[Posted by Crabby]


This recipe features the humble Sweet Potato.

You would think sweet potatoes were the junk food of the vegetable world, wouldn't you? "Sweet" plus "potato" sure sounds like something that should be naughty. An uninformed person might think: Why eat a naughty vegetable when you could use those calories for other important nutritional needs?

(Cartoon courtesy of nataliedee.com)

But guess what: that's all wrong. Sweet potatoes are really nutritious! They're so good for you, in fact, that the CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) named the sweet potato the most nutritious vegetable of all the vegetables in the world!

Note: if this claim seems a bit over-the-top, it may be 'cause this Healthy Vegetable Pageant was held back in 1991. We've been introduced to about a billion "superfoods" since then, and I was too lazy to discover the current rankings. Perhaps the Sweet Potato has been demoted to Miss Congeniality by now (since she seems so sweet and all).

Screw you brussel sprouts, I'm still WAY more popular.
(Photo by Angie Doyle)

But even without the crown: sweet potatoes are full of really great healthy stuff.

So here is an awesome recipe sent in by Megan R, who blogs at Praying Horse. (She blogs about weight loss and emotional eating and has lost 135 lbs!) The chili sounds delicious to me, since I love sweet and spicy things together. As soon as I get my lazy ass in the kitchen and get around to cutting up some veggies I'm definitely gonna give this a try!


Sweet Potato Chili

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium red onion, diced
1 tsp chili powder
2 cups vegetable broth
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
2 zucchinis, diced
3 tomatoes, diced or 1 can tomato bits
2 cups cooked pinto beans or 1 can
6 cloves garlic, minced (I like garlic)
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne
Chopped fresh cilantro

Heat olive oil in heavy pan over medium high heat. Add red onion and saute until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add the chili powder and stir for 1 minute. Add 1 cup of the broth and the sweet potato. Cover pan and reduce heat. Simmer until sweet potato is almost tender, about 10 minutes.

Add tomatoes with the juice and the pinto beans along with the garlic and spices. Add the zucchinis and the rest of the broth. Add pepper.

Simmer uncovered until the chili thickens and the sweet potato is very tender. Add cilantro to the bowl when serving.


Thanks Megan!

IMPORTANT NOTE: We're starting to run low on Reader Recipes... Got a tasty easy healthy one? Please email to Crabby McSlacker @ gmail . com (all one word).

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So sorry we couldn't give razors to everyone, especially after those awesome comments. But keep trying! There will be another give-away contest this next coming Friday July 4th (which we'll run a little longer because of the holiday), and you will NOT need to be a U.S. resident to win.

So the random number generator hath spoken, and the winners of the Schick Quattro Razor Are:

Jill
Lynn
Sassy Stephanie
Laura Brandon, and
Brenda

Congratulations!

Please email us at: Crabby McSlacker @ gmail.com (no spaces) by midnight EST on Wednesday July 2 with your mailing address, and we'll forward the list to the Schick folks. (You may want to include a real name for mailing purposes, although we're sure Sassy Stephanie's postal carrier would appreciate her blog alias). Also you may want to make sure your email address is reply-able in case of any questions/confusion).

Note: If there are unclaimed razors we'll go back and choose additional names, so please keep obsessively checking Cranky Fitness to pump up our page views find out what's happening with the give-aways and health and fitness news.

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[By Crabby]


Cranky Fitness is always looking for new ideas to steal from other blogs mix things up a little. And we can't help noticing that there are some other bloggers that are far ahead of us in the give-away department.

As we understand it, our pal MizFit actually goes out and finds cool things that readers might like, things that bear some relation to the subject of her blog, (fitness), and then she obtains these items and gives them away to readers!

Isn't that cool?

But that sounds like way too much work. We usually wait until someone offers us something to give away, which doesn't happen all that often. If we were motivated and proactive enough to contact folks who had cool heath-related products, we'd be begging them for advertising revenue, not free samples.

On the other hand, sometimes people contact us and offer up stuff to review. Most times we say no, because the blog might get even more boring if we took up every single review opportunity that came along. (And honestly, we were getting a lot of laxative offers for a while. Perhaps they think the reason we're so Cranky here at Cranky Fitness is because we're constipated? We're not, I swear.)

But anyway, the last two email offers we got I thought I'd experiment with a new approach. I said: well, we might not review it, but can we give the stuff away to our readers?

And they said yes!

So if this approach continues to work, we might start giving stuff away on Fridays if there's anything on hand. Unless otherwise noted, a Random Number Generator will be used to choose among people who enter by commenting.

Next week, I believe we may have one or more exercise dvd's (still working on the details) but this week... we got razors!

Five of these!



Another blog-pal Stephanie, who also frequently gives things away, says these razors are great.

Do razors have anything to do with health and fitness? Well, gosh, no they don't. But they're free so let's talk about them, shall we?

Each razor has FOUR RAZOR BLADES on it! Because God knows you can't get a close enough shave with just three. (I'm wondering, however, how long this razor-blade escalation will continue. It used to be one, then two, then three, now four... what do you think: Five? Seven? Will there one day be a new Schick Century Razor with 100 razor blades?)

And why do so many of us women even remove our leg hair in the first place? It seems silly and sexist that only one gender is allowed to have leg hair. Alas, I tried go "natural" back in college, being a feminist and all. This approach works great if you are blond or have nice soft sparse downy hair.

I don't.



Seriously. I couldn't pretend I didn't care that I grow long dense thick fur rather than leg hair so I ended that experiment. (But now I tend to get waxed, so don't need to hog the razors for myself).

Unfortunately, though, they only want U.S. winners, which on this blog is inconvenient. We love our Canadians and other international readers! (A Canadian ended up winning the Lipton Bike, by the way, which made us quite happy).

However, for U.S. residents, this means you have a really good chance of winning one of these babies. Will we even get 5 non-Canadian comments?

So if you have any observations about hair removal, or you would like to win a nifty razor, please leave a comment and check back Monday.

Note: Another good place to check for health related give-aways is Healthbolt, which is a fun place to hang out anyway. They've been doing round-ups of free stuff, often on Sundays.

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[By Merry]

Visualize Whirled Peas

They say that you are what you eat. My shape could be described as resembling a big mac (hold the pickles and lettuce).

Food can make you happy. Can food also make you cranky?
A lot of people who are overweight can attest that food can make you (in the short-term) happy. They have developed their full figures because of relying on comfort food (i.e. food that is high in fat) to make them feel better when times are hard.

Just out of curiosity -- why does no one ever try comfort carrots? High on the glycemic index (but not on the glycemic load), carrots are also full of fiber. Plus if you're stressed you can crunch on them and get some of your aggression out. How often have you seen a cranky rabbit?

Rabbit angst... not a pretty sight...

And obviously eating a lot of sugary foods can make you hyper, just as -- so some people say -- eating all the Thanksgiving turkey can make you sleepy. (According to some experts, all that tryptophan in the turkey can make you sleepy. And all this time you thought it was Aunt Marge's habit of pulling out the grandchild photographs that was making you nod off after the T-day dinner.)

Can it work the other way? Can food actually promote anger?
Some of Britain's most challenging young prisoners are to be given food supplements in a study aimed at curbing violent behavior.

Just think! We could promote world peace (or at least whirled peas) by making sure everyone gets decent meals.

Somehow that sounds waaaay too simple. Yes, if no one ever had to worry about putting food on the table, or making sure their table isn't foreclosed on, then I suppose there would be less anger in the world.

Does food = mood?

In some circumstances this makes sense, but all the time? I'm not sure. I can see food being used for all kinds of cranky and indeed lethal behavior. (The Twinkie Defense springs to mind.) What do you think?

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[By Crabby]



So, would you like to see the hilarious photo of the guy running in some big race who crapped his running shorts in front of thousands of horrified/amused spectators?

Click here!

Oh sorry, did that link not work?

Must be technical difficulties. Or, more accurately, psychological ones.

I feel profoundly uncomfortable about the growing internet trend of posting and publicizing pictures and videos of ordinary people who did something accidental and humiliating.

Wrong place, wrong time, caught on camera--and now some poor soul has to cope with the fact that their image is all over the world wide web. Someone leaked bodily fluids or fell in an embarrassing way or fell victim to a prank or an accident and perhaps did not conduct himself or herself with grace.

What if that person were me? How would I feel?

Probably pretty close to suicidal. (I am, however, neurotic).

Are these photos and videos obtained and distributed with the permission of the person being made fun of? Well, I don't know. What's your guess? And if I don't know, should I just assume "they must be ok with it because everyone else is posting it too?"

Of course there are plenty of times when I don't mind laughing right along with everyone else:

Stuck-up celebrities who carefully manipulate their image and do everything they can to be photographed constantly so they can sell that image? Well, when they get caught doing something stupid, I don't feel so bad.

Or idiots who film themselves doing reckless stunts and then wipe out in spectacular or humorous ways? I have no problem with those sorts of videos either.

But an ordinary person minding his or her own business who is not asking for trouble? I think we should leave 'em alone. I don't care how "funny" it was; I care that this was an actual person and I don't want to play a part in hurting them.

I'll admit, I'm someone who is easily embarrassed. I get vicariously embarrassed for others and I cringe right along with them. In fact, I don't even like fictional characters to humiliate themselves. I'll fast-forward through a movie when the drunk person starts to get up to make the speech at the black-tie dinner or whatever. I'm weird, I know.

Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? Am I just being too sensitive?

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[By Crabby]

Photo by trebol-a

I Have Nothing Against Most Bugs

I generally have a "no-kill" policy when it comes to insects. When I'm outside and they annoy me, I shoo them away or go inside. When they manage to get inside, I try to relocate them to the great outdoors. (Or sometimes I'm too lazy and I just leave them, knowing that Someone Else will probably come by and kill them later--but at least I'm not the personal agent of their destruction).

But mosquitoes? Whole different story! I hate mosquitoes. No gentle shooing, no Insect Relocation program. It's all kill, kill, kill, buh-bye.

Yet for someone who hates mosquitoes, I do practically nothing to keep them away from me. I spent most of my life in areas where they're not a huge problem, only an occasional nuisance, so it's taken me a while to "get it."

But now I live somewhere they like to hang out, and I finally understand: Sometimes one really, truly needs to spray on some sort of foul substance to keep from being eaten alive.

But it's so icky! It's worse than even than evil sunscreen.


Is DEET the answer? Wait, what was the question?

I've always heard DEET was the only thing that really worked. And despite years of experts reassuring me that there was nothing to worry about unless one was particularly chemically sensitive (nope--just emotionally) I've never really trusted the stuff.

It burns through synthetic fabrics and plastics, right? How scary is that?

Well, Scientific American recently ran an article on DEET that mentioned annoying side effects like skin irritation, numb or burning lips, nausea, headaches, dizziness and difficulty concentrating, blah blah blah... but then went on to say something about "diffuse brain cell death," and that managed to get my attention.

Brain cell death? Um, no thanks. I'd like to hang on to the precious few brain cells I have. Or if I'm gonna kill them, I'd at least like to use something more fun, like tequila. I'm not wasting brain cells on DEET.

But thankfully, the article also challenged the "DEET is the only effective insect-killer" notion I'd heard so often. They said that in recent years, the alternatives have gotten much better. They recommended two in particular: picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus. To quote:

"Picaridin, long used to repel mosquitoes in other parts of the world, is now available in the U.S. under the Cutter Advanced brand name. Oil of lemon eucalyptus, which is derived from eucalyptus leaves and is the only plant-based active ingredient for insect repellents approved by the CDC, is available in several different forms, including Repel Lemon Eucalyptus, OFF! Botanicals, and Fight Bite Plant-Based Insect Repellent."

Cool! Oil of lemon eucalyptus sounds kinda pleasant, doesn't it? Almost like something you'd pay to be dunked in at the spa. Or the manicurist...

"But Madge, Mosquito Repellent???"
"Relax, You're Soaking In It."

Other Botanical Alternatives:

The Scientific American article mentions a couple other places to get safer mosquito repellent recommendations, (here too), but Google had different ideas.

Google thought we should all be using Catnip to repel mosquitoes.

Turns out, previous research suggested catnip oil might have promise, but alas, even people who sell catnip for a living said: Nope; it doesn't work very well.

Plus, it can actually attract pests.

Photo by donnjmck

Yeah, those too, but they specifically mention bees and fire ants.

Anyway, does anyone else dislike both mosquitoes and the methods used to repel them? Any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone tried the Picaridin or the Oil of lemon eucalyptus?

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[by Crabby]


It is not a scientific secret that genetics play a role in weight gain and obesity.

People have different metabolisms. There are people who eat tons of food and never exercise, yet they are skinny. There are other people who eat healthy foods in reasonable portions, exercise for hours, and will still probably always be "overweight."

Yet because so much hard work and sacrifice is involved in weight loss, there is a tendency among people who are successful to act as though everyone gets the exact same deal. "I gave up my hot fudge sundaes and started running, and look at me! If you're still overweight, it's because you must be eating crap and sitting on your ass all day."

Well, some of you know from experience that it's just not true.

And sure, plenty of people are overweight because they eat way too much and exercise too little. But there are also plenty of others who get a raw deal in the genetic lottery--maybe growing up, you did the same stuff everyone around you was doing, but instead of getting heavy, you got obese. Or maybe you've struggled your whole life to keep from being obese, going to great lengths to be merely overweight. Or perhaps you've swung back and forth, losing and gaining, messing with your already unfriendly metabolism and through the best of intentions making things worse.

It's not fair.

What's It Like To Have the Deck Stacked Against You?

Are you one of those unlucky people? I'm not myself, but I believe that among readers of health and weight loss blogs, there are quite a few. People who are motivated enough to visit blogs and even start their own, and research all the right things to do and try and try and try... but still find the pounds fall off very, very slowly. And sometimes not at all.

I read what some of you folks are eating and what you're doing for exercise, and Holey Moley! It's a lot more demanding than what I have to do to maintain my weight. I would get so exhausted by the daily battle of "bad cookie/good carrot/how many steps on the pedometer today" that I think I'd want to pull my hair out.

I have a pretty "normal" metabolism. If I start eating like an average American and exercising like an average American, even for a few months, I gain weight. I would be overweight now if I hadn't woken up (twice) and reformed my ways when I started to get too self-indulgent. But, unlike some of you, if I eat 90% healthy, count calories for a while, and get a bunch of exercise, I can lose the weight again fairly easily and keep it off.

It makes me wonder what my attitudes would be like if I weren't so lucky. What if I were suddenly "blessed" with a hundred or so extra pounds and a stubborn metabolism? How would I handle it?

The Optimistic Scenario



Here's what I hope I would do:

1. Learn how to reject all the appearance-related garbage we're exposed to daily. I hope I'd learn to love my large thighs and unshedable belly fat even while being constantly told my every magazine, billboard, tv show and casual conversation that I should hate everything about myself.

2. Concentrate more on health goals--getting stronger, fueling my body with nutritious healthy food, building endurance, doing enough cardio to reduce my risk for heart disease and cancer and diabetes, etc. Define progress according to these goals, not a number on the scale.

3. Try to be grateful for all the other ways in which I was still lucky, by looking beyond my immediate situation. I hope I'd remind myself that I could be living in a poverty-stricken nation; I could be in the midst of a war; I could be maimed or disfigured or dying of a painful disease or the victim of any number of unjust fates.

4. Surround myself with supportive, non-judgmental, healthy friends who would understand me and encourage my efforts to be strong and healthy and happy.

5. Seek balance in life and see myself as a whole person with many talents and goals, and not just as number on a scale or a clothing size.

But honestly? I am not a particularly evolved, mature, self-confident person.

The Darker Scenario:




Here is how I fear I might deal with the situation instead:

1. Learn to hate my body, and by extension, myself.

2. Get so focused on calories and portion sizes and "good" and "bad" foods that I'd no longer be able to enjoy eating as a simple pleasurable activity. And with food and exercise so emotionally charged, I fear I'd veer between frantic determination to lose weight versus giving up entirely and bingeing.

3. Become more self-absorbed (if possible) and depressed.

4. Withdraw from social situations out of fear of rejection.

5. Start judging my sense of self worth by how my clothes fit rather than who I was as a person.

Yikes, what a downer, I should have gone in the other order!

So does anyone with a "good" metabolism wonder how they'd fare if they weren't so lucky? Or does anyone who's unlucky have any stories from the trenches or advice for those struggling against unfair odds?

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[Posted by Crabby]

Hmm, Which One is Crabby?

Yes, it's been a while since a Random Friday, but don't worry--it's still just as dopey as ever. Merry is taking some well-deserved time off, thereby lowering the standards of the blog. Pray for her speedy return!

Let's start with a little bit of science, shall we?

Gay Brains:
A brain scan study of gay and hetero brains found surprising differences--with gay men and straight women sharing some characteristics that differed from straight men and lesbians. These were "in the area of the brain responsible for emotion, mood and anxiety." The brains of straight guys and lesbians "were slightly asymmetric with the right hemisphere slightly larger than the left," while gay male and straight female brains were not. And the amygdala (the "fight-or-flight" area) was wired in a similar fashion in gay men/heterosexual women vs gay gals/straight men.

(Note to self: learn better bar-fighting skills and how best to avoid crying at sad movies. Or at least find out why I was apparently issued the wrong model of brain at birth. Consider visiting Healthbolt to take the "what sex is your brain" test).


More Good News on the Beverage Front:
At least if you enjoy coffee and/or red wine.

For java junkies, especially the gals: A new coffee study found that women who drank two to three cups of coffee a day had an 18% reduction in death from all causes compared to non-coffee-drinkers. But what about 4-5 cups a day, that can't be good, right? Well ha ha ha! The women who drank that much had a 26% reduction in risk. (However, the risk reduction in men was small enough it could have been due to chance).

And as for the health benefits of red wine? Well, as you may recall, previous research had shown that an ingredient in red wine, resveratrol, extended longevity in mice. But these studies were done with high doses, which is a problematic if you're trying to generalize to humans, given the obvious inadvisability of guzzling several cases of merlot every night. However, this new research was done with much lower doses, implying that even modest amounts of resveratrol can "can elicit many of the same benefits as a reduced-calorie diet," including "a robust intervention in the retardation of cardiac aging."

Cheers!

Losing Your Cool:
Do you have kids on sports teams? Does it ever drive you crazy to go to their games and watch obnoxious parents behave like complete assh*les and spoil everything? Well, you may want to visit Juicebox Mom at Just Here for the Snacks and print off some copies of her handy and humorous guide: Parents--How to Behave on the Sidelines.

And speaking of Complete Obnoxiousness, this awesome video has been around the net for a while (and there is now a musical version). But for those who haven't seen the vintage Bill O'Reilly meltdown, it is worth watching a World-Class Prick Professional performing at the peak of his powers.



(And O'Reilly has plenty of company, if you want to see a compilation of similar on-camera temper tantrums).

How Much is Too Much?
Here at Cranky Fitness we can't really be accused of "overdoing it" when it comes to rigorous exercise. Nor are we overzealous when it comes to nutrition or personal development or anything else that requires sustained effort. However, some of you out there are quite dedicated and motivated! You may sometimes run into the problem of Doing Too Much.

Are you overdoing it on your exercise routine? Charlotte over at The Great Fitness Experiment has an insightful post on over-training, (and a great follow-up too) that could be a valuable intervention for anyone easily seduced by a "More is Better" approach to fitness. Sometimes more is NOT better.

And similarly, Semi-Charmed Wife asks a lot of good questions about the constant quest for self-improvement and whether it's always healthy. (She doesn't presume to have the answers, either, which is refreshing).

Random Internet Wanderings:

Did you know that the Lolcat people have spawned yet another user-generated humor site that can assist you in avoiding work for hours? Well, it's true, damn it. It's especially suited for people obsessed with popular song lyrics and charts and graphs and such.



plenty more at the graphjam site.


And another cool thing? There are cartoons on the web! Who knew?

Comic courtesy of xkcd

Have a great Friday, folks!

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[By Merry]

You need a shiftless bike like a fish needs a ... oh, never mind...

Silly exercise device du jour: One of those automatic bicycles that shifts gears for you.

Depending on the gear ratios on a bicycle, you can shift into an often bewildering variety of gears. These bicycles are designed to simplify the process by determining when to shift without consulting you on the matter. (You can override the automatic function, but in that case why buy the bicycle?)


I can't speak for the Crab, but my feeling is that you really need to learn to shift for yourself. This device earns short shrift here in my corner of Cranky Fitness land. (Not that I ever give anything long shrift, in fact I've certainly never even seen a long shrift, but that's the way the expression goes.)

I'm trying to think of a situation where this would be a good idea.

I can see it can help people who're completely unused to bicycling get used to bicycling, and that's a good thing. My sister, for example, got one of these after not having been on a bike for 20 years. It's a start, like training wheels before you learn to balance. If you feel overwhelmed with trying to keep upright, not wobble to far into the road, and keep pedaling at the same time, it might help to have one less factor to try to deal with. This bicycle might work for taking short trips on fairly level and isolated bike paths , but I wouldn't want to ride it on the road. It's like learning to balance . You need to learn to shift for yourself.

Some examples of when this bicycle would be a bad idea:


* Sometimes you need to be in a gear for a certain reason. If you're trying to warm up, you want to spin in low gears, whereas if you need to get the hell through an intersection before the moron in the red sedan mows you down, you'll want to be practiced enough to shift into a high gear so you can fly.
* I wouldn't use one if your objective is to get into shape. When you're trying to get fit, it's helpful to do a lot of warming up in very low gears. Spinning, they used to call it, in the days before stationary bicycle classes were the rage. If you pedal in a gear that's lower than necessary, you end up doing a lot more pedaling and covering a lot less distance, but you get your blood pumping and muscles warmed up without putting any strain on your knees. (If you start out cycling in a high gear, you can put more strain on your knees.)
* Sometimes you'll round a corner and see a steep hill up ahead . Not to lose momentum, you'll shift down into a better gear a little before you need to. This self-shifting bicycle doesn't come equipped with eyes; it can't see ahead. You'll find yourself losing momentum while the bicycle takes the time to think "hmmmn... getting steeper here, maybe I should shift."
* Also sometimes the terrain is rollers, a situation where you are going up and down over very small hills (like stretched out bumps, really) . If you've got a rhythm going, your body is in a routine, a comfortable cycle of motion that by repetition becomes something you don't have to think about. If your bicycle detects a change in the level of the terrain and decides to shift for you, you're thrown off your rhythm and have to re-condition yourself, get back into the groove. That's a pain.



Okay, yes, I can see a few reasons why you'd want this bicycle. But I can see a whole lot more reasons why you'd be better off with a bicycle that lets you do the thinking/planning/shifting.

Obligatory note: I have read a few positive reviews of auto-shift bicycles. Seems to me that the reviews were written from the perspective of someone who wanted to get around town occasionally and wasn't interested in using bicycling as a way of getting into shape or of seeing the countryside. I'm including the links to these reviews below.

Popular Mechanics thought this bike was the bee's knees.
Crave wrote it was for the "easily daunted" cyclist.

I'd be interested in some more reviews from people who've tried these bicycles. Am I being too critical? Too dismissive? Cranky minds want to know!

p.s. Ending on a positive note, I have to say these Monkey Lights are really cool. You can generate all kinds of neat patterns on your bicycle wheels while you ride.

It's fun. Kind of like putting a baseball card in your spokes when you were a kid, only you can justify the expense of these because it's a safety issue. Yeah, that's it.

(Why do adults have to rationalize the urge to have something just because it's fun? Or at least, why do I?)

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You Know You Should

Nutritionists out there are always nagging us all to eat more whole grains because they're so good for you. But if you don't spend hours making things from scratch, you may have tried to buy packaged whole grain products at your local grocery store.

Seems easy enough, right? Because the grocery store shelves are bursting with products screaming "Now in Whole Wheat!" or "Made With 100% Whole Grain!"

So you grab a loaf of bread or a box of cereal or a frozen pizza and you take it home. Sometimes it tastes wonderful. Other times, it tastes...




Well, maybe a little too grainy.

But at least you tried. You either make yourself learn to like it, or you abandon the experiment and go back to the refined grain version.

Faked Out

Has this ever happened to you? You're at the grocery store and you discover that some refined flour product you used to buy is now available in 100% whole grain. Hooray! So you take it home and try it and it's not too bad!

But then one day you happen to look more closely at the package...
and discover something suspicious on the ingredients label.

Hmm. How come the first or second ingredient is "wheat flour?"

"Wheat flour" may sound "wheaty" and everything, but didn't you read somewhere that it's just a euphemism for good old refined white flour?

White flour?? You told me it was Whole Wheat!!!

So how could those lying scumbag scheming evil corporate toads product marketing specialists get away with calling a product "100% Whole Grain" when it's not?

Because... they just said it was "made with 100% whole grain."

Gotcha!

There could be just a little bit of whole grain and a lot of other things in there too, like the refined white flour you're trying to avoid. Or...


... insect parts! And hey, by the same reasoning, shouldn't these "made with 100% whole wheat" products also have to say: "Made with 100% Insect Parts?" I'd be willing to bet that the insect parts you're eating in processed foods are generally 100% insect. But oddly enough, I've never seen that particular product label.

That Same Old Song

If you are long-time reader this rant may sound strangely familiar. Yep, I wrote the exact same thing (back when no one reading the blog yet) and I was recommending "white whole wheat," which sounds fake but is really actually a whole grain (winter wheat).

And yet again, the reason for all this whining about fake whole grain products is that it explains my excitement when I find one that appears to be (a) real and (b) very tasty.

So those of you who like Crispy Crunchy things, check out Ian's Whole Wheat Panko Crumbs!



Note: of course as soon as I discovered these, they became temporarily unavailable on Ian's site through Amazon. (They currently only seem to ship their non-whole wheat ones, so this picture is of the Canadian version). However, the Ian's people have assured me you can find their whole wheat panko crumbs at a Whole Foods near you.

All in Search of Crispy Chicken

The reason I found out about these in the first place was because the awesome Elastic Waist blogger Anne had a great post on her fond recollection of Shake 'n Bake chicken.

She was all excited because she found a healthier, tastier recipe for crunchy not-fried chicken at Family, Friends, and Food. But... their recipe called for panko bread crumbs, which I've never tried cooking with before. And I thought--do I really want to find yet one more yummy refined grain product to wish I could eat more of when there are already so many, like cupcakes?

But then I googled "whole wheat panko crumbs" to see if there was such a thing, and there was, at Ian's. So I begged a sample off them, made the Chicken Recipe and...

It was really good! Crunchy and only slightly more grainy than it probably would be using regular panko crumbs. (Note: I did tweak the recipe a bit to make it better match the spices I had available, so I can't vouch for the exact combination. And if you want to try it too, don't be scared of the exotic ingredient "EVOO." For those in the know, which I wasn't, it's just extra virgin olive oil).

Summary: Great bread crumbs, great chicken recipe. Want more!

Does anyone else struggle with the Whole Grain Thing?

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Congratulations Zoe, it's yours!

Please email Crabby at crabby mcslacker @ gmail .com (all one word) with your mailing address and we'll have the 24 hour fitness people send you your 90 day gift certificate.

And if it turns out there's anything funky about it, please let us know. We will use our considerable imaginary power and influence to publicize this fact to the entire blogosphere our 12 readers. (We don't want to be giving out prizes that are a pain in the ass). But assuming it's good for what they told us it was and they don't harass you excessively to continue after it expires... have fun at the gym this summer!

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[Posted by Crabby]

Photo: art.com

Having just gotten back from a brief New England excursion (which was quite fun but left me feeling very guilty for abandoning the internet for a few days) I got to thinking about vacations generally. I'm a McSlacker so I take way more than my fair share--but I can see I'm going to have to step it up even more to bring up the national average.

Because a vacation poll from a couple of months ago said that fewer Americans than ever are planning to take summer vacations in 2008--only a third!

The New York Times was talking about the depressing phenomenon of "shrinking vacation syndrome" a couple of years ago. A typical quote, by a AAA spokesman: "The idea of somebody going away for two weeks is really becoming a thing of the past. It’s kind of sad, really, that people can’t seem to leave their jobs anymore."

Another vacation survey from a year ago found that a more than half of the employees polled did not use all of their vacation.

There seem to be two issues here: the inability to take much time off work, and the expense and difficulty of traveling anywhere when such precious time is actually secured. We'll just mix these two entirely different problems together because it's easier to pretend it's all one issue. But anyway, the net result is:

Hardly anyone seems to be able to "get away from it all" anymore.

It is the official position of Cranky Fitness that This Is Just Wrong! (And not only because we were just pimping reviewing a book about vacation destinations in order to get a free copy introduce you to a valuable resource).

This "shrinking vacation" thing sucks for many reasons, but one of them is actually related to the supposed topic of this blog:

It is apparently unhealthy not to take vacations!

For example, researchers looking at the Framingham heart study data found that women who took a vacation every six years or less were almost eight times more likely to develop heart problems than those who took at least two vacations a year. (And they controlled for other factors like obesity, diabetes, smoking and income). And another study of men at high risk for heart disease also found that those who failed to take annual vacations were more likely to die of a heart attack.

So quick, go to your boss and demand that you be released immediately! If your boss says no, simply lie down on the floor and have a heart attack. That'll show 'em.

Or maybe not. Time spent away from work but hooked up to machines in the Intensive Care Unit might not be quite as relaxing as a week at the beach.

But even if you can manage to take a vacation without threatening cardiac arrest, it may not even help you recuperate if you don't take the right kind.

A survey of managers found that a quarter of them returned from vacation more stressed than when they left, with a third having spent at least part of their break checking in with the office, often every day. And according to Dov Eden, an organizational psychologist who has studied the issue, "those who are electronically hooked up to their office, even if they are lying on the Riviera, are less likely to receive the real benefits of a vacation and more likely to burn out."

Another earlier study looked at "health-related vacation outcome." Despite the dry language, the conclusions were kinda interesting:

"Recuperation" was facilitated by:

• Free time for one's self;
• Warmer (and sunnier) vacation locations;
• Exercise during vacation;
• Go