Rubriik: Toitumine

Nut and seed addiction and how to overcome it

Published on by Margit4 kommentaari

Here’s a confession: I’m a total nut and seed addict. Hazelnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, peanuts (yes, I know that botanically they are legumes), sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pecans, coconut… You name it. I have so much troubles with MODERATION when it comes to nuts and seeds. And don’t even get me started on nut butters!

If I open a packet of nuts, I will want to finish it because nuts to me are like addictive drugs (not that I have tried those, I haven’t and won’t!) or potato chips to other people… I just keep eating until I finish the packet. No matter if it is 50 grams of 500 grams. But that much nuts or seeds is way too much carbs and also pushing calories too high. 

So how do you deal with this kind of problem?

 

Solution #1. Don’t buy nuts or seeds.

The “if you have good food in your fridge, you will eat only good food” rule applies here as well. If you don’t have nuts or seeds at home/office, you can’t overeat on them. As simple as that. That solution obviously works the best. Then, occasionally if you feel like eating them, go buy a 50 or 100 grams packet and enjoy it all at once if you feel like it. It for sure is a passive solution because it actually doesn’t fix your overeating problem. But hey: it works.

dont-buy-it


Solution #2. Buy nuts but divide them into reasonable servings immediately.

This actually works for me. I buy nuts and then divide them into 10/20/30 gram packages. Now if I take that packet and finish it, it’s OK because it’s nicely moderated. 30 grams of nuts isn’t overeating in my case. No guilt feelings or too much carbs or energy. Problem: fixed!

 

Solution #3. Buy nuts and seeds but only in minipackages.

Kind of the same point as the last one. I unfortunately have failed to find really small packages like 30 gram ones they have in some other countries in Estonia. And the price per kilogram with 50 gram packages is just ridicolously high.

 

Solution #4. Grow some character/fortitude/self control.

I’m still working on that (giggles). Sometimes I even succeed. For example: some months ago when I had a jar of nut butter at my house, it wouldn’t survive more than 3 days; now it lasts me about a week. That’s improvement but I still can’t only take one teaspoon at a time, I eat more. Also, having nut or seed butter at my house makes me want to snack on it constantly. Not good! I need to grow more character.

If you want more nutrition information about nuts and seeds, check this post I posted some time ago.

If you tend to have no moderation with certain foods, let me know which foods and how you deal with this problem.

Why the food industry makes me angry (part 1)

Published on by Margit8 kommentaari

This is going to be a series of blog posts about what aggravates me about the food industry.

I actually got aggravated while cooking dinner today.

I wanted to make a really simple dinner: pan fried minced meat with spinach and sour cream, a perfect low carb high fat meal, also quick and tasty. I started off with frying my meat.

Or what I thought was MEAT.

First of all, it didn’t fry as it should. I got a lot of water coming out and in the end when it all evaporated, the “meat” was still weird. It was really soft and mushy and just didn’t look or smell or taste like meat. Then I checked the package and it said Rimi hakklihasegu (minced meat mix) not hakkliha (minced meat). I was just angry at myself for not checking better at the store. 

Let me tell you what’s in that product (I won’t call it meat): 33% pork, 20% beef, water, beef fat, pork fat, WHEAT fibre, GLYCOSEsyrup, salt, seasonings and scent substances, hydrolysed protein from RAPE SEEDS, YEAST extract, stabilizers and antioxidants.But the worst part is yet to come.

Do I even have to point out the really bad stuff? Ofcourse it didn’t fry like meat because half of it is bullsh*t! Only 53% meat in minced meat mix… OK, let’s assume there was also 5+5% of fat. That still gives us only 63% meat and 37% of something else in this product they call meat. God, it’s disgusting. I thought I bought meat but I got wheat, rape seeds, yeast and sugar (=glycose) instead. 

Usually meat has 0 grams of carbs. This mix had 4,4 (!!!) grams per 100 grams. That’s just bad. Straight ahead BAD.

I didn’t throw this pan-full of food away. I just can’t (afford to) throw away 2 portions of food. So I ate half of it and will have the other half tomorrow… That’s 11 grams of carbs I didn’t expect to eat from a meat product (it was a 500 g package and I ate half so 2,5*4,4=11 g).

The taste was… well, there was no real taste to this dish. 

This product shouldn’t even have the word “meat” in it’s name. 

Next time I buy meat I make sure I get meat and meat only. No excessive bad stuff I don’t want.

This should apply to my fridge. And yours too!

 

Keep your eyes open and read all the labels!