Thinking about food

The Sunday NY Times Magazine was all about food this week. Good stuff. An interesting article about calorie restriction and the apparent slowing of aging that it causes. If we all ate 25% less than we do, well some of us would have to eat a higher percentage less, we could slow down aging, and drastically reduce heart disease and cancer. Without drugs or even exercise. Problem is, most people would rather die, or at least just take the drugs, than cut 25% of their calories. It is pretty extreme, I guess. Most people that are at a healthy weight to begin with lose 15% of their body weight in the first year of 25% reduction and then plateau. That means that I would weigh about 136 pounds. I would not look well at 136 pounds. I know this because I've been as low as 139 pounds, when I was training really hard and profoundly anemic, and I didn't look well. But I was fast riding my bike and, evidently would have been healthier if I had stayed that weight. If I didn't die from one of my semi-weekly sinus infections or bronchitis. Interesting study nonetheless.

Michael Pollan did a piece where he asked people to send him any rules that they follow concerning what to eat or not eat. There were some good ones. A woman by the name of Michelle Poirot invoked a Zen teaching that says "when you drink tea, just drink tea." In other words, be mindful of your eating, don't eat while you are doing something else. I'm bad about this. I almost always read or watch TV while I'm eating. I need to work on that. Another one that I really thought was good was from Laura Kelley and she said that she uses a rule of economics to avoid overeating. "The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite," she says, so she remembers to slow down and really enjoy the first bites and then stop eating sooner. That's good, I'm going to use that one. There were other good ones, like don't eat anything you are not prepared to kill yourself, and I've thought of that one but I don't really want give up meat all together. One guy said that he doesn't eat anything that is pretending to be something else, which is actually one of my own guidelines. I don't like turkey presented as anything other than turkey. I don't like turkey sausage or turkey burger or turkey ham. If I want to eat turkey, I will and if I must have those other things, then I'll suffer the consequences and enjoy the real thing. This is why I like sausage, bacon, and hot dogs; because they are honest foods. They are not good for you but they taste good so you eat them in moderation and get on with it. Hmm, now I'm hungry.

What To Eat

If you’re interested in what we are eating on a typical day of this trip, here it is. Please don’t try this without medical supervision.

Breakfast 1: We usually start off the day with a cup of coffee brewed through a Melita cone filter. Next we like to make some oatmeal fortified with peanut butter and whatever else we can get our hands on such as granola, raisins, dried cherries, and sometimes honey. Then we usually scramble up a couple of eggs each and again throw in anything we might have handy. Cheese, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, onions, hot sauce, even leftover spaghetti sauce. If we have any, we might finish with a banana.

Breakfast 2: Whenever possible we like to stop for coffee and a snack mid morning. The snack might be a couple of donuts, a muffin, yogurt, or a bagel.

On the bike snacks: During the days ride we like to have a selection of easily eaten foods on our bikes or on our person. Granola bars, clif bars, clif shot blocks, trail mix, or candy.

Lunch: We usually try to stop for an actual lunch sometime in the early afternoon. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches with honey are a favorite. We have also eaten sandwiches with cheese, sardines, canned herring, summer sausage, and whatever fruit we might have available. Sometimes we stop for a Gatorade or other energy drink in addition to the water that we try to drink all day.

Afternoon snack: Usually as soon as we find a campsite or other lodging and get a little bit settled in we are ravenously hungry and eat anything we can find. Trail mix, pretzels, peanut butter sandwiches, sausage, a loaf of bread or a granola bar are all in grave danger of being consumed. Several times we have gotten ice cream on hot days. If it is cool out or raining we usually have some tea.

Dinner: If we are camping we try to keep dinner as simple and mess free as possible. Ramen noodles have been a favorite because they are light to carry and easy to prepare. If we have some stuff to add to them we might not use the seasoning packets that come with the noodles. The seasoning has a massive amount of sodium and other dubious stuff in it. We might add vegetables, onions, sausage, or hot sauce to add flavor. The nice thing about ramen is that you get some needed water with it and the noodles have a lot more fat in them than regular noodles so they increase our calorie consumption. We also have eaten cous cous , spaghetti, canned stew (smelled like dog food but tasted pretty good) and instant miso soup. A couple nights we have eaten out and this is nice because we can usually get more calories from restaurant food. Cheeseburgers, meatloaf dinner, pizza, and fish and chips are meals that we have eaten from restaurants. We might finish off with another cup of tea.

Sometimes I get hungry again before bed so I’ll have some trail mix, a little chocolate or some candy. Sometimes I just go to bed hungry. I usually wake up at some time in the night thinking about food. Getting the stove fired up is my first task in the morning. Mmm, I'm starting to salivate thinking about food.