12 Foods That Pack On The Pounds

According to a Harvard study conducted over twenty years, these 12 foods have been linked to a significant increase in weight... and combined, contributed to an increase in 17lbs. over 20 years. Sounds not-so-bad, however, the study was performed on 120,877 non-obese people. For each four-year period, food choices contributed to an extra four pounds while exercise cut less than two pounds. 

1 = an increase of less than 1lb. a year

12 = an increase of ~2lbs. a year

1 - butter

2 - fruit juice

3 - fried food

4 - refined grains (white rice)

5 - sweets & desserts

6 - potatoes

7 - trans fats

8 - processed meat (bacon, hot dogs, etc)

9 - unprocessed red meat (beef, steak, hamburger)

10 - sugar sweetened soda

11 - potato chips

12 - french fries

Naturally, I'm upset because french fries (ranked #12 here) are the worst food you can eat and simultaneously one of my favorite foods of all time. I just hope that pairing it with an unnatural amount of ketchup keeps my heart and waistline safe.

Farmers Market Fresh

It's your first week in Berkeley, California and you're surrounded by all the amazing food choices you could possibly imagine, and you're asked to cook dinner -- what do you do? Well, the reason those innumerable food choices exist in such abundance in the East Bay of San Francisco, is the availability of the freshest, hand-picked, organic produce around. So... why not give local restaurants a run for their money? It's easy.

Step 1: Head over to one of the many Farmer's Markets and pick up anything and everything that looks good to you. In my case it was Gourmet Ghetto's Thursday Farmer's Market that took the cake.

Step 2: Think of some fun dish and interesting pairing side-dishes you've never tried, using all of that fresh food you just bought. Tonight I made - (organic) basil mayo chicken sandwiches on (organic) ciabatta - a balsamic vinaigrette beet salad with walnuts and goat cheese - and beet greens, sauteed with garlic and onion.

~ Now eat... and enjoy. 

Note: I got - the onions, bread, basil, lettuce,  and beets (including greens) - from the market!

Step 3: After washing dinner down with Anchor Steam's: Anchor Summer Beer, (and letting some time pass..) go back to your Farmer's Market shopping basket and dish out a simple dessert. In my case, I just so happened to pick up some super sweet peaches and delectable strawberries, so stepping out of culinary complexity, I sliced them up, threw them (literally) together, and forked them out of the bowl... and into my mouth. Better even than a cherry on top, this fruit combo closed up the palatal shop perfectly.

Spaghetti - My Way

So as simple as spaghetti can be... I seriously think that it can also taste simple, too simple even. The noodle, beef, and tomato sauce of my past has always left me with a "where in the world is the flavor?!" feeling while also reminding me of soup... that you-can-put-the-entire-contents-of-your-leftovers-in-me appeal that soup has, spaghetti has. So tonight, without further ado, I'm introducing my whole wheat spaghetti with roasted red pepper, sauteed onion, and mushroom garlic beef sauce, topped with mozzarella.


I won't go into cooking detail, but some things I like to do that haven't been explicitly pointed out to me:

When sauteing the vegetables, cook them slowly, so that you can pull them off while they have some crunch in them (don't worry, the warm sauce will soften them up, too). Add the onions a little bit after any other vegetables you have, because it's likely they'll need more time than the onions. When done with the veggies - move them into the sauce and immediately replace them with your beef. You can lean down your beef by doing a 1/2 ground beef - 1/2 ground turkey combo. The result is still juicy, flavorful, and actually does a better job of soaking up the sauce. The very last thing to go into the mix... is the garlic. I like to add it to the beef right after draining, and letting it sit for a minute or two before putting it in the sauce. Garlic loses flavor fast, so cooking it too long makes it a nearly pointless ingredient.

This is also a great time to use that "cooking wine" (the stuff you never got around to drinking, but can't seem to throw out of the refrigerator) you've been waiting to impress with. Throw it in with the veggies, or if you have a stockpile of white, be risky and throw it in your pasta boiling water, the results might surprise you. 


So the end result, as you blend the meat, sauce, and veggies together, should be a thick sauce with lots of texture and some different colors. Every-now-and-then I like to toss a large spoonful of cut up olives (I like green, many like black) on top as I serve, and I rarely let the plate go without a piece of garlic toast.

Chicken.... but what to make?

       From time-to-time there comes a night where I have one major ingredient to use, a handful of sides, but no central mission for my meal. Tonight is one of those nights. I have chicken... and a spice rack to be proud of; onions, potatoes, rice, blah, blah, blah. So what do I do? I've consulted my usual cookbooks (even Cooking for Geeks) and may or may not have put Julie & Julia on so as to channel some culinary energy that way.

Results: I'm gonna use butter.

   Drying the chicken (as instructed by so many) and preparing a "marinade." I believe a "rub" is in order... something lemony with a mild spice.