Not-So-Sloppy Joes and Healthy Secret Sauce

For lunch today I found another use for my current favorite bread-like food, whole wheat pita pockets. I also made a variation of my favorite low-fat, low-sodium secret sauce that is so creamy and rich with flavor that I felt very indulgent using it.

Not-So-Sloppy Joes

Ingredients
½ Kangaroo WW Pita
.25 lb. Extra lean ground beef (96/4)
1 T Onion
.5 t. Chili powder
Splash red wine vinegar

In a skillet sprayed with pan spray, brown the ground beef and the onions together. Add chili powder and a generous splash of red wine vinegar (about 2 t.). Warm pita half in the oven and when the ground beef mixture has reduced to where there is no longer any liquid, put it into the pita. Serve with slices of tomato and secret sauce on the side. (214 calories, 27.11 g protein, 16.93 g carbohydrates, 4.01 g fat, 230 mg sodium) not including the sauce.

Secret Sauce

Ingredients
1 T Sour cream, non-fat
1 tsp Prepared Mustard (I use Griffins, it is lower sodium)
Freshly ground black pepper

Simply combine the sour cream and mustard then grind the pepper into it. Mix well and prepare a few minutes before you plan to serve it. It has a decadent richness and plenty of flavor. Tonight I used it on the side with boiled boneless skinless chicken breasts. (10 calories, 1 g protein, 1.5 g carbohydrates, 0 fat, 65 mg sodium)

Here is my recap from yesterday.

Daily Dietary Recap-3/23/2007
Calories	Protein	Carbohydrates	Sodium	Fat	% Calories from Fat
1207.5	62.75 g	216.41 g	999.5 mg	15.76 g	11.75%

Changing the Way I Think About Food

A number of years ago when my parents were still alive, I was talking with my brother after his return from a trip home when he said, “You ever notice how funny people back home are about food?” Where was he going with this? “Whatdya mean”, I asked. He said, “Well, when they are eating breakfast, they are talking about what they are going to have for lunch, at lunch they talk about what’s for dinner, and at dinner they are either talking about breakfast, or about grocery shopping. And, all the people back home do it.” This conversation was starting to take a perverse turn. I suspected my brother had spent too much time living in California. “Well, yeah, don’t you”, I said.

Part of this attitude was cultural, all Hoosiers delighted in talking about food, didn’t they? Part of it was the difference between how I thought about food and the way my brother did. I like thinking about food. I like preparing food. I like eating food.

Part of the reason I warmed up to the idea of putting myself on a low-fat, low-sodium diet was the challenge of remodeling recipes. I’ve gone through various ethnic phases of cooking, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French, American country, California cuisine, and now I was preparing to remodel my recipes the way that Michel Guérard did with his classic cookbook, Cuisine Minceur (literally the cooking of thinness). Only this time, if I used his cookbook, I wouldn’t add back in all the high fat and calorie ingredients he had so skillfully removed.

Sure, I am still obsessed with food, but this time, I am obsessed with health and fitness and with cooking healthy. And, this time, I have learned to appreciate the food without the fat, sodium, and added calories. I think the psychologists would call this sublimation, the diversion of the expression of an unhealthy desire to an expression of that desire that is healthy and more acceptable. Not quite transubstantiation, but I find it fulfilling nonetheless.

I have no recap from yesterday as I left my flash drive at school and my diet spreadsheet lives on it. When I got home, I found the leash around my neck was empty. So, tonight it’s pencil and paper. I’ll post two tomorrow.

Diet Spreadsheets and Food Logging

Logging what I eat each day has helped me to keep track of where I am in the day and to make informed decisions about dietary choices. I can also see what effect a prospective choice will have on my daily goals, It lets me know whether that treat I am considering will throw me off track or not. I use a spreadsheet that I created using Microsoft Excel.

When I started, I just kept track of Calories, fat, sodium, fiber, and protein using the “Food Facts” listed on most food products. As I learned more, I added sugars, fiber, saturated fat, and cholesterol, and had the spreadsheet calculate calories from each. It also calculates the percentage of calories from each, and lets me know how far I have to go before I reach my goal maximums. My daily goals are: no more than 1400 Calories, no more than 1500 mg sodium, less than 300 mg cholesterol, less than 20% of calories from fat and less than 10% from saturated fat, and 30-38 grams fiber. The spreadsheet makes it fairly easy to keep track of all this.

USDA SR19

The United States Department of Agriculture maintains a website where you can access the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. It contains the composition of 7,293 raw, processed, and prepared foods by up to 140 nutrients. The latest release is 19 and it is updated in August of each year so, the SR 19 was released in August 2006. The database is available either online, or by download in Microsoft Access or ASCII format. The older version SR 17 is available for free download from NutriBase as the NutriBase Navigator. This offline software product allows you to search the database and select which nutrients are of interest and should be displayed.

Once you have searched either database or located food facts from food packages, it is easy to transfer the information to your spreadsheet. When you eat the food again, it’s easy to copy and paste from prior entries.

Recipes from Scratch

Obviously, recipes you cook at home from scratch aren’t found in the SR 19, or on any food facts. When I cook from scratch, I list the ingredients and their nutrients on the spreadsheet, total them and either weigh or measure the final products. I then decide what a serving size should be and the spreadsheet calculates the number of servings and divides the nutrients by this number. This allows me to perform a what-if analysis so I can see the effect of adding or changing one or more ingredients. I can immediately see the effect on each serving of adding a half teaspoon of salt to a recipe, for example. If I decide to eat a smaller portion, the spreadsheet calculates the revised nutrient make up for the new serving size and I can transfer these values to the daily log.

I’ve been told it takes a somewhat obsessive person to log and track their diet to this extent, but, it works for me. I like making informed dietary decisions and see the effect of my decisions.

Here is my recap from yesterday.

Daily Dietary Recap-3/1/2007
Calories	Protein	Carbohydrates	Sodium	Fat	% Calories from Fat
1052.86	80.77 g	149.52 g	977.81 mg	12.74 g	10.89%