We have so totally departed from our normal ways of eating – the way we ate several thousand years ago – it is simply beyond belief! At least for those who can recognize that fact…
I was watching a cooking show on the TV yesterday. The guy was demonstrating three super quick home deserts (I think it was). I could only take watching one of the recipes. Next, the TV was turned of as I moved away in repulsion and deep thinking.
The recipe was a home-made ice cream topped with pound cake in butter croutons and syrupy pineapple chunks (I think the fruit was pineapple, but I’m not completely sure as my attention was mostly on the other highly processed stuff).
Let’s see..
A single desert item as demonstrated on TV – Vanilla Ice cream, topped with Pound Cake Croutons in Butter and Pineapple Chunks in Syrup!!!
First component of desert: A typical home-made vanilla ice cream has a total of 240 g of sugar and 100 g of fat in a quart. If a quart is 8 servings (for most people it’s more like 1 or 2) one serving has: sugar – 30 g, fat – 12.5 g
(For a functional 0-sugar ice cream recipe check my key lime and protein recipe or my rich chocolate and protein recipe. Skip the croutons and the syruped fruit.)
Second component of desert: Pound cake croutons in butter. Let me start with a question. Do you know why pound cake is called “pound cake”? It’s because of its very simple formula: 1 lb flour, 1 lb eggs, 1 lb sugar and 1 lb fat. Nutritious, no?
Suppose that for the topping of one serving of ice cream we only use 1/2 serving of pound cake – or a half of a slice. Here are the two nutrition facts that we are counting in a half of a slice of pound cake like this: sugar – 10 g, fat – 6 g
Onto the butter that goes with the pound cake croutons – 1/2 stick for 2 slices, or 1/8 stick of butter per serving of our desert.
Nutrition facts to add to the above: fat – 11 g
Final third component of desert: Pineapple in syrup. One slice of a medium size fresh pineapple (this will be our one serving size of the fruit) has 8 g sugar.
The sugar that makes it a fruit in syrup. A typical syrupy fruit recipe has 1 cup fruit, 3/4 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water. If this is 8 servings then one serving sugar that goes with the fruit will be exactly 19 g sugar.
Ok, let’s do the math. Our finished Vanilla Ice cream, topped with Pound Cake Croutons in Butter and Pineapple Chunks in Syrup desert will have a total of…
– sugar – 67 g
– fat – 30 g
…in just ONE serving!!!
Really? 67 g of sugar in the desert only? And, the fat on top of that… I’m not surprised, are you? A total of 530 Calories from the sugar and the fat only!!! And, this is the desert item only! Let’s not forget that there is a main dish that comes before the desert. A typical home-prepared entree will easily be at least 500 Calories. Don’t want to go into the sugar and fat content of the entree and from there try to roughly estimate the total sugars and fats of a typical meal at home. My head spins already.
(By the way, if you want to know how I arrived at these numbers you can check my math by following the recipes above and using the USDA National Nutrient Database)
Do you not see a problem here? Am I the only one that cringes while watching those crazy cooking shows on TV? I mean, is this normal? When did we in the distant past (like 10K years ago) eat 67 g of refined sugar in a single meal? It simply didn’t happen. It is not possible if you eat wholesome food. That’s like eating almost 5 apples and adding two table spoons of fat to that! Crazy, it’s simply crazy!
I’m asking when will we finally see truly healthy cooking on television?
And, I’m giving an answer: when people start demanding such shows. The TV programming simply follows what brings the largest number of eye sets before the TV screen.
It’s sad, but that’s true story.
No wonder why 70 percent of the population is fat. And, please, don’t tell me most fat people don’t eat that many calories. They do. It’s been proven scientifically for a while now, and I know this first hand. I was once fat too. It’s just so easy to underestimate the total calories with such calorie-dense “foods” like the ones you see prepared on television.
Nonetheless, I will continue to long for the time when I will see a chef preparing a functional, health- and energy-enhancing dish on the TV – because that’s what folks want to see. It will come… some day..
Until then – happy eating!