Thinking about food

[redbird]

This was prompted by a post from someone else, but it really belongs over here.

Because of the gall bladder removal, I'm trying to eat a low-fat diet for the next while (defined as sometime between "until I talk to the doctor" and "from now until when he tells me I can relax some"). I also have relatively little appetite (though it's better than it was a few days ago), and I don't actually think I should be living entirely off my stored body fat. So I'm taking advantage of the availability of low-fat and no-fat foods, which to some extent has been driven by various weight-loss diet fads. At the same time, I'm actively seeking out calories, and noticing that, say, a can of condensed vegetable soup has 90 calories per serving. I've liked this stuff since I was a kid; that only five of those calories are from fat makes it suitable right now, but that's not a lot of energy from a bowl of soup. Now, some of this is logical: I don't want them pouring sugar into the soup just to add calories. On the other hand, I'm eating a lot of sorbet, which I suspect has a nutritional profile somewhere between simple syrup and fruit juice. But it tastes good, and I could get it down a week ago when almost everything solid tasted incredibly dry. There were days right after I came home from the hospital when the sugar in my tea has been a significant portion of my caloric intake (3-4 cups of tea, 1 teaspoon sugar each, so we're not talking about a lot of calories*.)

At other times, I've been bemused to see labels cheerfully proclaiming things like maple syrup "a fat-free food" (and olive oil as containing no sugar, the inverse idea). True, but I would have thought obvious. Then again, the grapes I'm about to have qualify, and some people assume all fruit and vegetables do, and then grab an avocado. Last week, I cheerfully poured plenty of maple syrup into my oatmeal, along with cinnamon, dried fruit, and just a little lowfat milk: anything that adds flavor and energy without adding fat is useful to me right now.

The odd thing is that I expected to be craving chocolate by now, and even had figured out an answer: make hot chocolate with the lowfat milk, cocoa powder, sugar, and vanilla and orange extract. I haven't bothered yet.

*For my non-North American friends: calories are a metric unit of food energy that Americans use where you'd be using kilojoules. Just to complicate matters, the "calorie" of ordinary conversation and food labels is actually a kilocalorie. For reference, there are about 15 of these in a teaspoonful of sugar.

Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

After my tonsillectomy, I definitely spent about a week living off the sugar in my tea (and sips of broth, and spoonfuls of sorbet, but mostly, a lot of sugared minty tea).

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

I've seen honey labelled as "no added sugar" ...

Sorbet and tea with sugar are excellent ideas, as are jellies, jams, and fruit preserves that have a high sugar content. There's a Russian tradition of serving spoonfuls of quality preserves alongside tea.

Have you thought about no/low fat frozen yoghourt? or can you get tofu ices? Or some no-fat cottage cheese with fruit / veg stirred in.

(In the UK we still use calories, too.)

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Actually, calories are widely used even in otherwise-metric countries.

[redbird]

Well, that's reasonable--the calorie is a metric unit--but I've seen packages from abroad labeled in kJ instead of calories.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I don't think the calorie is technically a metric unit, even though it is French... anyways, if memory serves, in the EU and Oz/NZ you often see both. I forget which is generally the primary unit and which is in brackets.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

The calorie is not an SI unit, but I think it counts as part of the metric system. It's derived from metric units: 1 calorie = the energy of raising 1g of water 1 degree celsius. (Because we are all geeks together here, I will specify pure, liquid, water at 4 degrees C, but it usually doesn't matter much if you're talking about anything more or less aqueous between ice and steam.) Joules are defined in terms of work, rather than heat. 1 joule = the energy of moving 1 newton 1 meter. It works out that 4.18J=1cal.

Calories used to be standard because the numbers worked out so easily for talking about nice round numbers of grams of water. (Especially useful before pocket calculators.) But joules are so good for emphasizing the energy equivalence between heat and work, that I think that makes them the current standard.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Aha. Interesting. Thanks.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Mad Magazine once had a joke about that. There was a petrol pump marked "Contains no molasses to gum up your engine" and a bag of oats marked "Contains no nails to break your teeth".

I think of it every time I see cornflakes claiming to contain no fat. Yeah, and you're not going to pour milk on them?

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I don't pour milk on mine. Before I discovered soymilk, I ate cereal dry or with applesauce. An awful lot of people pour skim milk on cornflakes or some other vitamin-fortified cereal. It makes the entirely fat-free breakfast recommended by doctors, schools, etc.

I must have had whole milk when I was very small, but I don't *remember* drinking it or using it as an ingredient until after I grew up. (We used cream; sour cream in soups or regular heavy cream to make whipped cream for desserts, but neither was drinkable, nor were they things to eat every day.) The dining rooms at my university had a choice of part-skim (2%) or skim milk, and I remember how strange the 2% milk tasted and felt in my mouth. I liked it, but it was strange. That was 20 years ago, and avoidance of fat has become even more popular in the interval.

[maryread.livejournal.com]

must put in my word here for almond milk on cereal, and rice milk for cooking. no nasty vanilla flavorings! blech! or, well, go ahead with that, or chocolate soymilk, whatever.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I haven't had cornflakes in a long time, but I would pour skim milk on them. Since the doctor increased my protein limit, I've been having a glass of skim milk a day!

(We grew up in places where you couldn't ship liquid milk and drank powdered milk, which is fat-free. When we came back to CONUS, we continued with skim milk but once my brother was on his own, he moved to full-fat.)

[its-no-wonder.livejournal.com]

Hi! My name is Olga, I live in Belarus (its somewhere near Russia))) in Minsk. My dream is to see NY & to live in this city, so if you don't mind, I would be happy to add you as a friend, read & comment your posts :)

P.s sorry for my english, my native language is russian, it will be great possibility for me to practice my english :)

[redbird]

You're certainly welcome to add me and read my journal, but it'll be a slightly skewed view of New York City, when I talk about the city at all.

[its-no-wonder.livejournal.com]

It don't matter! :) Anyway I will be happy to see american life on the inside! :)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the "good fat" in avocados is better for you than other kinds of fat.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it is, also nut fats. Generally, eating food that you can recognise as coming from a plant is a good idea, I think.

[redbird]

It might be, but that's purely abstract in this case, since I still don't care for avocado. In the more general case, plant food is often good, but I gather butter is better for me than palm oil. (I know it's better than margarine, for those without issues about dairy, though not necessarily better than the fats that were made into the margarine would be if they hadn't been modified.)

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

If you don't like avocado, that's easy.

Yes, it's also my understanding that butter is better than margarine and many other processed plant fats, but that's what I was implying with "food you can recognise as coming from a plant".

Overall, I think you're fine following your instincts about what you want and don't want to eat. Your instincts certainly sound more helpful than the 'no-fat' nurse.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Well, I know it is for us, but I was wondering if it's better for redbird's situation.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

From what her doctor said (I think a different post) I think she should eat what she wants to eat.

Generally, I've been intrigued by all these gallbladder-surgery comments about how most foods are (eventually) okay, but greasy is right out. That sounds like me now, and I've never to my knowledge had gallbladder problems.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I have the dubious honor of having had recent ultrasounds and MRIs of my abdomen, so I know my gall bladder is okay! (So was everything else, except the previous kidney damage.)

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're as okay as could be expected given your history. I had a CAT scan and colonoscopy recently, but they didn't show anything. Nevertheless, my intestines do not work quite as they should.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I hope the doctors find out what's wrong!

[redbird]

Even the "low fat for everyone" discharge nurse wasn't making that distinction: one of the few foods discussed and explicitly mentioned as acceptable was 2% (semi-skim) milk. (I think vegetable oil was mentioned in the context of "use only a little when cooking," and cattitude was using olive oil on stuff, to the extent he was using any fats in that week or so, because we both like it and have it in the house, and I think because, if you're minimizing fat, one with a positively/desired flavor, like olive oil, seems preferable to the basically neutral peanut oil. (We have that because it can go to a higher temperature than butter before burning, and sometimes you do want a neutrally flavored fat.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

No, the "nothing greasy" doesn't seem to come from nurses, more as comments from people who've actually had their gall bladders removed.

I'm also quite a fan of peanut oil when I want quite-neutral-high-temp oil. I like macadamia oil better, but we use it up quickly and it's a bit of an indulgence (there's a macadamia oil presser (http://www.nutworks.com.au/) a few hours drive north of here, my parents usually get some for us when they pass through.)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think peanut oil has a stronger flavor than olive oil. I grew up cooking with it and it's my default oil. I also have olive oil and use it for specific things.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

As a non-North-American I'm perfectly fine with calories, and prefer using them to kilojoules.

I don't see what's "un-metric" about the amount of energy required to raise 1kg of water by 1 degree Celsius, either, but it would appear I am in the minority.