Category: food

Cake On My Mind

If you know me and my blog scribblings, reading the post’s title might prompt you to think that I’m talking about the alt-rock group, Cake, being in my stream. They’re not, although I sympathize with them and the theft of their music gear in Portland, OR.

But, if you read my blog posts, you might also think I’m talking about food. I like food. I don’t often post about it, but it’s been on display recently in conjunction with health issues (nothing too serious).

The cake, though, comes from my writing and dreams. Ahah, there we are the other tracks that I’m often following when I post.

Cake has been part of my writing and dreaming worlds the last few days. My April Showers 1921 protagonist encounters a survival group. The group is made up of children. After rescuing him from an attack by a pack of dogs, they take him to their fort to have cake, incidents and details delivered by the muses on Wednesday. Thursday was spent broadening and detailing the scene. Several cake options are available. He likes chocolate, so he chooses to have a large slice chocolate layer cake with buttercream chocolate between the layers and fudge frosting on top. A team of children baked it; teams of children baked all the cakes. Anders wonders where and how they have these resources to bake cakes, but other important matters are at hand, and he can’t pursue the answers.

So, okay, been writing about cake. It must’ve bled over into real life, because, last night, I dreamed about cake.

In a rollicking dream, a competition was going on. The activity was too frenzied and chaotic for me to keep hold off upon waking, but I know that I did damn well in the dream competition. What I do remember very well was that cake was being served at the end, to reward participants. I was so happy, I was giddy. The big piece of sheet cake presented to me on a plate had yellow cake and white frosting with roses, and it fell apart on my plate.

The server apologized and told me that she’d get me another one. I took the plate, though, telling her, it didn’t matter. I could eat it even if it was falling apart.

Then I ate it with my hands, laughing as I did.

It was a weirdly satisfying dream.

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The Sodium Take

Having experienced benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and then discovering my blood pressure was residing north of 220/130, I’ve become more mindful about my food and nutrition. (BP is now hovering around 136/70 now, thanks.) Searching for foods that are benevolent to my prostate, I read recommendations about celery. In my own tests, I felt that the results bore this out; eating a stalk of celery each day seemed to please my prostate.

However, I read, beware: celery has high levels of sodium. Oh, dear, don’t want that; sodium is bad for blood pressure. Wanting hard information, I hunted the net and discovered that a stalk of celery can have as much as almost thirty milligrams of sodium.

That didn’t strike me as high. As far as I could tell, that was pretty low, as long as I wasn’t eating stalks by the minute. Thinking about it more returned me more net searching about sodium levels in food.

The U.S. government’s nutrition guideline recommends that people keep their daily sodium intake below twenty-three hundred milligrams a day. There’s a big gap betweeny celery’s thirty and twenty-three hundred. For a food to be considered low sodium, it should have one hundred forty milligrams per serving, or least. Calling celery high in sodium compared to that seemed excessive.

Which prompted me to hunt for common food’s sodium levels. Fortunately, many websites eagerly compile and post this information. The American Heart Association provided a summary of the CDC’s findings in 2017. From that, they created a list of the twenty-five most hazardous foods for sodium levels in the U.S. It’s a disturbing list. They then distilled the list into the top ‘Salty Six’:

  1. Breads and rolls
  2. Pizza
  3. Sandwiches, including burgers
  4. Cold cuts and cured meats
  5. Canned soup
  6. Tacos and burritos

These are foods that I was frequently eating. I was checking fat, sugar, and fiber levels but ignoring the sodium levels. Now, it was like, holy crap. Gotta check those sodium levels, too.

I know, this is a post by the converted. I respect that response, but my ignorance went on until it was an emergency. Just thought I’d share my experience and maybe keep you from stumbling down the same path.

On the bright side, I found that beer and wine do not typically have much sodium. There’s some in them, with beer typically have eight to twelve milligrams of sodium per sixteen ounces, and most domestic red wines containing twelve milligrams per glass (imported red wines have about six milligrams); mindfulness about how much is being consumed — and what else is being consumed that day — is required.

Just like with celery.

You’re now free to resume your normal day.

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Personal Update

Time for some self-congratulations. Medical appointment went well today. Lost seven pounds since August 8th. Blood pressure was 230/131 on that day; today, it was 130/64. Cool beans.

All the blood tests came back with nothing there to explain my high BP. It all looked good on paper. I always suspected weight and sodium. Based on that, I went on a three-day-green smoothie that began August 9th. Then we began a modified green-smoothie-diet. Based on the book, “The Green Smoothie Diet”, we consumed smoothies for breakfast and lunch. For breakfast, I also had a banana, prune, a handful of raw nuts (usually walnuts) and a boiled egg. Fresh veggies such as celery, radishes, and carrots were consumed for lunch.

Dinner was usually a romaine lettuce salad and then fish with something. For example, Monday, we had a salmon Caesar salad. Tuesday was cod with ginger sauce with rosemary oven fries. Wednesday was steamed broccoli and a baked sweet potato with the salad.

I also cut back on coffee, beer, and wine consumption. For perspective, I drink few things beyond those three items and water. I drink a lot of water.

Meanwhile, checking my regular foods for sodium, I was horrified by the findings. I’d always checked foods for sugar, fat, and fiber, along with general contents. Now I see that sodium needs to be on the check list. Once again, it comes down to being mindful. Well, it’s paying off.

Put me off my writing schedule by a few hours but got my coffee now. I’m in the seat. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Floofears

Floofears (floofinition) – A unique hearing capability among pets that allow them to hear cans and refrigerator doors opening, rattling kibble, and package rustling, often from amazingly far distances and frequently through walls and doors.

In use: “Opening a can of food for one cat pestering him, a scratching at the door pulled his attention. Staring in through the window beside the front door, the cat meowed at him. Shaking his head, he went to the door to open it and let the cat in to be fed, even as he marveled at their floofears.”

3

For Her

The house was always silent except for his quiet and her cats. He was aware of how much he sighed, and the cats…the cats were always darting underfoot, jumping up onto the furniture, counters, and tables, and peering around corners.

Flowers and plants were everywhere. He’d told everyone to send money to her causes in lieu of flowers and that shit, but…well, here they were. Here he was.

She was always trying to get him to eat healthy. The ‘frig was lousy with salmon and salad ingredients. Sighing (but what else?), he prepared the salmon per the instructions, sharing some with the cats, who were enthusiastic in their enjoyment, and made a salmon Caesar salad and poured a glass of wine for himself. Eating, he told himself, for her, chewing and swallowing the despised flavors, washing it down with wine.

For her.

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Savory Oatmeal

After reading about savory muffins this week, I thought I’d do something similar with my morning oatmeal.

Fruit, cinnamon, nuts, and coconut usually finds its way into my oat meal. Today, nutritional yeast, shredded Mexican cheese mix, sliced Kalamata olives, and diced onions and green peppers were tossed into the oatmeal.

Sensational. I imagine sauteed or grilled mushrooms, onions, and peppers would also work well. Looking forward to trying some new ideas. It puts a whole new spin on breakfast.

11

Eat the Rich

“Eating the rich has no nutritional value.”

I read that on the package, in the nutritional panel, before I buy the cookies. Nothing about fiber, sugars, or fat. “No vitamins are in this product,” the manufacturer claims. Serving size is stated, “Whatever you can pack in.” My kind of cookies.

I’d gone to the store for something snaky and discovered the “Eat the Rich” cookies. I put them after musing about whether these will satisfy my needs, but take no chances and add a hefty brownie from the bakery. After arriving home, I open the cookie package with tenderness, preserving the package so I can close it later to preserve the cookies’ freshness. I also like that cookie Mount Rushmore of rich people on the front. Trump, Gates, the Koch Brothers, and Jamie Dimon are easily recognized. So is the Queen of England.

I pull a few cookies from the bag. Naturally, I want to eat Trump first. Well, I don’t know if that’s natural, but it is my impulse. The bag’s back lists all the rich cookies that they make but caution that not all the rich may be inside. They warn, too, some cookies might be broken.

All the cookies are busts of rich people. I find a Donald J. Trump. Orange, the resemblance is pretty good, for a cookie. I sniff it for impressions and get nothing. I figure, the cookie being orange, it might taste like pumpkins or orange, maybe lemon or some other citrus flavor. No; it tastes like cold and greasy McDonald’s Big Mac and French fries. Despite that, I eat the whole thing. I feel a little sick when I finish it. It leaves a bad aftertaste.

Half a cup of hot coffee dilutes the aftertaste. I check out other rich cookies and discover the cookies have the people’s names on the back. Bill Gates. David Koch. Queen Elizabeth. Mark Cuban. Alice Walton. Howard Schultz. Musk. Bezos. Zuckerberg. Sergey Brin.

David Koch’s cookie is white as a plastic Starbucks lid. No smell to it. I take a bite. Hard and crunchy, it has no taste. Frosted pink, with a pink hat. Queen Elizabeth is more appealing. Nibbling on her hat, I’m rewarded by a sweet raspberry lemonade taste. She’s so yummy, I eat her all.

I find a Larry Ellison but I don’t want to eat it and move on to another shortbread offering, Mark Zuckerberg. He’s white-faced with brown hair, with a frosted white shirt and the shoulders of a blue suits showing. I munch on the suit. A flavor I can’t identify overwhelms me. Another bite also mystifies me, reminding me of raw broccoli covered with milk chocolate. I want another bite. Sourness coats my tongue. Dill pickles. Despite that, I want one more bite. A black licorice flavor rises.

Half the cookie is gone. I figure I’ll finish it and stop. Zuckerberg’s head tastes like cotton candy one one side and bad tuna fish on the other. Two bites remain. First one is lemony but the second one tastes like forty cats shat in my mouth.

I drink the rest of my coffee to drown the flavors. After a minute, I start looking through the cookies for another Zuckerberg. That first, mystifying flavor haunts me. I don’t have any more Zuckerberg cookies. I head to the store to buy another bag, but it’s like they say: Zuckerberg might not be in the next bag. Although the bags cost ten dollars each, I buy three bags to improve my chances of getting a Zuckerberg.

Driving home, I wonder about that. He reminds me of Facebook. I don’t know what I’ll get but I feel like I must keep looking.

***

This is entirely fake news. I don’t know if “Eat the Rich” cookies exist outside of my imagination. They were just a whim springing out of a glance at a bag of frosted animal cookies.

2

Beetroot Juice Insights

My wife pursues an eternal quest to improve our health. Frequent new food stuffs are introduced to the home. I usually try them to observe what impact they seem to have on me as well as how they taste.

Not all work out. Our pantry has a shelf of forgotten foods and drinks that neither of us adopted as part of our normal diet habits. I think one jar is marked “Best By Oct 2003”. We can’t bring ourselves to throw it out. We’re just too sentimental.

Today, I give you beetroot juice.

Beet juice, according to WebMD, is supposed to be terrifically healthy. Well, juice from the root is supposed to be even better, a superfood that will amaze you.

Okay, we said, buying some from our local heath food store. Amaze us.

It comes in a fine, whitish powder form, like chalk. Adding the desired amount to a glass of water and stirring gives you a red drink that looks like cherry Kool-Aid.

It don’t taste like cherry Kool-Aid.

It tastes like beets. That’s not a problem, if you like eating soiled old socks. I know that I probably seem old-fashioned, but I take exception to the taste of socks in my mouth.

But holy-moly, the beetroot juice has a kick. 

The first time that I drank it, it was like I’d been injected with niacin. I felt flushed and hot. Every pore was utilized to let the sweat burst out of me. I drank it late in the evening. That wasn’t a good idea; I then had too much energy to sleep, as if I’d had a quint-shot mocha right before going to bed.

We’ve learned that this isn’t an uncommon reaction. Besides that, we discovered that our beetroot drinking should not be done around the same time as our coffee drinking. Some people suggested drinking beetroot instead of coffee. Oh, how we laughed as we plotted on how to eliminate people making such cruel suggestions.

The coffee wasn’t given up. I moved my beetroot drinking to the late afternoon. My reaction isn’t as severe as that first venture, but let me tell you, it’s like my brain has been vacuumed clean and my senses have been blown out. My thinking and memory both seem sharper. My creativity level seems to have been kicked to another level, too.

I’m more ambivalent about its impact on my dreams. I already dreamed and remembered my dreams (or imagined that I did), and this beetroot juice seems to have me dreaming with my clarity and remembering them with more details.

It could be a coincidence, but my writing output jumped after I started drinking the beetroot juice. I typically typed about twelve to fifteen hundred words a day. Now I’m typing twenty-five hundred to thirty-five hundred a day. I’m typing an extra half hour because I just don’t want to stop. That’s a significant difference over a ten day period.

It also helped my walking output. I’d been riding a streak of sixty miles per week the day that I began drinking the beetroot juice. I frankly didn’t think I’d be able to sustain it for another week, which was a bummer. But the beetroot juice revitalized me, so I’ve now gone six weeks averaging sixty miles a week.

The one drawback that I’ve noticed is that the beetroot juice doesn’t go with other foods, especially anything sweet, and especially bananas. I swear, I’ll never eat a banana and drink beetroot juice again.

Bank on that. 

2

Floofnet

Floofnet (floofinition) – 1. Quantum communications systems used by animals to share information such as gossip, homes that give out food and treats, and warnings of danger. 2. World wide web that’s devoted to animals.

In use: “People always assumed that animals sniffed one another to pass messages and learn more. The reality is that such behavior was respected by the animals as an ancient tradition, although they admitted that it was also part of their disinformation campaign to keep humans ignorant of their abilities. They’d long before replaced sniffing with the floofnet, an almost instantaneous method of sharing information across long distances.”

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