mixed vegetables and a slice of whole wheat toast.

Also, get a workout in! It’ll boost your endorphins, and even a light morning walk will remind you that food is fuel and that calories don’t have to stick if you don’t want them to! Plus, you’ll feel much better and get a self-esteem boost if you tend to be hard on yourself.

The Rest of That Day

There are two things you need to do before the day is over. One is to make a plan for the rest of the week, including your dinners and workouts. The best way to combat a future slip-up is to have a plan and treat it as a non-negotiable appointment. At the same time, keep your expectations realistic. Know thyself, and give yourself goals that you know you can accomplish. For instance, if you work an 80-hour workweek starting at 9 am and you come home exhausted every day, don’t expect to work out after your workday—you’ll never get it done. Instead, plan to suck it up and set your alarm for an hour earlier. Get your workout in before work when you still have a ton of energy, or plan a lunchtime workout. Having your plan in front of you, on paper (or smartphone), will assure you that it’s doable. Look, you have time for it! You scheduled it in: it’s in your schedule right there!

The other task is to get rid of whatever triggered your slip-up in the first place. I know it sucks to throw out food, especially if that food happens to be leftover nachos (they crisp up great in the oven!), but just close your eyes and get it done. In fact, this might be a great time to go through your cupboard and throw out problem foods in general. Giant jar of mayonnaise? Get rid of it. Double-stuff Oreos lurking in your pantry? Bid it farewell. Cooking lard? What are you, crazy? Banish it from thy sight!

This is one I have trouble with. My pantry is pretty well-behaved in general, but if there is leftover brownie cheesecake from a party, my logic says, “Well, I don’t want it to go to waste, but I don’t want it tempting me all week. I’ll just… eat it all now! That way, it won’t be a problem later and I’ll only have been really bad for one day, instead of slightly bad for seven days! Genius!”

What? Don’t raise your eyebrows at me. No one is perfect. Let’s move on.

The Rest of That Week

Stick to your plan. Recognize that treat days are perfectly acceptable within the structure of a healthy lifestyle, but the best way to distribute them is to wait for a treat day (or, preferably, just one treat meal) on a special occasion when you really won’t care, such as a family dinner, birthday party, or holiday. A good way to look at it is the 90/10 rule: eat well 90% of the time, and don’t worry about the other 10%.

Do your research. Find healthy alternatives for cooking methods, ingredients, or your favorite treats. For example, sauté vegetables in chicken broth instead of butter, or replace an after-dinner serving of ice cream or cake with a bowl of sliced apples, sprinkled with cinnamon, oats, and honey heated in the microwave. Voilà, healthy apple crumble. Once you’ve done your research, do your grocery shopping and begin incorporating these substitutes into your diet!

Have a rule for your workouts: never, ever, go more than two days in a row without exercise. Any kind of exercise. If you’re on a trip, find the hotel gym or go jogging. Visiting friends? Go out for a walk or hike, and let them show you the town. If you’re in space, I don’t know… bounce off the walls in zero gravity or something! Just make it a priority to keep active and keep it in the forefront of your mind. With this rule, you will never wake up one morning and realize it’s been two months since you’ve worked out, and you will get a decent number of workouts in per week.

The Rest of your Life

Remember, a healthy lifestyle is just that… a lifestyle. Whatever you plan to do, you have to see yourself doing it for the rest of your life. There is no magic diet that will help you reach your ideal Hugh Jackman/Gwyneth Paltrow proportions, and then let you go back to eating whatever garbage you want without gaining it all back.

This also may mean letting go of some unrealistic expectations. If the only way you’ll ever look like Gwyneth Paltrow (who, honestly, I don’t think is that hot anyway) is by starving yourself, then you aren’t meant to look like Gwyneth Paltrow (who, again… is not that hot). Learn to love your body for what it is! The human body is an extraordinary thing, and can do extraordinary things if you treat it well and let it try. Often, exercise is a doorway to this frame of mind; once you see what your body can do given the chance, you’ll stop punishing it and start taking good care of it.

And finally, I’d like to leave you with this final note on the nature of food. Food can be the best medicine in the world or a slow, agonizing poison, but food is not evil. It isn’t trying to trip you up, and that burger honestly does not have it out for you. There is great joy to be found in our food. Treats can be enjoyed in moderation, but you need to find the balance for yourself. Good, healthy, and nutritious food can have beautiful tastes, textures, and color, and above all, it will nourish and enrich your life and fuel your amazing body. Make the right choices, find the love and richness that can be found through good health, and make that your healthy lifestyle.

It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it, and I promise you will thank yourself.

remotivation