Do you know what 2,000 calories look like? I’m guessing no, so read on

Everyone has likely seen it somewhere, either on a food label or on a restaurant nutrition page — portions and everything else to do with our daily nutritional intake are calculated on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet. But I doubt most people realize just how few calories that is compared to what average Americans eat every day.

The FoodNetwork.com meal plan involves a lot of food in bowls, not sure why. Photo by Polina Tankilevitch:

So here’s a great piece to read from FoodNework.com, What Does 2,000 Calories Look Like? Use it as a companion piece to something I wrote, Picturing 1,500 calories a day; it’s not much. Generally, women are advised to eat 1,500 calories a day while men get 2,000.

The FoodNetwork.com piece has menus that will put you at the 2,000-calorie mark, whether you eat meat or not, which is handy if you cook for a family with members on different diets.

There’s a lot on these menus I wouldn’t touch, but hopefully you’ll find some items you like and can add to your recipe list.

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Pork Chops? Yes, they can be low-salt, low-fat too

Pork chops are not normally something I cook at home but I when I recently saw some on sale at Whole Foods, I decided to see if I could create a low-salt, low-fat pork chop dish.

The chops themselves had only 3 grams of fat per four-ounces, an acceptable amount. But with meat that lean, you need to add flavor. Most pork chops in stores don’t have nutritional labels. Because these were branded, however, they did, which helped me decide to buy them.

For flavor, I turned to LocalFolks salt-free, low-sugar barbecue sauce, a favorite ingredient of mine.

You can watch how I prepared them in the video below.

If you prefer reading it, simply oil a pan with olive oil, add the pork chops, baste them with the sauce and cook until an internal temp of 145 degrees.

The temperature you cook at will depend on where you’re cooking these, in an oven or on an outdoor grill, so I use internal temp as the indicator they’re done. Normally you would aim for 375 to 400 degrees as a cooking temp.

Warning, never eat pork if it is still red or pink in the middle, that means it still needs more cooking.

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Keeping your food budget down in inflationary times — here’s a great example

I’ve written about how important it is in these inflationary times to plan your weekly grocery shopping trip or trips based on weekly sales. So I loved coming across this rather long piece on BuzzFeed: I Feed My Family Of Five For $120 A Week — Here’s What A Week Of Groceries & Meals Looks Like For Us.

Pre-planning your shopping can save you significant dollars, as seen on this receipt of mine.

The author is a mother of three form Colorado. She mentions that her weekly budget has gone from $100 to $120, a 20% increase. And she reiterates my point, writing, “I start by looking at my local grocery store’s weekly sales so I know what items will get me the most bang for my buck. This first step has become more important than ever to my planning and budgeting lately.”

There’s a lot more to read, take a look and let me know what you thought of it in the comments here.

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Pandemic Food causality — Trader Joe’s High-Fiber Cereal?

Healthier foods — that is those low in salt, fat and sugar, have been disappearing off store shelves during the pandemic, as I wrote here. By now though, you’d think we’ve seen the last of disappearing healthier foods. Not quite.

Fiber One has more fat, calories and salt than TJ’s High-Fiber Cereal, but today it was my only choice, at $6.99 a box, more expensive than TJ’s as well.

I went to two different Trader Joe’s in the northern suburbs of Chicago today only to find they had no Trader Joe’s High-Fiber cereal. At both, I was told it was not available at this time. That’s been a code in the past for times Trader Joe’s was dropping, like its salt-free marinara sauce.

The manager at the second store I visited, in Glenview, Il., told me it would be back in a day or two. I wondered where he would put it since the cereal section of the store has shrunk and been moved to the very back. There were no empty spaces for high-fiber cereal there.

I was forced to go to a mainstream supermarket and buy General Mills Fiber One, which has twice the fat and almost twice the salt per serving as does Trader Joe’s. It claims to have more fiber but getting that at the cost of more salt is not a trade I wanted to make.

We’ll see if this is just another case of a store ending sales of a lower-volume, healthier item and blaming the pandemic for it.

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July 4th’s gone, but Labor Day is jsuta round the corner — here are some Labor Day side dish ideas

You can tell I’ve been holding onto this piece for a few months, 4th of July Sides from CookingLight.com. It’s early August as I write this and Labor Day is looming at the next big family cookout day, so why not take a look at some of these for that meal?

A simple approach, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and wonderful olive oil.
A simple side dish, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and wonderful olive oil.

As always, be careful about salt, fat and sugar content. Just because a dish makes it into a magazine that’s talking about “light” cooking, whatever that is, does not mean it is watching salt, fat or sugar content.

A recipe like Creamy Black Pepper Coleslaw has fat and salt in it. Not a lot you might say. But think of it as one part of your larger meal, the salt and fat can add up fast at a traditional American cookout.

I’m more likely to make sides with things I’ve grown during the summer, like tomatoes and green beans. Check out these side dishes I’ve written about in the past.

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Don’t open that freezer door — not for these four foods you that should never freeze

Ever try freezing raw veggies? Don’t.

Freezing foods we buy on sale can be an economical way to stock up on deals, especially during these inflationary times. I’ve posted about that, just click here to read it. But not every food can be frozen. Just take a look at 4 Foods You Should Never Put in the Freezer from Myrecipes.com.

I’ll end the suspense for you, the four are whole eggs, soft cheeses, raw vegetables and milk/yogurt (ok, that’s really five but whose counting? Not Myrecipes.com apparently).

“To be clear, it (freezing) doesn’t make the milk or yogurt unsafe, but generally it will separate into thick chunky pieces suspended in watery stuff and is super unappetizing,” the article states.

When it comes to veggies, “if you freeze a raw vegetable, the process will expand the water in its cell structure and burst the cells. The result: soggy, thawed produce that will feel like its overcooked. For better results, blanch your vegetables for about a minute in boiling water and then shock in an ice bath to stop the cooking,” the piece advises.

That said, the same site did say it’s ok to freeze tomatoes, I blogged about that but have not tried it yet. I suppose maybe it knows tomatoes are actually fruit?

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Dilly Dally Provisions — a Chicago-area supplier keeping it local

I recently met a founder of Dilly Dally Provisions as he was giving out samples of mustard his company is making with a local (Evanston, Il.) brewery. I’m always eager to support local suppliers, so tried both the mustard and a hot sauce he had on his sample table.

I loved the mustard, it’s likely a variation of the beer mustard I found on the company’s website. It had a hint of horseradish in it and would be a great way to bring some flavor to something like a chicken sandwich (or of course the usual hot dogs and brats).

Mustard tends to be the healthiest condiment you can use, usually having no sugar or fat and very little to no salt.

The hot sauce was way too hot for me, but I’m not a hot sauce person in any way, shape, or form. I would imagine people who love hot sauce will enjoy it.

Check out the company website. It says they sell primarily at farmers’ markets but also will deliver free in a slice of the Chicagoland area for orders of more than $20.

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A new spice supplier? Come back soon for my review

My Burn Pit free samples.

Recently a company from neighboring Wisconsin (I’m in Illinois), Burn Pit BBQ, reached out to me about its barbecue sauces and spice mixtures.

I asked what they had to offer that was low-salt, low-sugar and low-fat and received the samples pictured here in return.

I’ve written about how difficult it is to barbecue healthy in posts like Why you have to read the nutrition label — a barbecue sauce comparison.

Here’s hoping some of these will help me in preparing relatively low-salt, low-fat, low-sugar cookout meals.

I’ll be trying these in upcoming weeks (actually, the hot sauce is going to my daughter who is a hot-sauce lover and she’ll give me her review to include).

Initial kudos to this company for making their products locally in Wisconsin and for being veteran-owned.

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Inflation is taking a bite out of the eating-out trend

Rising prices are discouraging people from eating out or from ordering-in from restaurants, according to a new study by bid-on-equipment.com, which sells a variety of used equipment, including restaurant equipment.

The study surveyed 1,008 Americans early this year. It found 50% saying they are eating out less because of inflation.

The impact of the Pandemic was evident in survey responses, 40% of those answering said at least one of their favorite restaurants had closed permanently during the Pandemic.

Local restaurants still are preferred by more people than are chains. When searching for a place to eat, people turn to Google, word-of-mouth, Yelp and other social media, the survey found. (For more survey responses, see the graphic here).

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You eating breakfast more often? You’re not alone

Americans apparently turned to breakfast more frequently during the pandemic, according to a new survey from restaurant chain Denny’s. Sadly though, eating heart-healthy doesn’t seem to be figuring into most people’s breakfast preferences.

The survey reports that 52% of U.S. states pick bacon as their main breakfast food, followed by eggs for 26% and pancakes for 18% (see the graphic here for your state’s pick). None of those are practicularly health-healthy. I stick to Trader Joe’s high fiber cereal with banana for my breakfast, adding an occasional fat-free yogurt.

When I find myself eating breakfast away from home, I’ll try for a veggie omelet made with egg whites or whole wheat pancakes (which sadly still tend to be high in salt).

Fifty-five percent of Americans have been eating breakfast more frequently during the pandemic than before, the study found. Eat-at-home vs. out for breakfast was a close call — 48% prefer eating it at home while 52% prefer eating it away from home.

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