Health for life

This is a repost from December 2007. But, yknow. It still applies. Also, just a reminder: starting tomorrow at 9:30am, CHG is liveblogging a full day of the Food Network. Tune in! Turn on! (Dont drop out.)

Once upon a time (1984), in a land far, far away (England), there lived a thin, dyspeptic pop star named Bob Geldof. Now, Bob was a good pop star, but at the time, fairly unknown in world-saving circles. Then, one day, he happened to stumble across a BBC report on the famine in Ethopia, where hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken Africans were dying for lack of food and medicine. Shaken by the conditions of these poor, oppressed people, Bob decided to do something about it.

Using all his thin, dyspeptic pop star powers, young Geldof assembled a mighty group of famous U.K. musicians (Bono, Sting, Paul McCartney), not-quite-as-famous U.K. musicians (Jody Watley, the guy from Spandau Ballet), soon-to-be-infamous U.K. musicians (George Michael, Boy George), and dubbed them Band Aid. Together, they recorded “Do They Know it’s Christmas,” the most powerful charity Christmas song since “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (which, as everyone knows, paid for Rudolph’s therapy following decades of emotional abuse by his fellow sleigh-pullers).

Ultimately, the accomplishments of “Do They Know it’s Christmas” are too numerous to mention, so I’ll attempt to sum. It:

1. Rocked the airwaves unlike any holiday tune before it.
2. Gave humanity the worst Christmas lyric of all time (“Tonight, thank god its them instead of you.")
3. Raised a humongous amount of cash for people who really needed it.

Even now, 23 years later, Simon LeBon and various members of Bananarama are inspiring generations of Kmart shoppers and light FM listeners to consider donating to charity. And that’s what’s beautiful about “Do They Know it’s Christmas” - it’s an enduring reminder that innocent people are still suffering. While many of us are lucky enough to have families to visit, warm places to sleep, and good food to eat during the holidays, lots of folks don’t. And it’s important we do what we can, like young (now old) Geldof before us.

So, this Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice or whatever, consider lending some time and/or hard-earned cash to charitable organizations around the globe. It will make many people very happy, and happy is good.

In fact, here are a few ideas to getchoo started. They’ve all been listed on the site before, and most have either been reported on fairly extensively or rated by Charity Navigator.

Happy holidays!

FEED THE TROOPS

Any Solider
Fulfill a soldier’s request for supplies, food, and ways to pass the time.

The USO
Check out their FAQ for more info, or just peruse the site, which is intuitive and informative

Treat the Troops
Jeanette Cram has baked over 640,000 cookies for soldiers overseas. Help her fund the effort.

FEED YOUR NEIGHBORS

The Food Trust’s Supermarket Campaign
Inner-city citizens need fresh food. The Supermarket Campaign is here to help.

Food Bank for New York City
FBNYC helps hungry Big Apple-ites in each of the five boroughs.

Donors Choose
Fund the activity/teacher of your choosing. I linked to the “food” ideas here, but really the whole site is worth a look.

The Society of St. Andrew
SoSA focuses on the distribution of healthy, inexpensive food (with an emphasis on produce) to hungry kids and families nationwide.

Feeding America
The mother ship to hundreds of smaller food banks, Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) feeds millions of hungry U.S. citizens a year.

God’s Love We Deliver
This is a tri-state area based volunteer group that buys, cooks, and delivers meals to seriously ill men, women, children.

Your local house of worship
Peruse the activities at your local shrine to see how you can pitch in.

FEED THE WORLD

Action Against Hunger
AAH assists the needy in more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, and South America, with special focus on water and aid during crises.

American Red Cross
The mothership.

Miriam Isserow is a fundraising consultant based in Silver Spring, Maryland. In her misspent youth, she loved to make dessert. Now she likes to cook delicious and healthful meals.

This time of year, we seem to go from one food-centric event to another. This is a particular challenge for my dear husband, otherwise known as The Man Who Discovered Food Has Calories. I know my new nickname for him is a mouthful, so from here on in, Ill call him TMWDFHC.

I recently mentioned to TMWDFHC that for our own holiday meal, I would make a bulgur stuffing instead of our traditional bread stuffing. Years ago, my cousin whipped up a similar dish that I still remember—and given the dieting and monitoring of cholesterol we’ve been doing at my house, I thought it would be a great alternative to soaking bread with eggs.

But when I told TMWDFHC I would be doing a bulgur stuffing, he flipped out.

“How can you make stuffing without chestnuts?”

You see, one core principle in our house is that stuffing has chestnuts. I assured TMWDFHC that the bulgur stuffing would have chestnuts, too.

So, I found some bulgur stuffing recipes, added chestnuts and played around a little. This was the result. You can make it in the turkey, or, if youre expecting vegetarians or happen to live with someone who discovered that food has calories, you can bake it in a pan. An additional healthful plus: You don’t have to grease the pan as you would with classic stuffing.

Chestnut & Bulgur Stuffing
Serves 12

2 ½ c water,
2 oz. dried porcini mushrooms (around 2 cups)
1 oz. dried morel mushrooms (around 1 cup)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 chopped medium sized onion
5 ½ c. broth
2 ½ c. bulgur (it’s good if it’s coarse but it really doesn’t matter)
1 c. flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup shelled chestnuts (use a freeze dried package that you can buy at an Asian market for next to nothing).

1) Bring water to a boil. Pour over mushrooms and soak for half an hour.

2) In a 4 quart sauce pan or chefs pan, sauté onion in olive oil until softened. Add broth and bring to a boil. Stir in bulgur and cook around 8 minutes more, uncovered.

3) Remove mushrooms from water, squeezing if necessary. Reserve soaking liquid, strain, and set aside. Rinse mushrooms and coarsely chop.

4) In a large bowl, toss together bulgur, ½ cup of the reserved liquid, mushrooms, chestnuts, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Let cool completely.

5) Now you can either stuff it in a turkey or bake it. If you are baking it in a pan, no need to grease the pan—and bake it at 325 for 40 minutes, covered.

NOTE: Our custom is to use some as stuffing and some in a pan for the vegetarians (using vegetable broth in that case). After all, even those who have discovered that food has calories and who are trying to be really good through the holidays are entitled to the divine taste of chestnut stuffing with turkey drippings.

Greetings, sweet readers! Todays post comes from a CHG Facebook discussion a few weeks ago.

Q: With the holidays fast approaching, wed all like to imbibe a bit. So, what are your favorite inexpensive wines?

A: While Trader Joes house brand, good ol Three Buck Chuck, is always a hit, Indabas Sauvignon Blanc has really become a recent favorite. Its flavorful without hitting you over the head, and I can usually find it for around $8 a bottle.

Readers, what about you? Lettuce discuss some boozery.

Want to ask the interweb a question? Post one in the comment section, or write to Cheaphealthygood@gmail.com. Then, tune in next Tuesday for an answer/several answers from the good people of the World Wide Net.

Its that time again, folks.  The best time of the year.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years... the holiday season.  Theres just nothing like it... turkey dinners, Christmas trees, the snow, the gift of giving, the time spent with family.  I look forward to it every year.  But step inside the psyche of any health-conscious person this time of year, and you may find a war zone:

"I love apple pie, but I dont want any.  I dont want it.  It goes right to my butt.  God, look at it... its gawking at me.  Ahhh okay Ill have a slice.  ONE slice.  Just one slice and Ill stop.  This is the year I keep my weight under control during the holidays.  Oh god that was good.  Shit girl, give me another.  This is better than sex, oh my god.  The apple pie god.  I love him, he who created apple pie.  Screw butt fat, whatever.  Men like big butts anyway... they cannot lie."

Right?  We all know the holiday season presents a problem.  Excessively yummy food + great people + alcohol = weight gain.  It happens every year... and come the New Year?  Resolutions abound.  Gyms explode with new members, we eat less, and we try to right the wrongs of the past few months.  But, as anyone who has done this probably knows, that weight doesnt come off with the same ease at which it was put on, and rarely does it stay off.

And thats the point of this post.  I want to explain to you why that weight wont stay off, and why, consequently, its so important to prevent the weight gain to begin with.  Saddle up partner...


Body fat set point and the regulation of body weight
In order for this to make sense, we have to first talk about the concept of the "body fat set point".  The body fat set point is the idea that our bodies "defend" a certain level of fat on the body.  Think about how a thermostat works... if you set the temperature to 70, the system will heat or cool your house accordingly to maintain the temperature at 70 degrees.  Our physiology uses a similar system to regulate body fat.  If a man overeats one day, his body will adjust accordingly in the following few days by decreasing hunger.  In the end, his body weight evens out.  The same would be true if he starved himself one day; his body would compensate by increasing hunger in the days to follow.  Over the course of a week or two, caloric intake tends to balance out with caloric expenditure (1).  Through a system involving the hormone leptin, the brain senses a change in body fat, whether it has lost or gained, and alters hunger accordingly, in an attempt to return to the set point (2). 


In the vast majority of us, this system works well.  But this all rests on one assumption... that we eat when were hungry, and we stop eating when were full.  And this is where the problem comes in.  In todays society and food environment, its becoming increasingly difficult to stop eating.  Weve got access to food wherever we go, its more palatable than in the past, it comes in larger portion sizes than ever before, and its advertised to us at every turn.  How can we avoid buying a soft, warm, melts-in-your-mouth Cinnabon at the airport when we have an hour to kill and nothing to do but wait?

We can overeat at one meal or on one day without harm, as long as we listen to our hunger cues and compensate later.   But overeating without compensation, for any reason, over a period of a few months or more, can be a problem.  In overfeeding studies that are designed to induce weight gain, some subjects will return to their normal weight after the study is over, but many do not.  Some of the subjects end up hanging on to a little fat, indicating that the body fat set point has increased.  This phenomenon has been observed in both animals (3,4) and humans (5,6).  Once you establish a higher set point, it becomes extremely difficult to lose that fat.  Take, for instance, the fact that when obese people lose body fat, their body goes into a starvation response, despite having plenty more fat to lose (7).  Their bodies want that fat.

Back to the holidays...
So how does this relate to the holiday season?  Because around the holidays, our food environment takes steroids.  We have even MORE delicious treats, MORE palatable food, and MORE drive to eat.  Grandmas making you a pie every Tuesday, Christmas cookies permeate the office, there are Christmas parties, theres candy everywhere... its excessive.  Delicious... festive... but excessive.

Given that, this shouldnt be a surprise:  According to a recent study, half of annual weight gain in the United States happens during the holidays via voluntary overeating (8).  HALF OF IT.  And the news nobody wants to hear... people who gain weight during the holidays lose some of it in January, but they hold on to most of it long-term.  Thats a problem.  That means you have a new, higher set point.  Your body is now "happy" with more body fat, even if youre not.  And once this happens, getting back to the weight you want to be at is made exceedingly more difficult.

We may not gain 20 pounds in one holiday season; according to the study, its only about a pound on average.  But that weight stays on.  If you imagine this happening every holiday season for years and years, its not a stretch to say that you can become overweight or obese from holiday eating alone.  All you have to do is overeat for a few months each year.  Its likely a major contributor to the obesity epidemic.


The Solution
Of course, theres a solution hidden in there... dont allow yourself to gain any weight to begin with over the holidays, and you wont have to worry about any of this!  Its not easy, but its better than the alternative if youre trying to avoid gaining weight.  For a few good tips on how to accomplish this, check out "3 tips for preventing holiday weight gain" by Chris Kresser.

So try to practice some balance this holiday season.  Even though were already halfway through it (Im inexcusably late with this post), try to listen to your body.  If you want some pie and cookies, have some pie and cookies.  But either practice moderation or be in tune to your bodys hunger/satiety signals in the days that follow. 

Hope this helps you out this year!  Happy Holidays!