Are bagged salads healthy? Here’s a yes, with lots of conditions attached

This year started with recalls of some bagged salads, so it would only be natural for people to wonder just how healthy such products are. A nutritionist tells Cooking Light magazine in this piece that they’re healthy but adds a lot of conditions to that recommendation.

The longer it takes lettuce to get from field to table, the more nutrients will decrease in it. So the processing time of bagged salads should mean they are less nutritious than buying a head of lettuce and doing all your own prep right? Not exactly.

“While bagged salads do experience more initial loss due to washing and chopping, research suggests they may make up for it when packaged thanks to an oxygen-reducing process called modified atmosphere packaging. Most manufacturers use to this type of packaging to maintain the color of leaves and to extend shelf life, but an added perk for consumers is that lower oxygen levels may also slow the rate at which nutrients like vitamin C and folate are lost.

“The thinking seems to be that nutrient loss in bagged salads is comparable, or possibly even less, than a whole head of lettuce stored for the same amount of time,” author Carolyn Williams, PhD, RD states.

Should you buy bagged salads?

“With nutrient loss and bacteria risk comparable to what is seen in whole heads of lettuce and greens, most consider the benefits of increased vegetable consumption—thanks to the help of bagged salads—greater than potential risks,” she writes.

March 31, 2022 0

A tip to make roasted veggies crispier

Regular readers know I love roasted veggies. You’ll find recipes on my recipe page for roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic lemon broccoli, and roasted vegetables with pumpkin seed gremolata that’s great for special occasion dinners. So when I saw this piece from Eatingwell.com, The #1 Tip for Extra-Crispy Roasted Vegetables, it grabbed my attention.

This simple potato recipe provides a fun summer side dish. — Cornstarch on roasted potatoes? Maybe.

The secret is — cornstarch! Yes, I was surprised too. I use cornstarch primarily to coat my pizza stone so low-salt pizzas we make don’t stick to it while baking.

Keep in mind cornstarch is a refined carb, so don’t use a great deal of it if you’re concerned about heart health or sugar levels in your blood.

The story instructs:

Continue reading →

March 29, 2022 0

Trying to kick sugar — here’s one no-sugar diet plan

I’ve written many times that of salt, fat and sugar, sugar is by far the hardest for me to give up. I tried a no-sugar challenge in 2020 but the pandemic and its concurrent stress wiped out that plan. So I’m always interested when I see pieces like EatingWell.com’s No-Sugar Diet Plan.

MY half slice of Junior's chocolate mousse cheesecake, Mmmmmmm. — *My love of such things as cheesecake make it difficult for me to kick sugar.*

The plan includes a week of do-it-yourself meals and is based on consuming 1,200 calories a day, so obviously for women rather than men who should consume around 2,000 calories daily.

Some of the items mentioned, like peanut butter energy balls, I would never eat because of my aversion to nuts. But some of the dinner main dishes, like Mediterranean ravioli with artichokes & olives, sound worth trying.

I’d suggest giving the menu plan a look and picking and choosing what you like.

March 27, 2022 0

Healthy fast food alternatives — not exactly but better than some choices

Lists of healthy, or at least the least unhealthy, offerings at fast-food restaurants seem to pop up every year. That’s because those places are ubiquitous. If you’re out and about, it’s hard to avoid them. Plus, if you’re on a restricted diet like I am, every once and a whole you want to feel normal again by eating where the masses eat.

My new tiny oil and vinegar bottles for eating out. — *My tiny oil and vinegar bottles for eating out.*

This year’s list comes from Good Housekeeping, The 35 Healthiest Fast Food Orders You Can Get at Every Chain. A lot of salads make the list, beware of salt in those and in dressings though. I usually carry my own oil and vinegar in small plastic bottles to avoid salt-laden dressings.

It’s fun to see the classic White Castle slider on this list. “You don’t have to feel bad about enjoying a couple Original Sliders from White Castle — it scores better on the “healthy” scale than even the chicken or fish sliders. But here’s a surprise: if you’re looking for a vegetarian option, go with the Veggie Slider over the Impossible Slider to consume less overall calories and fat,” the article states. It doesn’t;t say anything about having six sliders at a meal as I sometimes do.

Oh well, happy eating.

March 25, 2022 0

A culinary gem in Milwaukee — yes, Milwaukee

When I attended college in Milwaukee during the early 1970s, upscale eating out primarily meant German food in one of the legendary big-three German restaurants there at the time (Mader’s, Rausch’s and Ernst’s — only Mader’s remains open today).

Other than that, there were chain restaurants downtown like Ponderosa and Perkins.

But boy, have times changed. Milwaukee this year has nine James Beard Award semifinalists.

We were back in Milwaukee recently and some dear friends took us to Story Hill BKC, whose owners are Beard semi-finalists for Outstanding Restaurateur. The food was excellent. I highly recommend it. You may find yourself going off your heart-healthy diet while there, but it’s worth a splurge.

We began with buttery biscuits that were so flaky and buttery that adding the generous dollop of butter that came with them seemed superfluous.

Dishes here are meant to be shared, although you might want to go back to have a meal all to yourself sometime.

A pasta special with hollow noodles and a light mushroom sauce was so good, we were at a local Italian grocery store the next day looking for the hollow noodles (bucatini) so my wife could try to duplicate the recipe at home.

For me, the star of the meal was a steelhead trout served on a cedar plank with a waffle. Here’s how the menu describes it: “smoked maple mustard glaze, everything potato waffle, dill creme fraiche, trout roe.”

The depth of flavor of that dish was truly special. While we shared it, I could have eaten several portions of it all by myself.

Milwaukee’s restaurant renaissance is much in evidence in trendy neighborhoods near downtown like the Third Ward or Walker Point. BKC is in a neighborhood called Story Hill, not far from the stadium where the Milwaukee Brewers play, so you may need to search for it. The trip will be well worth it.

March 22, 2022 0

People still don’t get the connection between salt consumption and poor health

I’ve written about how food processors are not increasing the number of products they sell that have low-sodium claims on them. Maybe its because people still don;t seem to get how harmful all the salt they consume is.

A new survey found that while 64% of Americans know eating too much salt is unhealthy only 37% say they track their salt consumption.

You can read more about the survey — the site won’t let me take excerpts for my blog — by clicking here.

And if you’d like to know the difference between all the salt claims you see on food packages, check this Cooking Light guide to salt claims.

March 17, 2022 0

Book Review: “Easy Vegan Home Cooking” — looks easy, and tasty too

Fans of PBS cooking shows likely are familiar with Laura Theodore, known as the Jazzy Vegetarian. She has a new cookbook out, Easy Vegan Home Cooking, that includes more than 125 vegan recipes.

I showed it to my vegetarian daughter, who has her own cooking blog. Her verdict — there are several recipes she’d like to try. Another note — the book has several very easy recipes, like how to grill veggies, which would be good for beginning cooks. Perhaps those recipes should be called basic rather than easy.

We also looked through the book for a recipe we would like to eat together — I still eat some meat — and came up with the zucchini lasagna. The recipe in the book includes vegan ricotta, tofu basically. I’d opt for regular ricotta and my daughter agrees, she still eats regular cheese although she does buy vegan varieties from time to time.

Other recipes she thought sounded interesting, and not your run-of-the-mill vegan fare, include:

Continue reading →

March 14, 2022 0

McDonald’s salads are sneaking back onto menus

I’ve written a lot about all the low-salt, low-fat and low-sugar food items that have disappeared during the pandemic as processors and restaurants concentrate only on their highest volume offerings. McDonald’s salads were an early pandemic food casualty.

But I think they’re coming back. I recently stopped at a local McDonald’s for some diet Coke, really the only thing I’ve ordered there since they dropped salads and yogurt.

My order came with a flyer listing a ‘buy a salad, get one free’ offer at some local McDonald’s (presumably all owned by the same franchisee).

I checked my app for my local McDonald’s and see one salad, the Ceasar chicken, again available for order. The Southwest Salad is listed as not available.

Let’s be clear, there are many, many other lunch choices that would be healthier than a McDonald’s salad which is still loaded with salt. Healthier lunch choices would be things you make yourself so you can control the salt, fat and sugar content.

But if you have to buy lunch at McDonald’s, the salad is the least unhealthy choice. Don’t use the dressings, there add even more salt. Carry your own in small plastic bottles like I used to do pre-pandemic.

Read my reviews of the new southwest salad and the new Caesar salad. Click on the embedded links in the salad names here.

March 9, 2022 5

A tasty and very simple-to-make sea bass recipe

Sea bass is usually an expensive fish, but if you get a deal on it (as I did buying in bulk at Costco), here’s a simple baked bass recipe that I found surprisingly tasty and quick to make. You can find the complete recipe on Food.com.

First, the ingredients, most if not all of which, you should already have handy:

1lb sea bass (cleaned and scaled)
3 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon italian seasoning or 1 tablespoon fresh parsley leaves
2 teaspoons fresh coarse ground black pepper [I found this a lot of pepper, adjsut accordingly]
1 teaspoon salt [omit this to stay low-salt}
2 lemon wedges
¹⁄₃ cup white wine vinegar (optional) or 1/3 cup white wine [I used white wine vingar, it made the dish].

To make the dish:

Preheat oven to 450F°.
In a cup, mix garlic, olive oil, salt, and black pepper.
Place fish in a shallow glass or ceramic baking dish.
Rub fish with oil mixture.
Pour wine or vinegar over fish.
Bake fish, uncovered, for 15 minutes; then sprinkle with parsley or Italian seasoning and continue to bake for 5 more minutes (or until the thickest part of the fish flakes easily).
Drizzle remaining pan juices over fish and garnish with lemon wedges.

I served my sea bass with a side if steamed carrots as you can see in my photo.

March 7, 2022 0

Expect Amazon to sell more and more groceries

I may not have enjoyed my shopping experience at a new Amazon Fresh store, but what I think isn’t keeping Amazon from targeting the grocery business for major expansion, according to several recent reports.

*Expect to see Amazon Fresh stores opening near you.*

Amazon to shut its bookstores and other shops as its grocery chain expands, reports Reuters (an old boss of mine from my reporting days).

How Amazon Plans to Transform Grocery in 2022 from Progressive Grocer goes into detail on Amazon’s plans for this year. It’s focusing on using technology to speed customers through, and out of, stores. Apparently, it thinks that will appeal enough to customers that they won’t try to price comparison shop against other supermarkets, as I did in my recent post.

“Retail analytics firm Placer.ai recently examined the performance of Amazon’s first Amazon Fresh grocery stores in California and Illinois, and found that those stores are gaining market share against traditional grocery operators,” Progressive Grocer reports. Expect that to continue — and expect grocery prices to rise, not fall, as Amazon captures more unsuspecting shoppers.

March 3, 2022 0

Month: March 2022