Nutritious Butter...

Well it seems like I took a little break. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. The fact of the matter is YES, I took a little break from writing, BUT we’ve had Nutrition classes for the first half of the last 3 classes and for the second half we made only 1 recipe. So you haven't missed much. It has been a full meal of a recipe, but still just one recipe. They did, however, go along with the theme of a more nutritious style of cooking and eating. I do not believe we used an ounce of butter in the last 3 recipes, and we barely used a little bacon.

What we’re learning is that the use of butter is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Nor is the use of any other red meat, or fatty substances. But instead the entire picture, for instance, the amount of this food we eat, what else we eat during the day, the number of calories, etc.

Our bodies store pretty much everything we eat as fat. So any amount of calories that we don’t burn during the day goes straight to the thighs (or tummy or butt). (For the record, I’m not a teacher. I’m just regurgitating what we were told; at least what I got out of it.) Our bodies prefer to use carbohydrates as immediate energy, particularly glucose, the only type of sugar our bodies can use, and proteins for pretty much everything else. Proteins are made of amino acids and we need 20 different ones, and 9 of them we cannot produce ourselves, so we need to eat proteins to get this.

I’m not sure if you really care about all this. So I will make it super brief.

Saturated fats are bad, unsaturated fats are better for you. As a chef, which we will be at some point, it will be important to be able to include some of the better fats along with the not so good fats. Corn is the bane of our existence. High Fructose corn syrup is the reason why we are obese. The US consumes more corn and potatoes (and products made from these vegetables) than pretty much any other country in the world. The French eat butter and drink and smoke, and are thin as rails. Why? Their food is fresher, with less chemicals, and they eat less of it.

Alcohol is even a good thing they say. A drink or two a night is not only acceptable but SUGGESTED by our government. Go figure.

So rule(s) of thumb: Eat more green leafy vegetables, preferably raw. Eat less food in general, particularly portions-wise. Eat fresher food. Vary it up.

That’s all I really need to say on nutrition.

So we tasted a few alternative oils, that are healthier and better for you than corn oil, and a little better than olive oil. Oils higher in omega 3 fatty acids, which are better than the omega-6 fatty acids found in corn. We tried Pumpkin seed oil, walnut oil and one other which is slipping my mind. My favorite was by far the walnut seed oil. I went out and bought some, and it’s absolutely delicious.

Oh, we should also eat more fish to get some of these omega-3’s. The Japanese eat lots of fish and are doing great. Pretty much all of the diets that consisted of better ratios of omega-3’s to omega-6’s have proven to be better for you.

What does this half-ass post means? Moderation. Think about what you put in your pie-hole, and basically, if your great grandmother would recognize it as food, then its worthy to put in your mouth (that is, leave out the Oreo Cakesters, and foods that come in bar form, or tubes and certain bright packages – not that they’re all bad, but it's just a general notion).

The recipes we made included striped bass, which was delish, and which I took a bunch of filets home. We also made a bunch of different grains for side dishes, including quinoa, which was surprisingly delicious. Last night’s recipe was semi-fresh sardines, which were pretty nasty. The taste was alright, but all in all it was not a wonderful experience. They weren’t even fresh looking, and chef admitted this. So why did we even cook and eat it?

Some other interesting tidbits... Chef Tim taught the nutrition classes. Man that guy looks coked up. The salmon we eat is naturally white fleshed but they add necessary nutrients and coloring through the pellets they feed them on the farms. Good and bad cholesterol is strictly relative, but some of it is essential. One of the Steve’s seemed to have left our class, and left his job, he works in reception at the FCI. And we’re going out Thursday, I believe.

Til next time.