Get Real!

[limr]

throw away all your bacon

BLASPHELIMRY!!!!!

I see what you did there

 

[limr]

Ah, see I know how to truly inflict pain, though...

I'll just make you watch me throw away all your bacon

Pretty sure that's outlawed by the Geneva convention.

If not, well, it should be.

Geneva Shmeneva, I'll throw ALL OF Y'ALL'S bacon away!!

 

[robbins.photo]

Geneva Shmeneva, I'll throw ALL OF Y'ALL'S bacon away!!

Devil Woman. Lol

 

[weepete]

It really suprises me sometimes that a lot of people don't cook. It's getting that way in the UK too.

 

[JacaRanda]

Ah, see I know how to truly inflict pain, though...

I'll just make you watch me throw away all your bacon

Pretty sure that's outlawed by the Geneva convention.

If not, well, it should be.

Geneva Shmeneva, I'll throw ALL OF Y'ALL'S bacon away!!

Hmmmm, time to play hide the bacon - save your hide - save your bacon.......

 

[rexbobcat]

It really suprises me sometimes that a lot of people don't cook. It's getting that way in the UK too.

It's not surprising when you consider work weeks have gradually been getting longer and longer since the 60's (speaking of the U.S. here) combined with stagnant wages.

My roommate works 10-12 hours a day with no overtime since he's on salary. Even though he makes enough to get a complete haul of fresh produce occasionally, by the time he gets off work the last thing he wants to do is put forth to mental power to create something out of it. And fresh produce goes bad quickly, so you already have to have something in mind before you buy it in the first place.

 

[limr]

It really suprises me sometimes that a lot of people don't cook. It's getting that way in the UK too.

It's not surprising when you consider work weeks have gradually been getting longer and longer since the 60's (speaking of the U.S. here) combined with stagnant wages.

My roommate works 10-12 hours a day with no overtime since he's on salary. Even though he makes enough to get a complete haul of fresh produce occasionally, by the time he gets off work the last thing he wants to do is put forth to mental power to create something out of it. And fresh produce goes bad quickly, so you already have to have something in mind before you buy it in the first place.

This is true, and that's another issue that makes it difficult - you have to figure in time to buy it as well as cook it, because it can't be bought too far in advance. And now...I hate to be obnoxious but there's a 'but' coming...

BUT frozen vegetables are often just as, if not more, nutritious than fresh veggies. Vegetables start losing nutrients the minute they are pulled from the ground/tree/whatever. They are frozen pretty quickly so that actually captures the nutrients better. Fresh vs. Frozen Vegetables: Are we giving up nutrition for convenience? - EatingWell

And frozen can be more affordable because you can load up on them when they are on sale.

Basically what I'm saying is, to eat healthier on the cheap, plan carefully and have a big freezer

 

[Derrel]

Yep, it's not only expensive it's also time consuming to feed people healthy meals. Both parents working 9+ hrs a day leaves little time for a home cooked meal.

Then you get all those people who say "Just go to a farmer's market for fresh, cheap produce."

Where exactly do you live? In my area farmer's markets usually have a 200-300% markup over the local grocery chain.

The only reason I go is because there's always this amazing Indian food truck.

Exactly. We don't have any farmers market here during the winter and in the summer the nearest one is 30 minutes away.

There is absolutely ZERO need, not one bit of "need" for a farmer's market. I'm so sick of hearing this excuse. Learn how to COOK. Buy some real food. Stop buying sh*+ food in cans and boxes. Buy whole, real, un-processed foods, or frozen vegetables. Frozen veggies are fine, since they have been harvested, taken to the cannery, and frozen within hours. I used to work at a cannery....canned beans SAT for HOURS, or even overnight....FORZEN piles were washed, flash-frozen, and packed in about 55 minutes per truck load. Just so you know...

Vegetables are filling, and have fiber. Carrots, celery, heads of green cabbage, and one of the best of all-bok choy. Bok choy is 78 cents a pound here. The key is to get some fricking FIBER in your belly, so you literally ARE full of food, feel full, and your food, being low-glycemic, sloooowly provides energy. You can eat a massive sausage-and-veggie and sausage and black bean burrito, with a glycemic index that is so low you will NOT immediately pass out with a massive blood sugar rush....your kids will be fine all morning at school if he eats some REAL food at 7:45 AM--not a bowl of Trix or some similar crap.

You want to eat "healthy"? Spend a day and learn what low-glycemic index eating is all about. Stop eating crap food. If your kid or kids are addicted to crap food, they'll soon start eating real food within about five days, once their addiction gets a cold turkey crash course in getting off of quick ,salty, sugary, empty calorie foods like canned pasta, cookies, crackers, cereals, and so on.

Eat apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, cherries, peaches, cantaloupe...here, bananas at the discount grocery chain WinCo, are 48 cents per pound--and will be, the entire year. Navel oranges right now? 68 cents per pound. This is far, far, far less than canned or plastic cup food. Cantaloupe is 68 cents per pound. Eat beans, carrots, lettuce, celery, garlic, potatoes, peppers, bean sprouts, berries, and other actual, real, not-processed foods.

Stay the hell away from juices!!! Fiber and whole-chunk foods are far better than finely minced or ground, or even worse, pureed vegetables where the fiber has been broken down by a 10,000 RPM blade. Juices are NOT healthy, especially if they have a lot of sugars in them...the idea is that the foods are processed by the digestive system, over tiiiiiiiiiiime...not dumped into the gullet in liquid form.

Buy the apple variety that is 78 or 89 cents per pound that week. Stock up on things that keep well, like apples, oranges, onions. cabbage, bok choy. Buy frozen vegetables. Go to a stores that has lower prices, instead of making excuses.

Dinner of a bok-choy stir/fry or steam fry with chicken or sausage, with cheese and fruit for dinner and even ice cream takes me 24 minutes to prepare AND to cook. Opening a Souffer's frozen lasagne givesyou high blood pressure after about 10 years. Ask me how I know! Invest some time in making real food, and not wasting it watching some stupid half-hour ABC comedy.

Eat a LOW GLYCEMIC INDEX diet. Why? You will have plenty of fiber and plenty of food in your belly, and it will break down slooo0wly, over hours, so you will not be hungry in five minutes. All you need to do is spend one single NIGHT on the web.

Oh...and the reason you want to get off the Typical American Prepared Food Death Sentence is so you will not develop diabetes in your 40's, like I did. Once I learned about the low-glyceminc index method of food selection, my health improved markedly within two weeks. I also managed to eat better, feel better, and to lose 96 pounds over two years without doing any more exercise that I have done the last 20 years. You might not realize that white rice and white bread are far,far worse than ice cream. Ice cream is fine...I have PLENTY of it...

The neighbor kids, the CHinese ones, that eat white rice at least 12 times per week, as a staple...they all are 12 years old and are FAT, and already have pointy man-boobs. They are fat as little hogs--because their STAPLE is white rice--one of the most deadly foods, and one Harvard medical School has linked to being a key food to avoid; its consumption leads almost directly to Type 2 diabetes.

You want to lose weight, eat better, eat more, and be contented with the food you eat? Stop eating CRAP. Start buying REAL food--nobody is talking Farmer's Market organics or ANY of that crap...

My 140 pound fitness doctor cannot believe how LOW my cholesterol and A1-C levels are...I eat mostly eggs, sausage, chicken breast, bok choy, onions, green and red peppers, bananas, apples, potatoes,onions, cabbage, melon, peanuts, black beans, tortillas, refried beans, lettuce, celery, sardines, and so on... Actual, real food...I cook every single meal in a skillet or an oven. I eat ice cream like craxy because with a glycemic index of around 54 to 58 it is BETTER for a diabetic than bread or rice. I drink WHOLE MILK because whole milk has fats, which make it process more slowly than skim milk: if you love you kids do NOT let them drink skim or low-fat milk, especially with chocolate powder. You need "some" fat, "some oil", to buffer carbs and their conversion in to sugar. Low-fat milk + chocilate powder is a terrible, terrible drink for kids--it;'s almost as bad as soda.

Start buying real food. Real food. Not crap in packages and cartons and ready-to-heat. Stop buying "meal in a can" snack crap.

Get real, indeed. Start investing in your family and yourself, and stop buying the processed, non-food crap the stores are filled with. Eat veggies, fruit, meat, fish, chicken, turkey, and start looking at low-glycemic index food. MOST of it is very affordable, and the stores are FILLED with it. Learn the basics of nutrition. Stop making excuses about it being impossible to eat well with a limited food budget: I eat well, and my grocery bill is very small. My kid is normal in height and weight; the many CHinese kids here that eat rice,rice,rice constantly...man-boobs and pot-bellies by age 12. The idea that "organic" veggies are needed is rubbish. Start eating like people ate for centuries...real, whole FOOD...nothing in a package! Easy on the high-carb, processed foods.

I ate as MUCH as I wanted every night from 2013 to 2015. I dropped 96 pounds and got my A1-C level to lower-than-diabetic.

 

[Derrel]

Glycemic index and glycemic load for 100+ foods - Harvard Health

I lost 96 pounds based on THIS, ONE single page, as it was in 2013. And I ate like a king.

Take a look. Look at one of your healthy "cheat" snack foods: Peanut M&M's, glycemic index of 33.

If you are diabetic, consider that more fat can actually sloooow sugar conversion, so a slightly higher glycemic index can be offset by having more fat.

The biggest danger is pure, small-size carbs: white rice is horrible. You'll note that the converted rices, like Uncle Bens with its g.i. of 30, has had MOST of the starch cooked out of it; the "converted" rice has been pre-cooked, and the starch removed, so it cooks in 5 minutes. Plain, whole-grain white rice has an average glycemic index of 89--substantially higher than brown rice at a glycemic index of 50.

Premium ice cream has a glycemic index of 38; white rice 89; plain, white French style bnaguette bread has a glycemic index of 95: which is about the same g.i. as a low-blood-sugar first aid drink called Lucozade®, original (sparkling glucose drink), with a g.i. of around 95--or higher!

A Vanilla cake made from packet mix with vanilla frosting (Betty Crocker) has a glycemic index of 42. Waffles, Aunt Jemima® (Quaker Oats), glycemic index of 76. Huh...who wouldda' thunk that CAKE for breakfast would be more nutritious than packaged frozen waffles. Yeah, science and s**+.

An orange's average g.i.? 40. I eat oranges like candy. I eat three if I feel like it. Hell, canned peaches in light syrup have a g.i. of 40! An average apple has a g.i, of 39. A frozen bagel?
Bagel, white, frozen -- its glycemic index is 72!!!

Wheat tortillas, one of my staples for big, bean-and meat-filled wraps? Glycemic index is 30.
50% cracked wheat kernel bread, g.i. is only 58. Cheap, white balloon bread? Wonder brand, 73.

Cornflakes®, average 93. Ninety-three!!! One of the WORST foods--ever, for kids! Might as well feed them ice cream for breakfast--it is healthier, and has more actual food value over time.

 

[table1349]

Yep, it's not only expensive it's also time consuming to feed people healthy meals. Both parents working 9+ hrs a day leaves little time for a home cooked meal.

Then you get all those people who say "Just go to a farmer's market for fresh, cheap produce."

Where exactly do you live? In my area farmer's markets usually have a 200-300% markup over the local grocery chain.

The only reason I go is because there's always this amazing Indian food truck.

Exactly. We don't have any farmers market here during the winter and in the summer the nearest one is 30 minutes away.

There is absolutely ZERO need, not one bit of "need" for a farmer's market. I'm so sick of hearing this excuse. Learn how to COOK. Buy some real food. Stop buying sh*+ food in cans and boxes. Buy whole, real, un-processed foods, or frozen vegetables. Frozen veggies are fine, since they have been harvested, taken to the cannery, and frozen within hours. I used to work at a cannery....canned beans SAT for HOURS, or even overnight....FORZEN piles were washed, flash-frozen, and packed in about 55 minutes per truck load. Just so you know...

Vegetables are filling, and have fiber. Carrots, celery, heads of green cabbage, and one of the best of all-bok choy. Bok choy is 78 cents a pound here. The key is to get some fricking FIBER in your belly, so you literally ARE full of food, feel full, and your food, being low-glycemic, sloooowly provides energy. You can eat a massive sausage-and-veggie and sausage and black bean burrito, with a glycemic index that is so low you will NOT immediately pass out with a massive blood sugar rush....your kids will be fine all morning at school if he eats some REAL food at 7:45 AM--not a bowl of Trix or some similar crap.

You want to eat "healthy"? Spend a day and learn what low-glycemic index eating is all about. Stop eating crap food. If your kid or kids are addicted to crap food, they'll soon start eating real food within about five days, once their addiction gets a cold turkey crash course in getting off of quick ,salty, sugary, empty calorie foods like canned pasta, cookies, crackers, cereals, and so on.

Eat apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, cherries, peaches, cantaloupe...here, bananas at the discount grocery chain WinCo, are 48 cents per pound--and will be, the entire year. Navel oranges right now? 68 cents per pound. This is far, far, far less than canned or plastic cup food. Cantaloupe is 68 cents per pound. Eat beans, carrots, lettuce, celery, garlic, potatoes, peppers, bean sprouts, berries, and other actual, real, not-processed foods.

Stay the hell away from juices!!! Fiber and whole-chunk foods are far better than finely minced or ground, or even worse, pureed vegetables where the fiber has been broken down by a 10,000 RPM blade. Juices are NOT healthy, especially if they have a lot of sugars in them...the idea is that the foods are processed by the digestive system, over tiiiiiiiiiiime...not dumped into the gullet in liquid form.

Buy the apple variety that is 78 or 89 cents per pound that week. Stock up on things that keep well, like apples, oranges, onions. cabbage, bok choy. Buy frozen vegetables. Go to a stores that has lower prices, instead of making excuses.

Dinner of a bok-choy stir/fry or steam fry with chicken or sausage, with cheese and fruit for dinner and even ice cream takes me 24 minutes to prepare AND to cook. Opening a Souffer's frozen lasagne givesyou high blood pressure after about 10 years. Ask me how I know! Invest some time in making real food, and not wasting it watching some stupid half-hour ABC comedy.

Eat a LOW GLYCEMIC INDEX diet. Why? You will have plenty of fiber and plenty of food in your belly, and it will break down slooo0wly, over hours, so you will not be hungry in five minutes. All you need to do is spend one single NIGHT on the web.

Oh...and the reason you want to get off the Typical American Prepared Food Death Sentence is so you will not develop diabetes in your 40's, like I did. Once I learned about the low-glyceminc index method of food selection, my health improved markedly within two weeks. I also managed to eat better, feel better, and to lose 96 pounds over two years without doing any more exercise that I have done the last 20 years. You might not realize that white rice and white bread are far,far worse than ice cream. Ice cream is fine...I have PLENTY of it...

The neighbor kids, the CHinese ones, that eat white rice at least 12 times per week, as a staple...they all are 12 years old and are FAT, and already have pointy man-boobs. They are fat as little hogs--because their STAPLE is white rice--one of the most deadly foods, and one Harvard medical School has linked to being a key food to avoid; its consumption leads almost directly to Type 2 diabetes.

You want to lose weight, eat better, eat more, and be contented with the food you eat? Stop eating CRAP. Start buying REAL food--nobody is talking Farmer's Market organics or ANY of that crap...

My 140 pound fitness doctor cannot believe how LOW my cholesterol and A1-C levels are...I eat mostly eggs, sausage, chicken breast, bok choy, onions, green and red peppers, bananas, apples, potatoes,onions, cabbage, melon, peanuts, black beans, tortillas, refried beans, lettuce, celery, sardines, and so on... Actual, real food...I cook every single meal in a skillet or an oven. I eat ice cream like craxy because with a glycemic index of around 54 to 58 it is BETTER for a diabetic than bread or rice. I drink WHOLE MILK because whole milk has fats, which make it process more slowly than skim milk: if you love you kids do NOT let them drink skim or low-fat milk, especially with chocolate powder. You need "some" fat, "some oil", to buffer carbs and their conversion in to sugar. Low-fat milk + chocilate powder is a terrible, terrible drink for kids--it;'s almost as bad as soda.

Start buying real food. Real food. Not crap in packages and cartons and ready-to-heat. Stop buying "meal in a can" snack crap.

Get real, indeed. Start investing in your family and yourself, and stop buying the processed, non-food crap the stores are filled with. Eat veggies, fruit, meat, fish, chicken, turkey, and start looking at low-glycemic index food. MOST of it is very affordable, and the stores are FILLED with it. Learn the basics of nutrition. Stop making excuses about it being impossible to eat well with a limited food budget: I eat well, and my grocery bill is very small. My kid is normal in height and weight; the many CHinese kids here that eat rice,rice,rice constantly...man-boobs and pot-bellies by age 12. The idea that "organic" veggies are needed is rubbish. Start eating like people ate for centuries...real, whole FOOD...nothing in a package! Easy on the high-carb, processed foods.

I ate as MUCH as I wanted every night from 2013 to 2015. I dropped 96 pounds and got my A1-C level to lower-than-diabetic.

Sorry, have to disagree with your first statement. I have yet to find canned or frozen whole uncooked heirloom tomatoes. I make a wicked heirloom tomato pie from scratch. Must be heirloom for their beefier texture and lower moisture content. Farmers markets in this area provide some types of fruits and vegetables not normally available in the mega marts. A farmers market grown in the dirt, in the field in the sunshine tomato tastes worlds better than a hot house mega mart tomato.

 

[table1349]

It really suprises me sometimes that a lot of people don't cook. It's getting that way in the UK too.

It's not surprising when you consider work weeks have gradually been getting longer and longer since the 60's (speaking of the U.S. here) combined with stagnant wages.

My roommate works 10-12 hours a day with no overtime since he's on salary. Even though he makes enough to get a complete haul of fresh produce occasionally, by the time he gets off work the last thing he wants to do is put forth to mental power to create something out of it. And fresh produce goes bad quickly, so you already have to have something in mind before you buy it in the first place.

This is true, and that's another issue that makes it difficult - you have to figure in time to buy it as well as cook it, because it can't be bought too far in advance. And now...I hate to be obnoxious but there's a 'but' coming...

BUT frozen vegetables are often just as, if not more, nutritious than fresh veggies. Vegetables start losing nutrients the minute they are pulled from the ground/tree/whatever. They are frozen pretty quickly so that actually captures the nutrients better. Fresh vs. Frozen Vegetables: Are we giving up nutrition for convenience? - EatingWell

And frozen can be more affordable because you can load up on them when they are on sale.

Basically what I'm saying is, to eat healthier on the cheap, plan carefully and have a big freezer

Weekend cooking for the week, a freezer and one of these and you can eat well, eat healthy and eat with fresh ingredients.

 

[limr]

I think Derrel's point is that one does not NEED to get vegetables at a farmers' market when the main goal is to try to avoid processed foods. I don't think he was saying there is no need for anyone, ever. He was reacting to the same idea that I was: that a person has only the choice of eating canned, processed foods OR spending a bunch of money on organic produce that they can't afford. That is an either-or (false dichotomy) logical fallacy.

Your example of needing specific tomatoes for a dish you like to make is a different story. The point remains that in a lot of ways, farmers' markets in many areas of the country are expensive and less accessible to an average person who is just trying to feed their family on a tight budget.

 

[table1349]

I think Derrel's point is that one does not NEED to get vegetables at a farmers' market when the main goal is to try to avoid processed foods. I don't think he was saying there is no need for anyone, ever. He was reacting to the same idea that I was: that a person has only the choice of eating canned, processed foods OR spending a bunch of money on organic produce that they can't afford. Your example of needing specific tomatoes for a dish you like to make is a different story. The point remains that in a lot of ways, farmers' markets in many areas of the country are expensive and less accessible to an average person who is just trying to feed their family on a tight budget.

You may well be right but there is only one definitive statement that can be made with certainty, we are all going to die. All the rest are open to interpretation.

Things must be different back east than here in the midwest. The famers market on our side of town is usually cheaper or no more expensive for most things than the local mega mart. That includes things like bison and ostrich, which the mega mart does not carry. The quality of the produce is often better and it is generally for a fact fresher. Most of it picked, or harvested on Friday, since the market is only open on Saturday. Probably 1/3 of our farmers market is Amish/Mennonite. In addition to the fruits, vegetables and meats there is an abundance of baked goods that are scratch made. The taste and quality are amazing.

One of the things that may make a difference here, everything at our Farmers market MUST be Kansas grown. No shipped in out of state produce.

 

[limr]

I think Derrel's point is that one does not NEED to get vegetables at a farmers' market when the main goal is to try to avoid processed foods. I don't think he was saying there is no need for anyone, ever. He was reacting to the same idea that I was: that a person has only the choice of eating canned, processed foods OR spending a bunch of money on organic produce that they can't afford. Your example of needing specific tomatoes for a dish you like to make is a different story. The point remains that in a lot of ways, farmers' markets in many areas of the country are expensive and less accessible to an average person who is just trying to feed their family on a tight budget.

You may well be right but there is only one definitive statement that can be made with certainty, we are all going to die. All the rest are open to interpretation.

Things must be different back east than here in the midwest. The famers market on our side of town is usually cheaper or no more expensive for most things than the local mega mart. That includes things like bison and ostrich, which the mega mart does not carry. The quality of the produce is often better and it is generally for a fact fresher. Most of it picked, or harvested on Friday, since the market is only open on Saturday. Probably 1/3 of our farmers market is Amish/Mennonite. In addition to the fruits, vegetables and meats there is an abundance of baked goods that are scratch made. The taste and quality are amazing.

One of the things that may make a difference here, everything at our Farmers market MUST be Kansas grown. No shipped in out of state produce.

It really depends on where you are. This area is rotten with "farmers'" markets, but there are precious few farmers at most of them. There are many vendors from dairy farms, wineries, bakeries...and yes, the quality of the food is excellent but it's also EXPENSIVE (and most of them are Hudson Valley farms.) The few stands that sell vegetables can also be pretty expensive. They are not catering to the average, working-class kind of customer. They are catering to the people who like to brag to their friends that they shop for organic food at the "quaint" little farmers' market, and aren't they just saintly for feeding their families so well AND saving the earth at the same time by bringing their designer cloth grocery bags?

Granted, this is suburban NY and there's a lot of silliness around here. It's different the farther you get away from the city. I am lucky enough to have found one that is very close by where there are some Amish vendors who drive from PA. And the other vendors at that market are pretty down to earth and charge more reasonable prices.

BUT I am also lucky enough to have a car to drive there, which a lot of lower-income folks don't have. Sure, the market is in a city that has a lot of lower-income families and they can walk there, but if someone doesn't live in that city, they'd need public transportation, which isn't very good out here in the suburbs. And chances are they are still working one of their jobs on Saturday morning and can't take enough time to spend the entire morning waiting for the bus, transferring maybe one or two times, shopping, then making the return trip. And further upstate? It's even harder. There are a lot of economically-depressed areas in upstate New York, and even fewer options for public transportation.

So yes, perhaps it's easier in some areas of the country, but for many many people, buying fresh vegetables at a farmers' market is a pipe dream.

 

[limr]

But this is all beside the point.

The point is that if someone lives in an area where farmers' markets are affordable, accessible options, then that's fantastic! They should take advantage of them. But it's not the ONLY option, and if someone lives in an area where farmers' markets are expensive or far away, there are still other ways to get vegetables at an affordable price. The choice is NOT "farmers' market veggies or no veggies at all."