Ironman nutrition in Madison

For the past few days, I’ve been trying to stick to a Weight Watchers plan and LotStreetWiz has been trying to eat healthily for an athlete’s training plan. He gets to eat about 4,200 Calories a day. It’s hard to eat healthily while travelling.

The Chicago Grill Uno Pizzaria was delicious, but the individual pizzas were almost 2,000 Calories each with 4 ounces (130 grams) of fat. My meal there blew away my whole diet budget for the week. No wonder half the patrons were blimps. They should rename it Fat City:

The star is the Panera Bread restaurant. The food is delicious, with sandwiches made with fresh bread, salads, robust mixing of flavours, and home-made soups. There’s a bakery with home-made desserts and good coffee. And there’s free wireless Internet access. So we’re here.

Planning your fast-food meals

I found an online version of the nutrition charts that you can get from fast-food outlets. I looked at the Tim Horton’s coffee shop site for warm meals - various soups, baked beans, or chili. If you want to plan your meals, you can select the healthiest two or three for your purposes. I also threw in one of the new “breakfast sandwiches”–the sausage patty & bacon on a tea biscuit.

The first thing I noticed was that all of them are pretty salty. But you can see that if you want to diet, the vegetable soup is has the fewest Calories; if you want a substantial meal without too much cholesterol, the baked beans are good, but they’re also the saltiest and by far the sweetest. The broccoli soup is rich and has almost 50% saturated fat. The split pea with ham seems like a good compromise, with less fat, less sugar, and more fibre.

One thing that’s not explained is the breakdown between “carbohydrate” and sugar: sugar is a carbohydrate, so is it included in “carbohydrates” or does the chart read “carbohydrate” when it means starch? UPDATE: Sugar is included: to find starches, subtract sugar.

I like the breakfast sausage because it’s hours before I’m hungry again; and from this chart I can see why: it contains about 1/4 of the calories and over half the fat I should eat in a day.

These are the Canadian values. The nutrition levels for U.S. stores are slightly different and seem to indicate a slightly larger serving of meat. Also, the U.S. nutrition charts give the calories from fat, which is useful: no more than 20 - 30% of calories should come from fat. And here’s a warning: the charts can be as much as 20% off in their nutrition analysis, which means that the calories, fat and sugar might be higher and the fibre, protein, and so on might be lower.

The interactive nutrion guides have a selection of the more popular foods; the PDF versions have more complete charts.

Recalled contaminated pet food goes to pigs

The pet food contaminated with melamine that was recalled after causing the death of pets has been sold to hog farms in the U.S.

See also “Chemical interaction harmed pets” or “More about pet-food recall.”

The Science Notes book review: Monkey Girl

In the first four chapters of the book, Humes sets up the situation, explains the issues from different points of view, introduces the new characters, and discusses how the school board, driven by a few of its more religous members, held up the approval of a standard textbooks and tried to ram in an anti-evolution textbook against the wishes of the teachers. When that failed, the books were mysteriously and “anonymously” donated and the high-school science curriculum was changed, precipitating an educational crisis and a court case.

I’ve finished the book. Humes tries to be understanding, but it’s clear that the sins against logic, reason, and honesty were on the side of the religiously motivated schoolboard, which blustered, then threatened, then sneaked in their textbook as a supposedly anonymous donation, then lied under oath about their methods, their motives, and their words again and again. The parents who were the plaintiffs, in contrast, appear as concerned and caring, reluctant to be dragged into the spotlight, but feeling that they had to speak up for the sake of their children.

Invertebrate snacks

The Urban Pantheist has made Ammonites in a Blanket. Follow the link for a larger photo.

They are made with hot dogs, but at first glance I thought the tentacles were beet stalks.

In 2006, Urban Pantheist has documented 365 urban species.

Covert Bailey’s target diet

Covert Bailey’s “Fit or Fat” books recommend a “target diet” in which you aim for the centre. Eat the foods listed in the centre most often, the foods in the outer circles less often, and the foods outside the target hardly at all.

In effect, he’s saying that you can eat lots of most fruits and vegetables, water-packed tuna, skim milk, and whole grains; and less of foods heavily laden with fats and sugars. That makes it fairly easy to follow—or at least to know what to eat.

He has only four stated rules:
* Eat a balanceed diet.
* Choose foods that are low in fat.
* Choose foods that are low in sugar.
* Choose foods that are high in fibre.

Serving sizes

They do vary a little from one authority to another.

First of all, here’s a serving size game — guess what’s counts as a serving of different foods.

This is what approximately what I was told about serving sizes.

If we’re going by volume, why not just use 1/2 cup or 125 ml instead of ping-pong balls, light bulbs, bars of soap, dice, fists, balls, CDs, cup-cake wrappers!? (the latter being measures of diameter). All of those things (except CDs) commonly vary. And if volume isn’t reliable, how about weight? Here’s a PDF version of a serving-size quick reference card with some of those ridiculous measurements. To go along with it, here are dietary guidelines for healthy Americans (PDF). Here are further dietary guidelines aimed at educators.