seriously, bluecross?

Those of you who live in the United States might recognize this. Those of you who don't might get a good laugh out of it. My health insurance offers a health rewards program- an incentive to make healthy changes in your life in exchange for cash and prizes better health and a longer life. Or that's the idea, anyway. I feel that I eat pretty well and am in pretty good shape, but I don't want this to stop me from all the cash and prizes health benefits that this program has to offer, so I have signed up. The exercise portion was fairly straightforward- I tell them how active I am and they give me tips for exercises to do every day. So far so good.

Then, I got to the nutrition section. Here, they ask you to enter your weight, and then tell them whether you would like to lose weight, gain weight, or maintain your weight. They then design an optimal menu for you, which they also promise will be "heart healthy." Well imagine my horror upon being presented with this suggested daily menu: (click on the photos to enlarge)

For breakfast, they want me to consume calcium fortified orange juice, fat-free fruit yogurt (ack! the yuck factor of dairy aside, don't they care about the sugar or chemical sugar substitute in those things?), some lowfat milk (more dairy?!), an egg-white omelette with cheddar cheese and imitation bacon bits (come on, now!) along with an english muffin. (Oh, phew! They recommend a wheat english muffin! no word on if that means whole wheat or not) Knowing what I know about eggs and dairy, not to mention what I know about packaged foods, that breakfast sounds like a nightmare.

But that is nothing compared to dinner! Keep in mind, these suggestions are supposed to be healthy and contribute to weight loss, and this is a health insurance company making the recommendations! You would think they would have a vested interest in me not dropping dead (or worse, developing chronic illnesses necessitating prolonged health care, medicine, hospitalization, etc.). Here we go: they want me to eat frozen boysenberries (unsweetened- woo!) with powdered sugar (d'oh!), some yellow wax beans (a wonderful vegetable, but not a nutritional powerhouse), some more lowfat milk (ew! I mean, seriously?), and some pasta and meatless (phew) tomato sauce with cheesy meatballs. (d'oh, d'oh, d'oh)

As if this meal weren't enough to wear you out, you get a snack! A parfait made from fat-free frozen yogurt, frozen strawberries, peanut M&Ms, and, oh! two tablespoons of Kashi Go Lean cereal. I don't care if you're vegan or not, consuming that much dairy in one day is not good for you. If I ate their suggested menu, I'd be sluggish, over-sugared and under-nourished. And frankly, a little grossed out.

What about my breakfast? How could I enter things like this rice pudding made with organic brown rice, unsweetened hemp milk, cinnamon, cardamom, raisins, walnuts, and a dash of agave nectar?

Or this hearty brunch of marinated grilled tofu, roasted spicy potatoes, swiss chard, tomatoes, and rye bread?

It turns out you can customize your menu, but your only options even there are preselected brand-name packaged items. For example, I tried picking "smoothie" but the only smoothies they would recognize were Dannon Light 'n Fit-brand "smoothies." (light on the smoothie, heavy on the sugar and crap). Why, if I were the suspicious type, I would think that my insurance company has product placement agreements with major food brands to pimp their products as healthy...? No...

Well, the promise of being rewarded for health is enticing, but I can't even lie and say I'm eating that stuff! I better re-double my exercise program - and go munch on a carrot stick while I'm at it.

seriously, bluecross?

Friday VeganMoFo round-up

Well, it's Friday, so I decided tonight's VeganMoFo would be a blast from the past... a Friday Food Round-up! Do you guys remember these from last year? It's when I would inundate you with way too many photos of food from the previous week? Good times. I stopped doing that because, well, those posts were a bit much. But, since VeganMoFo is all about revisiting the past, I thought I'd do a (shorter verstion of) a round-up this week.

All through this post, I will give little thrifty tips. As you guys know, Daiku and I are eating out of the pantry until Thanksgiving, trying to keep supermarket shopping down to a bare minimum. There are many reasons for this: one, we are a bit broke this month, and trying to save some money for the holidays. Second, this is the time of year when it's good to clean out the pantry, eat all those things you've said you'll get around to, and make room for a new year's worth of stuff. Third, and my favorite reason, has to do with the upcoming holiday, centered all around food. I find the feast/famine dichotomy fascinating. Before gorging ourselves on the holiday, it's fun to meditate on what it means to be able to do so. The bounty of food that we have, the amount of choice we can exercise, and the meaningfulness of being able to feast whenever you want.

Ok, more about Thanksgiving later- for now, on to the round-up!

Ok, the first photo is definitely not something we ate! Here is a brand of margarine in the supermarket that caught my eye because of its impossibly cheesy 70's-style packaging. It is vegan, but possibly the most vile stuff you could ever see. Not only is the margarine artificial and extremely unappetizing, but the sticks have a whopping FIVE grams of trans-fats per serving! Definitely one for the "Frankenfoods" file... If you want vegan, or kosher, or parve margarine, why not give Earth Balance a try? It's not hydrogenated. It's not artificial. It's not scary. Yikes!

Here are banana-wheat bran muffins from Veganomicon. I replaced the wheat bran with oat bran, because that is what I had, and I mixed a handful of walnuts into the batter. Finally, I topped each muffin with walnut halves and maple sugar before baking.

They came out very well, and they are part whole-grain and not too sweet, making them perfect for breakfast.

As soon as Hannah posted about these vegan butterscotch chips on her blog, I knew I had to try them, just for fun. They are a bit too sweet and artificial-tasting to enjoy out of hand, but they are perfect for baking, especially because I haven't had butterscotch since going vegan!

When Celine posted this cookie recipe on her blog, I noticed that I had every single ingredient in the house- score! - so I immediately baked them. Trust me- you can't go wrong with a Celine recipe, especially one involving chocolate, butterscotch, whiskey, and extra chunky peanut butter! This recipe used rice flour, which made the cookies tender and crumbly and good. I want to bake with brown rice flour more often now!

You know how disorganized I am about getting around to trying recipes? Well, how about if I tell you that this is SusanV's peach upside down cake- that she posted in early AUGUST? I had saved and frozen some peaches from my big haul this summer, and after I baked cookies, I figured, hey the oven's on, I might as well bake some more. So, after months of drooling at the recipe, I finally got to make it.

And it was good! I used date sugar for the caramel part on the bottom of the cake, and it worked much better than I thought it would. I love the lemon flavor in the cake- this recipe is a winner. I'm glad I have tons more peaches saved in the freezer, because I want to have this again!

Here's a tip- if you ever make biscuits, save the little bits of dough that are left after cutting them, and freeze them in a baggie. Then, whenever you make soup, you have ready-to-go dumplings at the ready! Last night, we made this kitchen sink soup: potatoes, onions, garlic, red wine, cabbage, radish, cauliflower, celery, tomatoes, peas, everything we had in the fridge, plus some millet! Today, when re-heating the soup, we dropped some frozen biscuit dough in there and voilà- veggie dumpling soup! It was so good- warming, hearty, filling. I want to try this method to make some chicken-dumpling soup, too. Maybe with some thyme, dill, not-chicken broth? Some sage? What are the dominant flavors of chicken soup?

Finally, here's a deep-dish sourdough pizza. I feel so spoiled now that we have home-made pizza practically every week. I promise not to go off on a sourdough tangent here...! At first, it seemed as if we had nothing in the house that would be a pizza topping. But, a can of crushed tomatoes made the sauce. A cheezy sauce came together with some flour, oil, soymilk, nooch, and seasonings in about 2 minutes. A couple of pieces of tempeh were transformed into sausage (using this recipe - my favorite!). Some onions were caramelized. And before we knew it, we had a deep dish, awesome pizza for about $1.50. Making your own pizza and toppings is such a good feeling- and such a quick dinner!

Ok, that was my blast-from-the-past Friday Food Round-Up! I promised it wouldn't be too painful, right?

On a final note, we had our first snow in Syracuse today. Everything outside became very quiet and very pretty, very quick! Here's a shot of our backyard this morning. Good night, all!

Friday VeganMoFo round-up

MALK a.k.a. Vitamite

Back in August when I started this blog, one of my first posts was called "Is this everything that's wrong with America?" In that post, I discussed Smuckers "Uncrustables" which are one of the most vile processed foods I'd seen in a long time.

Well, I have now come accross something that is so vile, so outrageously bad, that it makes Uncrustables look like wholesome, organic food that anyone would be proud to feed their kids.

First, some background. Do you remember the old Simpsons episode where they discover that the milk they were getting at school was actually "malk" or rat's milk? (The mafia was selling "malk" instead of milk to save money.)

Well, I have found actual malk in the real world. I saw this as I strolled a supermarket outside of St. Louis back in December:

Vitamite was sitting right there in the milk section. It uses milk vocabulary such as "homogenized" and "pasteurized" to further the illusion that is is some sort of lactose-free milk.

But a glance at the ingredient list reveals something far creepier. (Yes! Creepier than cow's milk!)

Water? CORN SYRUP SOLIDS?? What is this? It is some sort of laboratory creation with the worst of the dairy (caseinate) AND soy (isolated soy protein, which should never be consumed!) worlds, along with a bunch of artificial sweeteners, chemicals, and preservatives to round out the deal.

What is really sad is that Vitamite was pretty inexpensive, so I can see how a lower-income parent might believe that it is a lower priced, yet decent alternative to milk for their kids.

It angers me that so many things that don't bear any resemblance to food get marketed and sold in this country, leading to a society of overfed, malnourished, and seriously sick people. (Hint, you want a lactose-free and cheap milk? Try soymilk! Or rice milk. Almond milk. Oat milk. Hazelnut milk...)

Has anyone seen this product? Does anyone know more about it?

MALK a.k.a. Vitamite

Is this everything that's wrong with America?

Here is a quote from Eating Well magazine: "We are a big, fat, lazy, wasteful, gullible culture. We'll swallow anything. We'll sell our parental pride for $2.89." (Dan Rodricks, Baltimore Sun columnist, on parents buying premade, frozen peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches for their children.)

What is wrong with Uncrustables? Let us count the ways...

1. They had to get a PATENT. For peanut butter and jelly sans crust. Here's the illustration for their application:
Apparently, their big innovation is using peanut butter and crustless bread to effectively entrap their world-famous jelly. (!)

2. Their...
Nutrition Facts:
Serving Size 1 Sandwich (58 g)
210 calories, 9 grams fat, 2 grams saturated fat... (look for yourself)

You might be asking yourself how they crammed so many calories, fat, and salt into a tiny little sandwich, while leaving out so many nutrients... It might help to read their...

Ingredients
BREAD: ENRICHED UNBLEACHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, YEAST, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: WHEAT GLUTEN, SALT, DOUGH CONDITIONERS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF: DIACETYL TARTARIC ACID ESTERS OF MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES (DATEM), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, ETHOXYLATED MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM PEROXIDE, ASCORBIC ACID, AZODICARBONAMIDE, L-CYSTEINE), YEAST NUTRIENTS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF: MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE, AMMONIUM SULFATE), CALCIUM PROPIONATE (MAINTAIN FRESHNESS), CORNSTARCH, ENZYMES (WITH WHEAT). PEANUT BUTTER: SELECT ROASTED PEANUTS, DEXTROSE, VEGETABLE MONOGLYCERIDES (FROM PALM OIL), SALT. GRAPE JELLY: GRAPE JUICE, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, PECTIN, CITRIC ACID, POTASSIUM SORBATE ADDED AS A PRESERVATIVE.

We all know that refined flour is bad, hydrogenated oils are bad, corn syrup is bad (and high fructose corn syrup is god-awful!), not to mention all the other unpronounceable ingredients.

But what is really bad is the economics:

Here is how much one would pay for an Uncrustable (~ $2.99/ 4-pack)= $0.75

Here is how much one would pay for a similar peanut butter and jelly sandwich: (~ $2.59/18 oz. for a jar of Jif peanut butter, with 16 servings, ~ $2.45/18 oz. for Smucker's grape jelly with 32 servings, and ~ $2.39/20 slices for a loaf of Wonder Bread with 10 servings)=~ $0.17

Here is how much one would pay for a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich (whole grain bread, natural peanut butter, organic jelly) (~ $3.89/18 oz. Crazy Richard's all-natural peanut butter, with 16 servings, ~ $3.49/10 oz. Cascadian Farms organic grape jelly with 1 servings, ~ $3.00/20 slices of fresh-baked whole wheat bread at my local grocery store with 10 servings) =~ $0.74

These are prices I found on the Internet, so I'm sure everyone can find even better prices at their local co-ops or grocers, not to mention the added savings of, say, buying in bulk, making your own jam, peanut butter, or baking your own bread. What this demonstrates is that parents are willing to pay a hefty premium to stuff their kids full of chemicals, artificial preservatives, hydrogenated oils (of which you should eat none), refined white flour, GMO's, etc.

The great thing is, the convenience article doesn't really work here, because what is easier than making a PB & J, for crying out loud??

Start the revolution, folks! Refuse the junk being marketed to you and your kids. Reading an ingredient/nutrition label is one of the most enlightening and potentially empowering things you can do.

Is this everything that's wrong with America?