A food memoir of weight loss, family recipes, digital cookbook and nutrition information for family and friends
When you buy a huge jar of tomato paste from a Pakistani grocery store only do so when you use a lot of tomato paste in your cooking. I used maybe 2/3 of the jar and when I opened it yesterday I found a wonderful BLOB OF MOLD growing on the inside.
I am back to buying canned tomato paste and freezing the excess for future use.
Saturday 3/30
I haven’t been writing much lately. My personal journal shows numerous gaps. My blogs show numerous gaps and much longer gaps in between posts. The dearth of words scares me and the Master of Overthinking starts to ask the question why? The Mojo is not as strong as it has been in the past. Maybe it’s just from getting older. Or spending more time doing other things. I’m probably not writing as much because I AM spending more time doing other things.
Recently two different people who have known me a long time delivered the same message to me. One was my barber, the other a relative.
“You look thin. You’re keeping the weight off.”
“You’ve lost weight.”
The Master of Overthinking once more started to think. What changed? My weight is stable and fluctuates between 173 and 175. I’ve tweaked my diet many times but haven’t tweaked in quite some time. So what changed?
Towards the end of last year The Boss felt I needed to get out of the house more. She knows all too well I could go 100% hermit at this point in my life. The Boss posed a simple question:
“Why don’t you rejoin the Y?”
The Master of Overthinking thought about this. Too much togetherness? Does she need more alone time? Was I becoming a hermit?
Well, I guess I could use more exercise. So I signed up at the Y and started getting back into my old routines at the beginning of the year. Four years ago I cancelled my membership due to the Covid pandemic. I didn’t want to keep paying monthly dues for something that wasn’t going to be used. I had always intended to rejoin at a later time. But one month came and went followed by the years. It was time to get back to old ways.
Due to the long layoff I focused first on resistance training. I had been doing resistance work at home with light weights and bands. I convinced myself that was enough to keep what was left of my muscle mass from shrinking to nothing. But adding a circuit of resistance machines has made a difference. I weigh the same but Mr. Muffin is smaller. After three months the changes are noticeable. When your barber notices the change…
To make a short story long I’m spending more of my time going to the Y. I’ve also been reading more and writing less. But I feel the Mojo returning. I’m back.
Electronic Sticky Note Time
Take-Out Style Vegetable Lo Mein from https://www.bluezones.com/recipe/take-out-style-vegetable-lo-mein/ which was reprinted from the Essential Wok Cookbook: A Simple Chinese Cookbook for Stir-Fry, Dim Sum, and Other Restaurant Favorites by Naomi Imatome-Yun, copyright ©2015.
OR…
From 2019 to 2023, the all-food Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 25.0 percent—a higher increase than the all-items CPI, which grew 19.2 percent over the same period. Food price increases were below the 27.1-percent increase in transportation costs, but they rose faster than housing, medical care, and all other major categories. Food price increases in 2020–21 were largely driven by shifting consumption patterns and supply chain disruptions resulting from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In 2022, food prices increased faster than any year since 1979, partly due to a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak that affected egg and poultry prices and the conflict in Ukraine which compounded other economy-wide inflationary pressures such as high energy costs. Food price growth slowed in 2023 as wholesale food prices and these other inflationary factors eased from 2022.https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending/
I had just turned 65 when my contract was terminated. At the time I was working for a company that outsourced people with my skill set to companies that needed people with my skill set. I was fairly confident I would be placed with another client. During the call where I was told about the contract ending my boss asked,
“Are you going to retire or do you want to keep working?”
I was in reasonably good health and enjoying my job so I said I wanted to keep working. If my reasonably good health held up along with a willing employer I hoped to work until age 70 and defer collecting social security to achieve my maximum monthly retirement benefit. The promised 8% increase to my monthly benefit for each full year I delayed benefits beyond full retirement age was quite attractive. Plus if I expired first you know who would get this higher monthly payout until her expiration.
Well guess who’s turning 70 this year? So far, so good. And in all honesty I never factored inflation into my keep working until 70 strategy. But with most things costing more nowadays I’m twice as glad I made the decision to not retire. Now I’m crafting my work until 75 strategy. It focuses on diet, nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle issues. This is a food blog, after all.
Can you imagine how much you could save each month if you just subtracted your cellphone bill, internet, and cable/streaming subscriptions? Probably enough to cover the grocery bill and then some.
Plus, more young people have student loans than ever before, and everyone pays more for healthcare than in the past. I think this is one of the reasons higher food prices are so painful for so many households. There are so many other budgetary line items these days that an increase in grocery store prices becomes even more painful.
Inflation at the Grocery Store — https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/03/inflation-at-the-grocery-store/
Food is another key component of healthy living in blue zones, says Buettner. People there tend to consume unprocessed foods, beans, legumes, fruits, and vegetables—often following traditional recipes that have been passed down through generations. That style of eating is good for heart and cognitive health, says Linda Hershey, MD, PhD, FAAN, professor of neurology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. “Numerous high-quality studies support the benefits of the MIND, DASH, and Mediterranean diets, which emphasize green leafy vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, fish, poultry, oil, and whole grains, and discourage fried food, processed meat, snack foods, and sweets,” Dr. Hershey says.
“Blue Zones” Author Dan Buettner Shares the Secrets to a Long and Healthy Life — https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/author-dan-buettner-shares-secrets-to-long-healthy-life
Researchers used the portfolio diet score to rank the participants’ consumption of plant proteins, nuts and seeds, viscous fiber, phytosterols and plant sources of monounsaturated fatty acids. After up to 30 years of follow-up, those with the highest portfolio diet score had a 14% lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke compared to those with the lowest score. The findings were published Wednesday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
“We’re always looking at ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, and one effective way to do that is to lower blood cholesterol levels, particularly LDL cholesterol,” said Dr. Kristina Petersen, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania.
Petersen, who was not involved in the research, is well-versed in how diets can affect heart health. She co-authored an AHA scientific statement published in April that scored 10 popular diets for their heart-health benefits. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension – or DASH – diet was the only eating pattern to get a perfect score, with the Mediterranean and pescetarian diets rounding out the top three. The portfolio diet was excluded from the assessment “because it’s not particularly common,” she said.
Ever heard of the portfolio diet? — https://www.heart.org/en/news/2023/10/25/ever-heard-of-the-portfolio-diet-it-may-lower-risk-for-heart-disease-and-stroke
Not helping Beyond’s cause is the broad plateau, or even decline, in vegetarian and vegan diets: according to Pew Research, the meatless contingent dropped from 5% of Americans in 2019 to 4% in 2023, and those eschewing all animal products fell from 3% to 1% over the same period.
https://cookwithkathy.wordpress.com/2024/02/23/beyond-meat-will-launch-a-new-healthier-plant-based-burger-in-the-u-s/
I eat meat. I eat plants. I don’t eat highly processed fake meat products.
From the front page of this morning’s local newspaper – https://www.oklahoman.com/story/business/real-estate/2024/02/16/okc-roofing-company-mixup-leads-new-roof-homeowners/72577457007/
When the Year of the Dragon arrives, birth rates in China tend to boom. Many parents believe that a child born during this year, a lucky dragon baby, will be destined for success. Though this perception is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, with parents investing greater resources in their dragon child, the extraordinary expectations surrounding the zodiac creature speak to its deep associations with intelligence, authority and good fortune. This year, the dragon will take the helm from the rabbit on February 10, ushering in a long-anticipated period of prosperity unique to the mythical being.
Why Is the Year of the Dragon Considered So Lucky? — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-is-the-year-of-the-dragon-considered-so-lucky-180983764/
“It’s really what they’re not doing. They’re not doing anything consciously, and there’s where we get it wrong,” Buettner said. “We think we can resolve to get on the right diet, the right exercise program, supplement plan, superfoods, and get healthier. But it never works.”
Buettner said that the “superagers” are often walking outside, having spontaneous conversations with the people they bump into, having a smaller dinner, and eating mostly a whole food, plant-centric diet.
A look inside the United States’ first-ever certified “Blue Zone” located in Minnesota — https://foodfactsandfads.com/2024/02/04/6306/
Remember, Eat More Plants.
Also Research Reveals One Simple Habit That Promotes Longevity AND Provides Extra Income in Retirement
People have been drinking coffee since 15th century, but the past few years have seen a flood of new studies suggesting that drinking coffee (copious amounts of coffee in many cases) improves longevity and brain function, while also combating some of the most common and feared adult health issues.
Neuroscience Says Drinking Coffee Like This Boosts Brain Function and Makes You Live Longer – https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/neuroscience-says-drinking-coffee-like-this-boosts-brain-function-makes-you-live-longer.html
The article contains links to several studies on the benefits of drinking coffee.
garyskitchen.net 