Tag Archives: healthy

Five Foodie Fun Facts for Friday #2

07/18/2014 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

Alright, it’s Friday!! I’m willing to bet the clock is watched more often on Friday than any other day of the week. What do you think?

In an attempt to be consistent with my Friday Fun Facts that I first posted last week, I present to you another installment of 5 foodie fun facts you may or may not know.

Posting these almost every Friday shouldn’t be a problem because I’m learning new things about food as well. And, as many of my friends, family, and readers might know, I’m pretty into food.

Popcorn pops because water is stored in a small circle of soft starch in each kernel. As the kernel is heated, the water heats, the droplet of moisture turns to steam and the steam builds up pressure until the kernel finally explodes to many times its original volume.
The same chemicals that give tart cherries their color may relieve pain better than aspirin and ibuprofen; about 20 tart cherries a day could reduce inflammatory and headache pain.
The banana plant can grow up to 20 feet tall, which is the height of a two-story house. This large tropical plant is really an herb which means it does not have a trunk like a tree. The stalk is composed of leaf sheaths that overlap each other and grow from an underground stem called a rhizome.
Egg shells have as many as 17,000 tiny pores, and can other absorb flavors and odors. Keeping them in their cartons helps to maintain freshness and flavor! Egg yolks are one of the few foods that naturally contain Vitamin D.
One bushel of corn will sweeten more than 400 cans of soda.

I love making air-popped popcorn, and thought it was cool to know exactly how those little guys “come out of their shell” and turn into those fluffy, white puffs that are fun to eat. Much better than using them to make soda…

Tomorrow, Saturday, our little family will be going to visit several other families nearby. I met the dads through a dad blogger’s group on Facebook, and one of them offered to have everyone come over with their wife and kids.

Hopefully Avery is cooperative and has a good nap so we can head over there in the early afternoon.

Who me? Of course I'll be good! — Who me? Of course I’ll be good!

I’ve already explained my peculiar food ways after they generously offered several things to eat, but I think we’re on the same page with having good beer!

We are looking forward to a good time and getting to meet new people. The kids coming over vary in age, and I think the one closest to Avery’s age is 11 months, so maybe they’ll have something to….errr, blabber about….

http://instagram.com/p/qaBHmnDRn-/?modal=true

Any plans for the weekend?

Ever meet up with others that you met online?

Food, Friday Food Facts

Five Foodie Fun Facts For Friday #1

07/11/2014 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Food encompasses our lives and is typically on our minds the majority of the day. Of course our loved ones always have a place in our thoughts, but don’t you ever think about what to feed your loved ones? See, you can think of food and loved ones simultaneously.

Sadly, too many people only view food as something they eat and either tastes good or not. There is so much more to food than we realize and it affects more than our taste buds. From skin, hair, mind, how we function and recover, etc. food is a major player.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge advocate of real food and try my damnedest to limit packaged products. Sure, there are many healthy packaged options, but whole foods trump all.

I could go on forever, but I’ll save that for another day and another post. Today, I’d like to start the first of a series of fun facts revolving around food. Some may be funny, some may be serious, but hopefully all will be of interest.

Going Mom and I went out last night to use her Mother’s Day gift I got her to attend a BYOB painting class. The chosen item to paint was a jellyfish and I’ll be sure to share our pictures soon.

For now, enjoy these facts and please feel free to share your own in the comments below. Happy Friday!

1. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are also flowers!

2. Onions, apples and potatoes all have the same taste. The difference in flavor is caused by their smell. Pinch your nose and try it – they will all taste sweet.

3. Lettuce is the only vegetable never sold frozen, canned, or processed in any way, it’s only sold as fresh lettuce.

4. The meat from a fast food hamburger can come from up to 100 different cows.

5. Best for last…..The largest living organism is a mushroom in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest. It has been growing for 2,400 years, killing trees along the way. The giant fungus covers 2,200 acres with an average depth of 3 feet into the ground.

Stay tuned for the second installment of foodie fun facts if for no othe reason than the joy of knowing it’s Friday!

And, of course I have to share a photo of Avery. Here she is working on her pull ups.

Then she just came over to say “hi.”

Going Healthy

Going Healthy: Homemade Egg “McGriddle” Sandwich

07/06/2014 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Have you ever had a McGriddle breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s? The soft maple-flavored pancake “buns” sandwiching crispy bacon or sausage, egg and cheese creates a sweet and savory fast food breakfast.

Mmm, I really enjoyed these sandwiches back in my “ignorant to how food is made” days. Now…not so much.

Glad I’m free from food ignorance now, and can see right through the “M” branded griddle cakes stuffed with fluffy egg and crispy bacon. I only see low-quality, non-nutritional ingredients like enriched flour, chemicals created in a lab to obtain that certain “flavors”, and cheese that is anything but.

Starting from the top, lets break down the ingredients in one of these sandwiches from McD’s. This info comes right from their site here.

Who brands their buns anyway?

One Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle (source) packs a whopping 420 calorie handheld heart attack served neatly in colored paper wrap. You get a substantial (not in a good way) 18g of fat, 240mg of cholesterol, 1110mg of sodium, 2g fiber, and 15g of sugar.

Still sound good? Lets keep going….

The top-level ingredients for a Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles® are:

Griddle Cakes, Folded Egg, Pasteurized Process American Cheese, Bacon, Liquid Margarine
Seems somewhat safe, but dig deeper and we find the Griddle Cakes have a little more than you or I would use to make pancakes:

Water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), sugar, dextrose, palm oil, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), brown sugar, salt, soybean oil, rice flour, whey powder, modified tapioca starch, buttermilk powder, caramel color, natural (dairy and botanical source) and artificial flavors, soy lecithin, corn oil (processing aid).
Surely there’s nothing in the Folded Egg besides “egg”….right?….wrong:

Pasteurized whole eggs, food starch-modified, soybean oil, natural flavors (botanical source), sodium acid pyrophosphate, carrageenan, flavor enhancer [salt, maltodextrin, natural flavor (plant source), spices, herb, turmeric (color)], monosodium phosphate, citric acid, soy lecithin (release agent).

And the topping on (and in) the “cake” is Liquid Margarine:

Liquid soybean oil and hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils, water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, salt, soy lecithin, mono-and diglycerides, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservatives), artificial flavor, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color).

This, among numerous other reasons, is why I happily prepare my own food at home!

My version is actually what you would expect an egg sandwich with pancake buns to be; two pancakes with a cooked egg in the middle. Wow, shocker!! I made a batch of coconut flour protein pancakes from ProteinPOW.com for the “buns”, but you can use your favorite pancake recipe if you choose.

The fluffy white one was obviously my egg-cellent first choice.

For the egg, I had this bright idea to microwave it in a small, circular glass dish to make the perfect round egg patty.

As you can see, I did this 4 times, and the egg just expanded and wrinkled into a brain-like resemblance. #FoodieFail.

I made do with the best rounded one of the bunch and just saved the other eggs to put on salad. Since my pancakes were too big, I trimmed around them a little; not necessary, but I wanted to make it look good!

Topped with a drizzle of raw, local honey, sprinkle of cayenne, and dash of pepper, this was a delectably sweet and spicy sandwich I devoured immediately after the last picture; pancake trimmings included.

I was pumped when the idea to make this sandwich came to mind, and I’m glad I did. These non-McGriddles are a delightful (and healthy) way to start or end the day. Not to mention they can be fun to make with kids!

I think it’s smiling at me…

My favorite breakfast on the weekends would be a scrambled egg sandwich with ketchup that my mom would make, and I could eat several! Did I mention I was a heavy boy? I don’t have ketchup anymore, but salsa suits me just fine and I don’t feel like I’ve given up anything!

Have you ever made your own fast food version into something healthier?

Do you like egg sandwiches with ketchup?