WWPE - What would Prince eat? (Fielder, that is)

c/o (��!$#@�9~KkjeNn~9�@ #$!��) on Flickr
Background from the New York Times:
Fielder, a first baseman who walloped 50 home runs last season, has become more than the face of the young and improving Milwaukee Brewers — he has become a lightning rod for his off-season decision to spurn meat and fish, including the bratwurst that tailgating Milwaukee fans hold so dear.
“Fans last year were yelling at me, ‘Hey Prince, eat a salad!’ ” Fielder said during dinner at a Milwaukee restaurant last Tuesday. “This year they’re saying, ‘Eat a steak!’ I feel like going: ‘Keep yelling, buddy. You’re still in the stands.’ ”

Jere’s Seltzer Journey

Jere Hester loves his job, and he loves his Seltzer. The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism professor, formerly City Editor of the New York Daily News, runs the school’s multimedia news service—usually with a bottle of Vintage Seltzer by his side.

“I’ve pretty much been drinking seltzer like a fiend for the last five years,” Hester said.

In his Daily News days, Hester swigged Coke, but around 1994, he says, he gave it up: “the caffeine was wreaking havoc on me.”

In addition, he didn’t like that with the help of Coke and other ingredients, he’d put on some weight. A switch to Gatorade wasn’t enough of a change to turn the tide.

Five years ago, Jere stopped drinking soda or Gatorade and cut a good amount of carbohydrates out of his diet. Combined with a workout routine that includes situps, pushups and a stationary bike, he dropped weight.

So, when Veggie Kingdom wanted to size up some of the most common seltzers on the market in New York City, an expert was close at hand. Here are Jere’s picks:

Vintage Raspberry: “A little more bitter than it needs to be.”
AC Raspberry: “It’s a little tart. (Vintage and AC Raspberry) are O.K., they’re just not the kind of seltzer I like. The bubbles are too close together.”
Canada Dry Raspberry: “Not bad.”

Vintage Orange: “I like this one better. It has a fuller flavor. It’s not that sweet, it’s not bitter, it leaves a better aftertaste.”
AC Orange (couldn’t tell flavor): “I like it. Whatever it is, it’s very subtle. This is good seltzer.”

It should be noted that Jere prefers orange to raspberry. He usually buys Vintage Seltzer water by the case at Fairway, and favors cherry and lemon lime.

“This was my first experience with the AC and I enjoyed it,” Jere said.

Bonus:

Hester recalled a perennial story in the New York press—that of the last seltzer man in Brooklyn. Such seltzer delivery men—like milkmen—were once common there.

“It used to be a thing. People would have seltzer delivered like they’d have milk delivered. He’d also deliver syrup, and they’d make their own soda.”

“When I was a kid in Brooklyn, there was a drink called ‘Cherry-lime Rickey,’ with Fox’s syrup. It was a very refreshing drink,” Hester recalled. “The guy would make it behind a counter and twist a lime into it. The cherry seltzer and lemon and lime is the closest you can get (to that) without any calories.”

The Diet-Pundit’s Dilemma

Michael Pollan c/o of TED Conference on Flickr

by Eliot Caroom
I just happened upon an interview with Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan on NYTimes.com. I’m a big fan of Dilemma, which describes modern food production methods—industrial agricultural, organic farming, small sustainable farming, and hunting/gathering.

So I was excited to read the interview with Pollan discussing his new book, In Defense of Food, which according to the Times interview explains what food is, what it isn’t, and how to tell the difference. The book’s slogan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Great slogan. I can’t wait to read the book. But the interview has a couple points I’d like to dispute.

1) Pollan seems to disparage “edible food-like substances in the stores that are masquerading as food.”

I’ve got to say I like a lot of food substances, and as a pesco-ovo-lacto-vegetarian, I love getting protein from products like non-breaded Quorn—the quintessential food substance, made out of 58% Mycoprotein, rehydrated egg white, whey protein concentrate, pea fiber, tapioca, potato maltodextrin, etc.

Why do I like that substance masquerading as a turkey? Well, it wasn’t raised in a cage on antibiotics, and it offers me 14g of protein, 0.5g of sugar, 1.5g of fat in a 90 calorie, 90g serving. It’s $6.79 a pound. Not all substances are created equal, just like not all food is created equal.

2) He describes his book as an algorithm to help you make decisions, instead of a diet book. He wants to take down the “cult of expert eating,” and says “the nutritionism approach to food doesn’t work very well, besides the fact that it ruins our pleasure in eating.”

I don’t aspire to be, in Pollan’s words, an “arbiter of food choices,” but I would like to be an influence. And although, as Pollan points out, Americans are obsessed with dieting, but don’t seem to be benefiting from it, I don’t agree that dieting advice is fruitless.

In “Veggie Kingdom” I’m going to lay out my diet and my thinking. Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s too late for the Eliot Diet.

Just a couple disagreements. The interview is cool though—I especially like:
“We watch cooking shows on TV but we cook very little. We’re turning cooking into a spectator sport.”

If you’ve read the interview, if you’ve read the book, please comment!

The best seven words in food advertising.

There was a time in my life when I was an avid calorie-counter. In those days, 100 calorie English Muffins would have been exciting to me. Those days are gone, now, but I’m still thrilled with these muffins. Why?

NOW WITH NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP

I can’t say enough about the evils of corn syrup, but I can’t say it very well either. Does anyone out there know of a definitive trustworthy encapsulation on this topic? I’ll look for one and revisit this subject.

There are many other sources of carbohydrates out there that are corn syrup-free and don’t cost $3.79 for 11 oz (319 grams) of food. Among my favorites are Healthy Life brand bread, and some locally produced, inexpensive pita bread bought at Fairway grocery store in New York. Still, $3.79 isn’t terrible and Thomas’ is nutritionally almost unbeatable, with 1g of non-saturated or trans fat per serving, 24g carbohydrates with less than 1g sugar, and 4g protein. Too bad it’s not whole wheat.

For now, let me just say that these words are underused even in healthy food products, but for me they’re the highest recommendation: NO Corn Syrup!

UPDATE: I’ve seen the mark of no corn syrup on Whole Wheat and other varieties recently…good stuff.