Lean Cuisines – Good or Bad?

I love Lean Cuisine dinners.  They are easy to prepare and they are healthy… aren’t they?

A common complaint of frozen and canned foods is excessively high salt levels but what about the other nutritional aspects? As an example I’ll take a look at the Lean Cuisine I had for dinner tonight.  Five Cheese Rigatoni.  This is a middle of the road dinner, some have higher fat, some have lower.

First the Nutrition Facts.  For our 10 oz (283g) serving we have – 350 Calories, 9 g of fat (4 g Sat), 15 mg cholesterol (6% DV), 650 mg sodium (27% DV), 370 mg Potassium (11% DV), 51 g Carb (17% DV), 4 g Fiber (16% DV), 8 g sugars, 15 g Protein.   10% Vitamin A, 8% Vitamin C, 20% Calcium, 15% Iron.

I try to go low fat when I can, but as I’ve read several places, Calories are Calories and 350 is really low compared to something I could get outside the house.  A lot of the nutrition comes from the cheese, the Calcium, the protein but also the fat and salt. The sodium is high, but the rest of the nutritional numbers aren’t too bad in my opinion.

The other good thing on the label is the ingredients list.  Being that the meal is frozen until cooked, it’s not packed full of a lot of chemical preservatives or stabilizers.  In fact the only unusual ingredient is the thickening agent zanthan gum, which is produced by fermentation of sugars by bacteria, so I’ll let you decide if that’s natural or not.  It’s used in such a tiny amount (it’s the next to last ingredient on the list).  The rest of the ingredients, pasta, water, tomatoes, cheeses, whey, whey protein, sugar, salt etc are all pretty standard (and readable in English).

Simple Yes, Cheap Yes, Easy to Prepare, Yes… Healthy? What do you think? Personally I think if I can get a filling, satisfying meal for 250-350 calories I’m all for it.

Couch to 5K Step 2!

Last week was pretty frustrating.  I didn’t lose any weight, felt like I wasn’t eating well, and felt like I was struggling with my running.  Then this week started off gloomy with 3 days of rain and no running.  The only bright spot was my wife coming home after 3 weeks traveling on business.

I finally got nice weather to run today, and deciding that I wasn’t going to make any progress if I didn’t push myself, I decided to try the week two intervals from Couch-to-5K.  I had to do 2 weeks of “Week One” so I wasn’t sure how I was going to do in my week 3.

After 60 seconds of the first jogging interval, my legs started burning bad expecting to stop, but I pushed on to the 90 second mark.  With the longer “cool down” walk of 2 minutes, I felt ready to go 90 seconds again when the next interval came up and the second time it was much easier.

I walked/jogged 1.54 miles in 22:37 for a 14:41 pace.  This is my second fastest pace.  My fastest was actually last Saturday when I did 1.1 miles in 16:39 for a 14:31 pace, but I quit that run since it was kicking my butt.  Trying too hard?

The rain means a condensed week, so my day 2 and 3 will probably be friday and saturday.  I hope I can keep up the step 2.  A little over 2 weeks till my next race on May 15th.

Weigh 2 Win Challenge

After this mornings weigh in I have two more weeks left of the Weigh 2 Win challenge through my work’s wellness program.  The challenge was not the beginning, nor will it be the end of my weight loss crusade, but since I was checking my weight weekly anyway it was another way to keep track of it.  I started the Challenge at 315 pounds. (I had already lost 30 from 345).  In the first 10 weeks I’ve lost 25 pounds.  I stalled out for several weeks right around 300 which was a big hurdle for me, probably physically and mentally, so my average loss is only 2.5 pounds a week.  I’ve had some weeks I’ve lost 5, some weeks I’ve lost 0, so it averages out.  If I can stick with my average for the next two weeks I should lose about 5 more pounds in the last two weeks, although I’ve been at 290 the last two weeks.

I also signed up yesterday for my next 5K, the Greek Festival 5K in Winston Salem.  My race number gets me into the Festival for free, and I know I won’t leave without trying some of the delicious Greek food, but hopefully I won’t go too overboard.   I have a terrible weakness for baklava.

Food Inc Review

I ended up watching Food Inc. live last night instead of waiting to watch the recorded version.  Stayed up a little past my normal time but that’s ok.   I thought the movie was interesting but not particularly eye opening.  Having a degree in food science had exposed me to most of this already, but there were a few thinks that raised an eyebrow.  This will be long, so bear with me.

First we get a story about how 5000 people die every year from food borne illnesses.  This sounds like a lot, more than the people we work with or more than our school or more people than we know.  I don’t want to be callous, and I wish that none of them had died, but lets put these numbers into a little bit of perspective.  The population of the US is around 307 Million people.  So, 5000 people represents 0.000001% of the population.  10 times as many people (around 45,000) die every year in auto accidents.  100 times as many (500,000) die every year from cancer.  The odds of you contracting a food borne illness and dying is very very very remote.  The food is safe and you shouldn’t be afraid of it.  Obviously stuff gets through,you can’t check every single bite of food or else there would be nothing to eat.  And all those recent recalls the movie references? Those are actually a good thing.  That means that stuff is being caught and the system works!  Yes a few people have gotten sick and a few even died before the problem was under control, such as the example from the movie the woman who lost her 2 year old son.   I hate that the woman lost her son, but it’s unrealistic to think they would have recalled the meat before her son got sick.  It’s just like medicine.  You don’t treat anything until you have symptoms, the sicknesses reported are the symptoms and they quickly find the root cause of it and take that product off the market.  Also, its only the recalls that make it on TV, not the trillions of pounds of safe food.  The recalled foods make up a tiny percentage of the total food supply.

I the first question I had was about the chicken farmers.  The movie says the average farmer with 2 houses spends 500,000$ to start his farm but only makes around 18,000$ a year.  If that’s the case, why would anyone do it? I don’t disagree that the farmers are getting shafted but why would they even start at all looking at math like that? I grew up in an area with a lot of turkey farms and even back then it was iron fisted (everyone in the whole county was Tyson).

The next thing that caught me was the movie says that in 1972 the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections.  In 2006 they conducted around 9,000.  The inference here is that the FDA is not doing as much as it was 30 years ago.  But later in this same bit, he gives you at least one reason why.  He says there used to be something like 5000 slaughter houses in the country and now there are only 13.  Is this good or bad? They imply that it’s bad since it could spread diseases faster, but a simple fact is less food processing facilities will warrant less inspections.   Yes the FDA is spread thin, but they aren’t just letting things go unchecked.

The one scene with the “ground meat filler” that was treated with ammonia.. I don’t know what that was about, but that’s pretty unappetizing.

Something I had noticed in my own life was the whole “fast food cheaper than vegetables” deal, and yeah that’s pretty disturbing.  Of course McDonald’s get their ground beef for 3 cents a pound because they buy it 40 million pounds at a time.  It’s hard to compete with that (another point of the movie that basically all meat processors have to follow mcdonald’s standards whether they are selling to McDs or not).  That’s when you just have to buckle down and spend a little bit more for you’re food.  I know I’ve been broke to the point where a dollar cheeseburger seems a lot more appetizing than one apple.  Canned and frozen fruits and veggies are cheaper alternatives that are available.  As far as the family they show in this segment.. they talk about how the father has diabetes and they spend however many hundreds of dollars a month on drugs, but there he is chomping away at a double cheeseburger.  I don’t think that’s BKs fault.  You have to make smarter choices, regardless of your financial situation.  Yes, this is just one case and not a broader look, but since they decided to use them as an example I thought I would comment on it.

I don’t have a problem with GMO foods.  With 100 million starving people in the world, if you can make a 50 bushel per acre corn grow to 200 bushels per acre then by all means do it.. this is not a bad thing.  However, the story with Monsanto patenting the gene for the soybeans and then suing farmers and basically putting them out of business is very disturbing (i had read a similar story with Corn).. this is not the way to feed people!

One point I wanted to make about the hog facility scene, which may or may not change you’re view on eating a living creature, but I have toured a slaughter facility, not the one in Tar Heel, but it was a Smithfield plant.  They didn’t show one part and neglected to mention it as well, the scene where the pigs are being pushed by a gate, and then it cuts to them falling out onto a conveyor belt.. those pigs aren’t dead just yet.  In between those two steps is a very critical one that is part of humane slaughter techniques.  The pigs are loaded into basically what is a elevator car and lowered into a pit that is filled with CO2 gas (heavier than air) and they are basically put to sleep.  After they are unconscious, the kill step is a pneumatic bolt to the forehead.  Instant death, no shock, no pain.  Trust me they don’t feel a thing.  No squealing, no thrashing, no blood spraying everywhere.. that’s not how they do it.

The last thing that I wanted to comment on was the reference to former food industry executives serving on regulatory boards.  This is portrayed as being akin to the foxes guarding the hen house, or depending on how you feel about it, the blind leading the blind.  While there may be a slight possibility of a conflict of interest, who else would you elect or appoint to one of these positions if not someone with 20 years of food industry experience?  This to me is a non-issue.

Overall, as I said I found the movie interesting but not eye opening.  I felt like he didn’t spend enough time on any one subject and jumped quickly from one to the other.  I would have rather he got more into depth with it.  I also thought the “secrets the food industry doesn’t want you to know” bit was a little overdone.  Personally, I don’t think any of this is “hidden” or “secret”.  I also don’t believe there is a valid attempt to hide any of it, but more often the consumer doesn’t ask or doesn’t want to know themselves.   There’s a few more points I could hit but this is already becoming a novel into itself, so I will stop here, but that’s what I thought of it.

Food Inc.

At the suggestion of a friend I am recording Food Inc on PBS tonight.  I already know most of what it is about, but I’m interested to see the movie.  Seeing as how I work in the food industry, I’m sorta on the “other side of the aisle” so to speak from the author and his audience.  I know I will disagree with some of it, but I don’t expect to totally disagree with all of it.  But I will wait to pass judgment on it until I actually watch it, which will probably be tomorrow.

So stay tuned!

Racing versus Training

I don’t consider myself a runner quite yet, but my entrance into the sport has probably been the same as many of us amateurs.  It all started with a walk, and a race.

In October of 2008 as a community service event for my college Food Science Club I participated in the Triangle Autism Awareness Run/Walk (The Autism Ribbon Run).  I had walked 3 miles in an hour on a treadmill and was curious to see if I could do the same out in the real world.  I entered the 5K (as opposed to the 1 mile Fun Run) and off we went.  I accomplished both my goals, A. I finished the race and B. I did so in less than an hour (57 minutes).  The classmates I was with (who were all runners and finished in around 27 minutes) were waiting for me at the finish line cheering me on.  The exhilaration of crossing the finish line, the cheering crowds, the music, food and atmosphere and the genuine appreciation of the charity we were supporting was awesome.  I had to do this again! And so I did.  October of 2009 saw me back in Raleigh to walk the Autism Run again, finishing with a time of 58 minutes.

Since October of last year I’ve lost 55 pounds, I have walked a lot and even started to jog some.  2 weeks ago I did another charity walk, the Lillie’s Friends 5K for Neural Blastoma.  I walked to the halfway point water station (which included a gruesome uphill climb) but I was able to jog all the way down that long downhill stretch.  I got to the 3 mile marker and started jogging to the finish and what did I see? 48 minutes on the clock, I couldn’t believe it.  I finished with a time of 49:24, shaving almost 10 minutes off my time.  If I wasn’t hooked already I was now.

The results from this race inspired me to start a training program and so I began the Couch to 5K program from Cool Running .  After finishing the first week and beginning the second week (which for me is a repeat of Week 1) I have come to a quick conclusion.  Racing is fun. Training is not.  I know I need to do the training to achieve my first short term goal with is to run (or jog) the entire distance of a 5K.  In my tiny little neighborhood (literally 1 loop around is less than a mile) it’s very frustrating to walk by your own house 4 times and be seriously tempted to make that the last lap.  It really feels like I have to slog it out, even though I never seem to have that problem come race day.

I’m nowhere near quitting, but I’m curious.. what’s your motivation? What keeps you going? A faster time? The next day of your training program? A good result from your last race? Looking forward to the next race? Just the love of running? What gets you to put one foot in front of the other and what tips can you give for a beginning runner?

For me, it’s certainly the good result from my last race, and also looking forward to my next one on May 15th.

Skinny Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberries are always hit and miss for me.  They may look great, they may smell great and get them home and they taste awful.  I got some the other day and they aren’t the best I’ve ever had but they are pretty good.

Looking for a good hot weather snack/dessert that won’t blow the diet? Here was my post-workout treat today.

I used the sponge cake dessert cups (the ones they always put next to the strawberries) and they aren’t as bad as I expected.  The serving size is two of the shells (I used two, feel free to use one) at 160 Cals, 1g fat, 34 g carbs, 19 g sugar.

I added Wal Mart brand Fat Free/No Sugar Added Vanilla Ice Cream which for a 1/2 cup serving is 70 Cals, 0g Fat, 16g carbs, 5g sugar.

I don’t know the exact info for the strawberries, but I had a full pound of strawberries, cut them up and added a little sprinkle of sugar to sweeten them and create the syrup.  I wonder if Splenda would do the same thing? Might have to try that  next time.  I didn’t measure the sugar I added, but the rest of the stuff is low sugar so it probably doesn’t hurt.

Topped it off with Wal Mart brand Light Whipped Topping which for a 2 tbsp. serving is 20 Cals, 1g fat and 2g sugar, so not too bad.  It’s mostly air anyway.

Regular Strawberry Shortcake is not exactly a super rich fattening dessert but the fat free ice cream helps cut it down a little bit.

Enjoy!

Couch to 5K

This morning I completed the first week of the Couch to 5K program. The first week alternates 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for 25 minutes. The workouts are three times a week, which with my schedule this week was Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday, but I’ll probably start doing Mon-Wend-Fri in the weeks ahead. The first day I was able to finish with no problems, the second day I struggled a little but still finished. This morning I wasn’t so lucky. I was sore before I even got started, I tried to stretch out really well since I thought I might not be stretching good enough but it didn’t help. I struggled just to finish the 60 seconds of jogging. After 4 cycles of walking and jogging I had to stop and just walk the remaining time. At 290 pounds I really don’t want to turn sore into injured.. my body is not used to this. I will probably repeat the week one cycles next week before I move on. How can I jog 90 seconds if I can’t finish 60 seconds?

May 15th I will be doing the Greek Festival 5K here in Winston Salem, which will be about halfway through the training (Week 5) so hopefully that will help me monitor my progress. If I can jog even half the race and improve on my Lillie’s Friends 5K time then I will be doing good.

July 17th, which will be about 3 weeks after I finish the program and will then just be training, will be my first competitive race. The Beat the Heat 5K in Winston Salem is a US Track and Field certified course and is the site of the NC 5K Championships. This is a real race with awards and prize money rather than a charity walk (not that I have anything against the charity run/walks, I love them). My plan for this race is to run the whole distance. Do I expect to win? Heck No.. do I expect to even finish top 50? Probably not, but if I can run the whole distance and post a time in say the 25 minute range (About an 8 minute per mile pace) then I will be doing good.

My friend Amanda, who started her own running craze and has inspired mine, is planning on running the 2011 Disney Full Marathon (she has completed two Half’s). My long term goal is to join her in 2012. I will run the Half while she runs the Full. After that I may eventually run the full, but I just really cannot wrap my head around going from 345 pounds to running a half marathon in 2 years, so if I can do it that will be amazing.

My training today did not go well, but I’m not giving up!

Smart Option Low Fat Ice Cream and Baked Lays

I realized I had somewhat strayed from my original intent for this blog which was to give reviews and suggestions for low fat/healthy foods that still taste good. Well here is a few I have discovered recently.

Smart Option Low Fat Ice Cream:

Smart Option is a Food Lion private label brand, so apologies if you don’t live in the Southeast, but most stores probably have a similar product. This ice cream is even lower in fat than the Kroger ice cream I reviewed as one of my first blogs. I’ve seen it in Vanilla, Chocolate and Neapolitan flavors. It also only costs 1.99 for 1.75 quarts.

For a serving of a half cup, this ice cream contains 100 calories, 1.5g fat (1g sat.) 19g carbs, 14 g sugar and 2g protein. I know when I make a bowl of ice cream, it’s probably 3 servings, but the serving to serving comparison is still helpful. Compared to a normal ice cream which might have 10-12g fat per serving.. or a premium which would probably be much higher. Also, this ice cream has a slight grainy or icy texture, but you’re going to lose that creaminess as you remove the fat. There’s not a lot you can do about that. Flavor-wise it tastes just like normal ice cream, and on a hot day (like the 90s we’ve had recently here in North Carolina) nothing is better than ice cream.

One interesting thing I noticed when I was reading the label. On the front of the box it says “artificially flavored Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry flavored low fat ice cream” and yes, “artificial flavors” is listed in the ingredients, but so is Chocolate Base, Strawberry Puree and Natural Strawberry flavor. So it’s not all artificial. I guess one artificial flavor and it has to be labeled as “Artificially flavored”

Baked Lays:

I love potato chips.. they have always been one of my weaknesses. For me “can’t eat just one” is not a single Lays chip.. it’s can’t eat one.. bag. I take a small bag of chips with me to work on the days I make a sandwich, but I try not to sit at the TV eating from the bag since that’s when you hit the bottom of the bag without realizing you just ate the whole thing.

Recently our young cousins (quadruplets) came over for a visit before Easter and they brought with them some snacks. Ironically along with the fudge rounds, oreos and Spongebob push pops, they also had a bag of baked Lays. I like normal chips and I’m not a big fan of the “shaped chips” that are made from potato flakes or powder. I’ve never likes pringles or Lays Stax or anything like that. I figured I would give them a try, and while they don’t taste anything like a normal chip.. they aren’t half bad and they don’t taste “fake”. They also don’t use fat substitutes like Olestra, which is a very good thing.

I got a bag and I’ve been taking them to work instead of my normal chips and they aren’t too bad. They give me something to eat along side my sandwich and satisfied that “crunchy-salty” craving.

The good news? For a 1 oz serving you get 120 cal, 2g fat (0 sat/0 trans), 180 mg sodium, 23g carbs, 2g fiber, 2g sugar, 2g protein. They compare that to 10g fat for normal chips, so that’s 80% less fat. Not too bad for something that still slightly resembles a potato chip (Pringles are just weird). I have it on a good source (my wife) that Baked Cheetos are basically styrofoam (not good) but Baked Doritos are awesome. I don’t like Doritos, but if you do give them a try.

A brick wall and a milestone.

A couple of weeks ago I hit a brick wall. Shows like Biggest Loser talk about this as a plateau, a section where the weight loss doesn’t come easy and you have to fight through it. I was eating better, exercising more even walk/jogged a 5K and nothing made that needle move on the scale. Well I finally got it to drop this week and so I hope the plateau is over and I can keep on moving down.

The last 4 weeks have been terrible number wise. 304, 301, 300 and then 300 again (I put 299 in my record since the needle did dip below, but it wasn’t totally conclusive). Well this week it finally started sinking. I haven’t had my official Sunday morning weigh in yet, but I checked on Wednesday and it was 297 and then this morning was 295. Well enough below 300 that I could count it and not just a dip of the needle. I try not to weigh myself too often since I know it can fluctuate and you don’t want to get yourself caught up in chasing 1 pound up, 1 pound down etc, but I couldn’t help but check to see if I was under 300.

300 is a big hurdle for me.. I’ve been over 300 for a long time and at 295 I am now the lightest I’ve been since my freshman year in College in 1998. That’s 12 years. Clothes I’ve been wearing for a long time are finally too big for me.

295 is also a big milestone because that means from the time I started keeping track in October of 2009 (345 pounds) I have lost 50 pounds! I had an interesting experience today at work, which I have read several places in the past. I had to get some ingredients to bring to the lab and so I went to the warehouse, tossed the 50 pound bag up on my shoulder and carried it halfway across the plant back to the lab. It was rough by the time I got up the stairs into the lab. That’s the same 50 pounds I used to be carrying around my waist. Insane. I recommend you do this. Even if you haven’t lost 50 pounds yet, see what it would feel like if you gained 10 or 20 or however much you can carry.

I posted a picture from my race in the last post, but when I looked at it compared to the picture of me at Disney World, (my profile pic) I wanted to post them again side by side as a comparison.

This picture is from May 2009, and I don’t know how much I weighed here, but probably close to 340.
And this picture is from April 2010. Quite a difference in a year eh?