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Polenta especially if homemade is good. Store bought can be heavy in sodium and varies by manufacturer. Polenta in the with Mexican/Hispanic foods can throw your sodium count off if that is important.
Oh heresy! never get store-bought polenta, it is horrendous. Purchase the bright yellow grains (called "polenta," NOT cornmeal and not corn flour) at an ethnic store or Whole Food. Boil 2 cups water, add a grain of seasalt, pour in 2/3 cup polenta (it's clean, don't wash it) and cook over low flame for 15 min. Serve hot with freshly grated parmesan cheese and/or thin shreds of prosciutto. We're having it for dinner tonight, with greens and later, wheat-free beer.
So Caladium you can look up what ever you want. As far as your question about fruit and yogurt there is no good or bad about it. It can be very good it can be a bit of a problem. It depends on how it fits in with all of your other food and exercise. The app tells you how it all fits in. The one area I can not get a handle on is sugar. I am not diabetic but it does run in the family so I try to pay attention to. The source of my daily overage for sugar is fruit. So yes I am over but it is from fructose. So it is all part of a bigger picture. Am I concerned not really. I am usually at or below my daily calorie goals and virtually always under my weekly goals. A bad Monday can be balanced by another day or two. Try it and see if you like it. Remember to enter all sauces, dips etc as those can be the hidden data crunchers. I know I am redundant in saying data but it is for me and many other users a data driven approach that we swear by up, down, maintain, nutrition exercise etc.
A lot of commercial yogurts have some kind of sweetener, and fruits like bananas are high in sugars. I was advised to eat mostly berries for fruit. Melons should always be eaten with nothing else, according to food combining experts. Sugar is the bane of my existence, I've been battling it ever since I read the book Sugar Blues back in the 80s. No matter how much you read, the addiction is still there, esp if you grew up on cow/sugar formula and sugar foods.
A lot of commercial yogurts have some kind of sweetener, and fruits like bananas are high in sugars. I was advised to eat mostly berries for fruit. Melons should always be eaten with nothing else, according to food combining experts. Sugar is the bane of my existence, I've been battling it ever since I read the book Sugar Blues back in the 80s. No matter how much you read, the addiction is still there, esp if you grew up on cow/sugar formula and sugar foods.
Cheese is a data negative, calories and sodium. It retains previous foods and you wll see a pattern in your eying of sall items negative data. Soon you will know what to eat to balance things out. Soon you will see data and not food.
This is fascinating. I saw a number show up in red, lol - wasn't expecting that but when I read what you wrote (above) things are falling in place. I was able to stay within my calorie count, sodium count - but was low on Vit C yesterday.
This is amazing! I now can adjust during the day to make sure I am reaching goals as well as keeping track of sodium and vitamins. It was reassuring that I have been keeping track of the sodium goals - I had worked that out years ago and I seem to be on target with that.
The calories were surprising, tho, in the sense of some items being higher calorie than I had realized. That is already very enlightening. I have kept a personal food diary in the past and guess I have been underestimating for some items, such as deli meats. I had gotten my info from what I thought were reliable sources but this APP actually has brand names.
This approach really works for me, Tuborg - you are right - I am already looking at the data and figuring out ways to make those totals come out where I want them, lol. It is like a mental exercise and I am very comfy with that!
Growing up in an Italian (more or less) household, we always had breads of all kinds, and pastas. Problem was, it was all white "Italian" breads and white flour pastas. Actually, in Italy we found that the portions of spaghetti and pasta are very small, not like our oversize portions here (don't go to OG!). So portion size is an important clue right there.
I never had pizza as a kid, as our family was from the Northern area near Milan. Ironically, my great grandfather was a bread baker in Tuscany. To me, in Italy the breads and pizza dough taste terrible, don't know why. That experience sort of cured me of my love affair with breads. Now when I contemplate buying bread I imagine me with huge hips and belly (which is where all the bread goes, lol). That's all I need to say no thanks.
I could live on (every day) my very filling and satisfying polenta, easy to make, beautiful to look at (bright yellow) and delicious for breakfast heated up in some oil and rosemary and topped with thin slices of prosciutto. Think of bread as dense and dry and empty of micronutrients, and imagine wearing it on your hips like I once did, and you will be cured!
(I also hear from a friend who lived in Italy that Italian women never sit down, not even to read. They are moving all the time, and walking everywhere, which is why many stay so slim despite the pasta.)
Yes! Portions are very different in Italy! I noticed that years ago, also, and have adjusted accordingly. However, my family still piles the pasta on and slathers with sauce when having spaghetti, lol. I do make a mean marinara, so I can't blame them!!!
I so agree -- that is an important factor - portion control.
Polenta is one of my favorites, but I make grits more often. Polenta and grits are almost exactly the same thing. I make polenta with the same milled product I use for grits. I buy stone milled yellow grits from a "boutique" mill in NC. My Italian friends totally "got it" when I showed them how grits are essentially polenta! Crazy, huh? I add all sorts of things to both grits and polenta, from bell pepper or dried tomatoes to cheese.
A lot of commercial yogurts have some kind of sweetener, and fruits like bananas are high in sugars. I was advised to eat mostly berries for fruit. Melons should always be eaten with nothing else, according to food combining experts. Sugar is the bane of my existence, I've been battling it ever since I read the book Sugar Blues back in the 80s. No matter how much you read, the addiction is still there, esp if you grew up on cow/sugar formula and sugar foods.
I make my own yogurt and sometimes fill in with store bought products. However, it is very difficult to find yogurt without sweetener. So I buy PLAIN YOGURT (nothing at all added). That is not always easy to find, either, as much of it has vanilla added!
I then can use the plain yogurt as starter for my home made yogurt.
I also make ricotta. I haven't tackled mozarella yet, but I do make farmer's cheese.
I love my dairy products, lol.
Artificial sweeterners are heinous on many levels . . .they affect neuron receptors but also are hard on our livers!
Every so often I eat nothing for 24 hours. Feels good to lighten up.
Tuborg, I agree that especially as we age we need less and less sodium. For someone working or exercising hard and sweating, it's apparently okay (from what I read). For more sedentary folks like myself, sodium in foods and in salt can be a killer. Why is it we crave salt? Last night I had rice chips with salt and boy did they taste good. I had to balance it with beer. The beer made me sleep really well, so maybe it's all good. But I have to watch both ends of the spectrum more carefully—sugars (and there are many) and salt/sodium. These seem to be the two things that cause addictions to food.
Some people say 'at my age, I'll eat what I want, something's going to get me in the end anyway' (sometimes I too feel like that) and others say 'I don't want to end up with XYZ.' I waver but tend to err on the side of trying to take care of myself.
So what does your app think of yogurt and fruit? For the last six months or so we've been eating a big meal for lunch, and then yogurt and fruit for dinner. Granted, it's a fairly large bowl. I'm a little surprised we haven't lost any weight doing this, considering we used to eat lots of things like hamburgers and pasta dishes for dinner. But maybe yogurt and fruit isn't as low calorie as we might think.
ps. I'm glad we're discussing this here. Ani, I tried the weight loss forum once and nastiness there it turned my stomach. I went into that forum because I was doing well on a weight loss program but wanted to find some support. There was one guy there who seemed determined to undermine me and almost did. Thank god my best friend found out what was happening and told me to never go into that forum again. In fact I didn't even look at city-data at all for about 6 weeks. As it turns out I was successful in losing the weight, and have since kept it off, but if I had gone into that forum one more time all my hard work would have been completely sabotaged. There are some forums where it's ok to be nasty to each other, I guess, but others where it really is not.
One reason I like to add yogurt into my diet every day is b/c of the live cultures, which are probiotics, and so helpful for intestinal health!
I could not believe how nasty they were over in that weight loss forum. OH MY. I slammed back. There is absolutely no reason for people to be ugly to those asking legit questions on a forum specificially created for those very questions and discussions!!! I told them - this IS a weight loss and diet forum - that is the title of it -- so stop with the ugliness and personal agenda about "diets." Some folks NEED guidelines to help them get on track! It is not as though I was talking about some FAD diet where you eat cookies and ice cream 12 days in a row!! But even if I had, so what?
Nice to talk to folks who are supportive and enjoy sharing info . . . and aren't interested in being condescending.
This author and chef and I have the same philosophy about grits and polenta. I came to my conclusion after years of researching what the real "differences" were in the two . . . and like this person, I decided - you know, the same cornmeal works for both. Of course, I am VERY picky about my cornmeal!
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