A Practical Guide To Healthy Living

Whole Foods recently had a special on their small (4 and 5 oz.) bags of Kettle Brand chips, and I’ve seen that Kettle has started making baked chips and was curious to try them.  Our absolute, to-die-for favorite flavor of these is “salt & fresh ground pepper,” aptly described on the bag as the “yin yang of spice.”  They are thicker than your average Lay’s chip, and are super crunchy and satisfying.  The salt & pepper chips are tangy from the salt and have a little bite from the pepper – hard to describe, easy to love.

So, if I could have all this satisfaction and enjoy better nutritionals, I’d be psyched.  Well, I hate to report, the baked version is not great.

First off, the nutrition low-down.  The baked chips are far better – each serving (28 g) has 120 calories, 3 g of total fat, 120 mg of sodium, 21 g of carbs, and a whopping 430 mg of potassium.  The same serving size of the fried chips has 150 calories, 9 g total fat, 180 mg of sodium, 16 g carbs and 420 mg of potassium.  So unlike some “light” products, these do offer a nutritional benefit.

But the taste, well, just doesn’t match up.  The baked chips aren’t “krinkle cut,” which isn’t a problem – they’re nevertheless satisfyingly crunchy.  But the salt & black pepper can’t seem to consistently adhere to the chips due to the lack o’ grease or something.  I did expect these to be overall less flavorful due to being baked, not fried, but it’d be great if they could get the flavorings to better stick to the chip.  So what you end up with is 4 oz. of baked potato chips without any salt, even.   Isn’t saltiness the point of chips? 

Are they better than Baked Lay’s?  Definitely.  These taste like real food – to me, the Baked Lay’s taste of a laboratory.  And when you do happen upon a chip with the seasonings on it, it is tasty, despite the lack of fat.

So instead of spening your hard-earned cash on these, I vote for splurging once in a while on the regular, full-on version - if you’re like me and don’t eat chips very often, you might as well go whole-hog and just enjoy the real thing.  Just try not to eat the entire bag in one sitting, OK?

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If you’re at a loss sometimes, you’re not alone.  A recent survey by the Shelton Group showed that nearly 2/3 of the 1,006 U.S. consumers polled try to purchase foods produced in an environmentally friendly way.  But the consumers rated “100% natural” as the most reliable label claim, far ahead of “100% organic.”  It seems that consumers think that the word ‘organic’ is more of an unregulated marketing term, when really, the opposite is true.  ‘Natural’ is an unregulated word – organic foods must meet government standards to be certified as such. 

Want to know more?  Here is a guide to what the organic certification really means.  And here is a good article from the Chicago Tribune that talks about the Shelton Group study and goes further into the confusion regarding food labeling.  The Tribune also has a handy-dandy guide to the difference between “organic” and “natural” labeling on a variety of products that you can find here.

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The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy/Food and Health Program just released its “Smart Guide” to hormones in the food system.  It’s a PDF that you can download, and it has some good history and background information on where different synthetic hormones turn up and why, and also includes some tips on how to reduce your total hormone exposure from food and drink.  Check it out for yourself here.

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So, we saw my daughter’s pediatrician this a.m., and she didn’t push me on the seasonal flu vaccine, nor did she push me to seriously consider H1N1 when it comes out – she said “there is no safety data” on the H1N1 vaccine, and when I told her that my philosophy is that the flu vaccines generally are optional, she said “completely.” 

Now please note – my daughter has no underlying health issues – no asthma, no compromised immune system from something else, etc. – so seek your own advice, please (sorry, it’s the lawyer in me).  But I will keep an ear to the ground on this and let you all know when/if I hear more that’s interesting.

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I know some of you are afraid to cook fish at home.  I’m not really sure where this comes from, because aside from the fact that you need to buy it day-of cooking (in most cases), I find fish to be a quick and easy answer to the “what’s for dinner?” question.

In our house, we eat a lot of cod.  I know, I know, cod has historically been  over fished, but it’s the only fish that we all consistently agree on.  My daughter won’t eat any of the greens associated with a fish recipe, but she’ll often eat some of the cod itself, along with her ever-present noodles.

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I am normally not a germaphobe – ask anyone who knows me – I have consistently let my kid eat stuff that’s fallen on the floor (within limits, I mean, not on the T or anything – at home, mostly) and while I encourage hand-washing, I only pack Purell or some other alcohol-based hand sanitizer because sometimes when we’re out and about, my daughter wants to eat (i.e., food on a stick, on the street) and there is no place to wash.

All that said, I’m freaking a little bit about H1N1.  I normally choose not to have my daughter vaccinated against the seasonal flu – seems every year that they don’t get the vaccine quite right, and well, we’ve been lucky too.  Unlike other vaccines, I consider this one to be optional.  I just don’t want to medicate her any more than I “have” to.  But I don’t know what I’m going to do this year.  Her pediatrician will likely recommend the seasonal flu vaccine, as usual, but as of now there is no workable vaccination for the swine flu . . . and the question for me is, what’s the likelihood they’re going to get this one right?  The consequences of getting H1N1 seem to be more dire for the kids – I am drawn to all the awful stories of kids dying from swine flu.  So the overprotective mother says “get the freakin’ vaccine, you idiot!”  But I’m unsure right now.

One thing I do know is that I’ll be militant about hand-washing.  When I was having chemo years ago, my oncologist impressed upon me the importance of hand-washing – not just for folks with depressed immune systems, but for everyone.  A huge number of illnesses can be stopped in their tracks if you just wash your hands.  With regular old soap.  You do know that those antibacterial soaps are no good, right?  They really are no better at killing germs than regular soap and water, and they can ultimately be harmful to us and to the environment.  Here’s an alarming EWG post regarding the horrors of triclosan.

So I guess I’ll watch and wait.  I’ll keep you posted if I find anything that swings hard one way or the other.  Until then, here’s a nice CDC post from earlier in August regarding H1N1 – lots of facts and dispels some myths (thank G-d you can’t get this from eating pork – my small “porkatarian” would be devastated!).  For now, I keep looking the other way when I see the news stories regarding “the explosion” that’s about to ensue now that our kids are going back to school.

Fingers crossed.

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A few people have asked for a run-down of my favorite spots to eat/get food in Boston’s Chinatown.  We’re there a few times every month.  Sunday is our favorite day to go – we head in there in the late afternoon for some shopping, maybe a haircut for our daughter, and then an early dinner and dessert before we head back to the ‘burbs. 

Our favorite spot for dinner is Vinh Sun BBQ & Restaurant, on Beach Street.  We think their roasted meats are the best in Chinatown – they beat the pants of Hong Kong Eatery (on Harrison).  Our daughter’s true love, and rightfully so, is the roast pork and rice plate.  A generous portion of freshly roasted pork, complete with a lovely glaze on its exterior, is served atop a bed of white rice and some steamed choi.  The pork is tender, perfectly cooked and super flavorful.  Vinh Sun’s hot & sour soup is pretty good, and their ma po dofu does have a kick to it (although never enough for my taste).  They have some nice Hong Kong style noodle soups – I often get my favorite shrimp dumpling soup – a large portion of tasty shrimp-filled dumplings in chicken broth with loads of noodles to boot. 

After we finish up at Vinh Sun, we usually hit a bakery or two.  Our favorite for butterfly cookies is Hing Shing, also on Beech Street (right next to the Chinatown gate).  These butterfly cookies are sweeter and more flavorful than other butterfly cookies I’ve had (and, um, I’ll admit to trying many a butterfly cookie in my time) – in fact, these are the only butterfly cookies I like.  The others are too bland and lardy for me – these have great flavor. 

Next door to Hing Shing is the Great Taste Bakery and Restaurant – a newish place.   We haven’t yet eaten at the restaurant, but the bakery has great dan tat (egg custards) and cream buns (my #1 Chinatown bakery vice, a slightly sweet super-soft bun, dusted with finely shredded coconut, then slit partway through the middle and stuffed with light sweet cream filling).  For some chat on the food at the restaurant, check out this threadon Chowhound.  A meal there is on our “must do soon” list, as are their baked cha siu bao. 

Ho Yuen bakery is also on on Beach street, just a couple doors up from Vinh Sun, towards Harrison.  They have great almond cookies.

Eldo Cakehouse on Harrison Ave. is a well-loved place.  I used to love their cream buns, but I think that Great Taste has them beat.  Their cakes are beautiful and delicious, if you like whipped cream frosting.  They boast beautiful fruit decorations are are pretty reasonably priced.  Some people think their baked cha siu bao are the best, others rave about their beef curry turnovers.  Adjacent to the bakery is the Eldo Candy House – lots of little treats there – another favorite stop for our daughter. 

Sometimes we go to Chinatown for dim sum, and we have two favorites there:  China Pearl and Hei La Moon.  Both offer the traditional dim sum with carts and crowds.  I think Hei La Moon has an edge over CP food-quality-wise, but be forewarned, it’s on Beach Street, across the surface artery from Chinatown proper.  Our strategy is to get to either of these places by 11 a.m., because then we’re seated almost immediately.  If you get there anytime after that, be prepared to wait. 

Boston’s Chinatown is small – you can cover it all in a flash.  Chowhound is a super resource – there are lots of other notable places to eat in C-town that we just don’t get to.  Search for yourself (sea food?  hot pot?) and find some favorites of your own.

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OK, so remember how I posted Sigg’s confessional letter from a week or so ago?  The one where they finally admit that their pre-’08 bottles have trace BPA in them?  I’ve been reading more about it, and thinking more about it, and it’s got my ire up.  It’s slimy what they did – during all the BPA fury, they just kept quiet, even denied that their bottle linings contained BPA, and then they changed their liners (such an admission of guilt) but yet kept the bottles with the old liners on the market.  I BOUGHT SMALL BOTTLES FOR MY DAUGHTER IN EARLY SEPTEMBER OF LAST YEAR – WITH THE OLD FREAKIN’ LINERS.  I SPENT $17.99 FOR EACH OF THEM. 

All told, I have 7 Sigg bottles with the old liners.  The small ones for L., some medium, some large.  Over $100 in Sigg bottles that I don’t want to use anymore. 

I found this post tonight on one of my favorite blogs, and it does link to a site that says that Sigg will replace your bottles for you, with the ones with the new liners, if you write to them and if you pay the postage to send them.  So here’s my question.  Can we trust them?  I mean, the new liners are some new chemical concoction.  Who’s to say that’s A-OK?  They do have 100% unlined stainless steel bottles, but they don’t seem to be in stock, and the letter the linked-to site received says Sigg will replace the bottles with ones with the new liners.  I don’t want any liners any more.  I think Sigg should send me whichever bottle I want in return for my old bottles, in order to create good will with one of their former #1 fans.  Or else I’m going to recycle all those mothers and order myself a slew of Kleen Kanteens.  Do you hear me, Sigg??  I feel ripped off, snookered and hoodwinked.

So please comment!  What are you going to do? 

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