MangiaMore: CLEANSE

RER 3.12.13

Oh hey. It was just a lazy afternoon, with a quick bite and some quality basic television. The Oprah spinoff Dr. Oz was on, gabbing at us with his mild lisp about things that are good for us, that contradict almost every episode. But today, today he was talking about his 3-day detox cleanse. Holy moly, did that inspire my boyfriend. We had to dance around the room and switch seats on the couch about a thousand times to get the reception of the channel to be clear, but once we did, we were mildly intrigued.

This cleanse consists of shakes; three shakes, four times a day: breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. Dr. Oz assures us that these recipes are cultivated for maximum vitamin absorption, maximum results, with minimum discomfort (“They taste delicious…” “I did the cleanse and never felt hungry,” “Dinner was good, wasn’t it?”). They all include our natural pharmacy; fruits, veggies, fats and all that good stuff, contrived to keep you full and moving, while helping your body to dispel all the toxins it has accumulated.

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Part of this detox and rejuvenation is taking a few supplements, like omega 3, pro-biotics (“to get the good bacteria in your gut”) and a multivitamin. It was also starting the day with a cup of hot green tea, with nearly a whole lemon sliced in it, you know, “to get things moving.” And the most relaxing thing, Dr. Oz assured us, was the detox bath with Epsom salts and lavender oil… too bad I don’t like baths.

Dr. Oz also claims that this detox cleanse was very affordable and somewhat enjoyable at just under $17 a day. And asking people who have tested out and participated in the cleanse to reveal their excellent and perhaps unlikely results felt like a deal maker.

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We consulted.

Deep deep deep down inside, I have always wanted to try a cleanse, you know, minimize bloat, clear the mind and body, shed that nasty water weight…blah blah blah. But the lack of chewing and amount of deprivation have always been intimidating ( I have minimal discipline, put a jar of candy corn in front of me and I will eat it, even with electric shock punishment). Being that I am a major food consumer, lover, indulger and so forth, the thought of spending 3 whole entire days without this joy, was hard to bear. This time, the prospect was not so bleak, because I would not be wandering the woods of starvation alone, but one of my favorite people ever would be holding my hand in the scarcity, lost and hungry with me.

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After a little back and forth, we decided to dive into the detox.

Dr. Oz so kindly created a little cheat sheet with all the info for the shakes and the routine, along with a giant grocery list at the top. Also during that life-changing episode, the doctor proclaims that all the ingredients could be found in local grocery stores. Unfortunately, this was not true of my local grocery store and that of my boyfriend (and I live in the middle of yuppieville and my local A&P did not have almond butter or kale at the moment). So we had to resort to the fancy organic store to purchase some of the goods needed.  The list is pretty easy, from kale to spinach, to celery to various fruits, but there is also ground flaxseed, coconut oil, and almond butter, which are a little less friendly and recognizable.

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Finally, after several trips to many different stores to get everything we needed, we were able to start. My nerves were all over the place, and doubt was creeping all the way up to my eyeballs, and my stomach was hurting from the mere thought of starvation, but I got my act together. I spent the night before our starting day tossing and turning, reading comments about the cleanse over and over, scanning the internet for more information, and creating questions that remained unanswered by Dr. Oz (Can we drink water? Can we work out?  Can we EAT?!).

 And we started on a Tuesday. We wisely secluded ourselves from the outside world, in an effort to save the other people we love from our terrible hungry dispositions, and the evil delicious temptations that the world has to offer. And like the website and further reading suggested, the morning of the beginning of our adventure I weighed myself and wrote down my measurements (for the first time ever), just to see if there would be any change.

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Breakfast

1 banana

1 cup raspberries

¼ cup spinach

1 tablespoon almond butter

1 tablespoon flaxseed ground

1 cup water

2 teaspoon lemon

Oh man. I know you know the little saying breakfast is the most important meal of the day… well, in this cleanse case, it most definitely was. This was mainly because it was the only meal of the day that was easy for me to drink, get down and keep down. The texture was chunky and weird because of the many raspberry seeds and the less than smooth consistency of the almond butter, but it was sweet and hearty feeling. Banana and the spinach kind of clash in theory, but when pulverized to a mess there was no way of knowing that your pretty fruits were mixed with a leafy green. I felt full and energized after this morning mélange…enough to make it to the gym and not pass out.

Because all the goodies for these drinks were in one location, every night we would prep two breakfast shakes for the next day, so we could “eat” (hahhaa…) breakfast in our respective places.

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Lunch

4 celery stalks

1 cup pineapple

1 cucumber

1 cup kale

½ green apple

½ lime

1 tablespoon coconut oil

½ cup almond milk

Unfortunately, lunch did not have the same “swallowability” that breakfast did. Like many of the complaints and comments I read in my preparation for this deprivation, lunch was my least favorite. I really did not mind the flavor of the drink at all, it was a little fruity, a little tangy, and a little tropical, but it was very green and chewy. I can’t honestly say I am severely fond celery; there is something not natural about its stringy and crunchy texture and the bitterness that comes with it. Perhaps it was the 3 (not 4) stalks we put in our lunch drink that poisoned it for me. The drink was much thicker and slower moving than the breakfast feast, we almost had to chew it. It was long and drawn out and probably would take me at least an hour to drink almost the prescribed amount.

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Dinner

½ cup of mango

1 cup blueberries

1 cup kale

¼ avocado

1 tablespoon flaxseed ground

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon lemon

1 ½ cup coconut water

Well dinner was quite refreshing after the chunky disaster that was lunch. It was much easier for me to inhale from starvation than lunch, but at the end of the day, after drinking what felt like my weight in highly nutritious shakes, drinking anything was difficult. This dinnertime wonder was hot and spicy from the little bit of cayenne, but also sweet and thick caused by tropical mango. The super food kale was hardly perceptible in taste, but morphed the color of the shake to something evil. It did not feel as fulfilling as breakfast, or as filling (in a “I can’t really force myself to eat any more of this” kind of way) as lunch, because by the end of the day, true starvation was setting in, along with the doubts and blurry lapses of discipline. But I would drink this dinner mix again… like the breakfast drink, almost voluntarily.

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All in all, it was an experience… one that I don’t think I need anytime soon (not even the suggested every three to four months). Not gonna lie, it was difficult. It is much harder not to chew or missing chewing than you think.

The visitors on the tv show made it sound like it was easy and extremely rewarding for the body and soul. I, on the other hand, did not encounter that. They mentioned feeling light and refreshed, focused and renewed. I just felt tired and hungry. I was severely uncomfortable most of the time with bellyaches and disrupted routines. There was nothing light feeling with me, other than light headed. I think my boyfriend had a similar reaction to me. We both had a hard time. Cool, we were focused for like 30 minutes after consuming a shake, but after that there was a steep plummet into un-productivity and overwhelming lethargy. It was naptime all day and strenuous headaches frequented from lack of sugar and caffeine, things that I didn’t really think my body was so reliant on. It was deffo not as easy as they made it seem, on the body and the mind.

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Good news is, I temporary lost weight and inch (yes one). I would like to emphasize temporarily. Dr. Oz and his friends kept talking about this weight loss and eliminating, but they never mentioned what would happen once you started eating again. Some of the weight has come back and my belly still hurt for a few days after this rejuvenation.  Yes, it was harder to eat more, and my body was less excited about the greasy, heavy, and sugary things that it once used to be, but that lasted about five minutes (enter Easter candy).

It took very strong will and desire to see it through to really get through it. I was really lucky that I had the full support (though sometimes grumpy) of my boyfriend who suffered through the dissatisfaction with me. This cleanse really ended up being a bonding experience, and different kind of way of exploring food and what it does for our bodies and minds…. But I really did miss solid food, like a lot.

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3.19.13

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FoodFacts: EGGS

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So there are so many different kinds of eggs, from so many different kinds of animals, but let’s just focus on the kind we are most familiar with, chicken eggs. Even in that category, there are so many different kinds of eggs; different colors, shapes, sizes, speckled, brown… There are also a wide array of factors that contribute to eggs, how they are produced and even how they taste! Eggciting!

Eggs are an eggcellent source of nutritional value. They just happen to be one of nature’s most economical and nutritious food sources,[1] perhaps the world’s most affordable sources of protein.[2] These small and mighty orbs of goodness are jammed packed with protein. Also, it’s cool that “egg protein is the standard by which other protein sources are measured.”[3] They also have an amazing array of amino acids, vitamins and minerals, such as calcium, iron, potassium, A, D, and E.[4]  There are about 70 calories per egg.[5] According to the American Egg Board, a large egg contains 6 grams of protein and 4.5 grams of fat, which is only about 7% of the recommended daily value of fat. [6]

This has created a market for the mass production of eggs. As I learned on both a cooking show with Bobby Dean (the Great Paula’s own son) and on History Channels, “Modern Marvels: Egg” episode, hens produce an egg as frequently as once a day, to every other day, but some times as infrequently as every three days.[7] Hens lay 80 billion eggs a year, just in the United States alone. There are about as many hens as there are people in the United States, and each hen lays about as many eggs as the average person eats a year, 250 eggs. [8] This just shows the vastness of the industry, and the importance of the egg as a resource to the human population.

According to whatscookingaemrica.net the color of the shell of the egg gives no insight into the nutritional value, but rather the kind of hen that produced the egg.[9] What does change the egg, not necessarily in its nutritional value (all the great vitamins, minerals and proteins), but the taste of the egg, is the diet that the laying hen is on. This has become a very interesting point in the history of the egg. The likes of Bobby Dean and his culinary friends, or even those who can afford about $8 a dozen, tend to look for hens that are fed very specific, organic and varied diets.[10] This increases and changes the flavor of the egg.

Despite their nutritional eggcellence, eggs and their consumption are always in debate. Some debates are about disease and sickness, whereas others are more in the vein of health and nutritional facts.

According to foodsaftey.org, you really want to cook the egg until both the yolk and the whites are firm, but that is not really fun, nor how many people prefer their eggs.[11] It seems like there are as many people that like a runny yolk, as those who prefer a firm yolk. That firm yolk, means that all the little germies that can be running around in eggs, causing salmonella and other food contamination issues, are dead and gone.

Then there is the debacle of if eggs are actually good for you or not. There is a ton of protein hiding inside each little egg, but it has also been found that there is a large amount of fat and maybe too much cholesterol in each egg. Most of this cholesterol and fat is found in the yolk of the egg, so the answer for a while was to avoid the yellow yolks and just stick to the egg whites. Doing that the diner gains much of the protein present in the egg, but also looses so many of the other healthy attributes and benefits of the egg in its entirety.[12] The yolk is where all the egg’s vitamin A,D and E are located[13] as well as most of the antioxidants, minerals and other vitamins.[14] It was even found in a study that the human body may not even be able to absorb much of that cholesterol, which makes up approximately two thirds of the suggested daily amount.[15]

Because eggs are one of the most nutritious and delicious gifts, there are so many eggciting ways to prepare and serve it. Different cuisines and preferences, lend to a large variety of styles of preparations.

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Fried

The fried egg, apparently, is from the mastery of the French kitchen, and involves butter to cook, lots of butter. The way the French master executed, zee fried egg, was like a mixture of frying and poaching (in butter) at the same time. Check out the link whatscookingamerica.net's eggspertise on poached eggs. [16] Nowadays, the art of the fried egg is much more minimal; egg, non stick pan, butter or other fat agent, and spatula… don’t forget the egg. Some people cover the egg (which does make it cook better and more evenly and fully).

Fried eggs come in the form of sunny side up, over easy, and over hard. Now, the sunny side up fried egg, may not always follow the guidelines of temperatures and firm yolks that foodsafety.org warns us about, though covering does help the egg to cook more fully. Sunny side up requires no flipping or tossing, this is when the yolk is up and visible (yolk=sun). These fried eggs are great for the kinds of people who like a less firm yolk. I have also heard, by word of mouth, that if the yolk feels warm to the touch, it is cooked enough to eat. Over easy is just that, a gentle flip, so the yolk side gets some heat attention. Over easy leads to over hard, when the yolk gets cooked to the firmer standard.

Scrambled

Scrambled has to be one of the easiest ways to prepare an egg. It also is like a blank canvas, because anything can be added to scrambled eggs to customize the meal. Ingredients like cheeses, vegetables, proteins, herbs and spices, can be just the right addition to scrambled eggs to take them to the next level of delicious.

There are countless cooking show episodes and youtube videos and recipes detailing the science and art of scrambled eggs (Alton Brown  or even allrecipes or even more). To me the key is not to overcook the eggs when looking for the perfect taste and texture. Whisking the eggs along with a little milk and seasoning doesn’t hurt either. But the constant movement of the eggs in the hot pan with butter, deffo is where the trick is. Once the eggs turn brown, they are burned and dry and most definitely not delicious.

Omelet

I would dare say that omelets are the cousin to scrambled eggs, because most times, they both start off in the same way; eggs, milk, seasoning, stuff, whisk and pan. With omelets there is less movement in the pan, but a similar fluffy texture because of whisking. Like with scrambled eggs there are endless possibilities in terms of flavors, add-ons, ingredients and styles. Omelets are a great way to play with your food and get some serious protein.

Hard or soft boiled

Boiled eggs, are when the full egg, shell and all, are submerged in hot water. Calling them “boiled” eggs is actually incorrect, because if you were to really boil them the egg would become tough and rubbery.[17] So technically, it should be called “cooking” them. In order for the texture to be delicious and more edible, the water should be still, but hot. The yolks of hard boiled eggs are solid, whereas the yolks of the soft variety are looser and more liquidy. Whatscookingamerica.net gives a really great run down. 

Poached

Poached eggs are definitely an art form that accompany a wide array of benedicts, that engage different flavors and ingredients. But poaching eggs, is not quite the easiest, and it takes practice to perfect (just look at restaurants, they do not always produce perfect poached eggs every time, unfortunately). Even with poaching eggs there are different methods. Some methods just require water, an egg and a spoon, others include vinegar or egg rings, poaching cups and microwaves. This site enumerates the options very well, as well gives a detailed play by play of poaching eggs the old fashioned way and gives info on all the doodads that can be used in the process. The best poached egg fact, revealed on whatscookingamerica.net, is that the fresher the egg the better for poaching (well, I would assume this is in general). With eggs that are more than a week old, the whites of the egg begin to thin out, this then makes the end result of a poached egg messier. The whites of a fresher egg will surround the yolk much more compactly and result in a neater rounder shape. Isn’t this the point? I always thought that poached eggs were one of the more refined methods of making them…

Not only are there a zillion different ways to prepare eggs on their own, eggs feature a giant part in cooking in general. There are eggs in many baking recipes; cakes, cookies… There are puddings and custards, that definitely demand the presence of eggs. There are egg washes for ravioli or pastries, or dipping for frying. And on top of that, there are eggs in savory dishes too; meatloafs and hamburgers. Eggs are EVERYWHERE (unfortunately eggvrywhere does not work too well).

There are also different kinds of eggs that we typically consume, other than the most common chicken egg. We humans like to eat quail eggs and ostrich eggs when we are being fancy. Quail eggs are much smaller than the typical chicken egg, and have a different taste than the common egg. These tiny eggs are used in gourmet arenas, and make frequent appearances on Iron Chef America. Ostrich eggs are at the other extreme; they are enormous, with an extremely thick and sturdy shell that takes power tools to crack open. These giant eggs also have about as many calories as our daily recommended dose.[18] In England, as well as some Scandinavian countries, the gull eggs are known as delicacies.[19]

Now that you have the FoodFacts and are an eggspert… go and eggsperience!

Don't forget to check out the sources page for more light reading on the incredible edible egg!

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10.4.12

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[1] Foodsafety.gov “Eggs”

[2] History Channel Modern Marvels “Eggs”

[3] American Egg Board “Egg Nutrition Facts”

[4] Wikipedia.org “Egg”

[5] American Egg Board “Egg Nutrition Facts”

[6] American Egg Board “Egg Nutrition Facts”

[7] History Channel Modern Marvels “Eggs”

[8] History Channel Modern Marvels “Eggs”

[9] whatscookingamerica.net “Egg FAQs”

[10] History Channel Modern Marvels “Eggs”

[11] Foodsafety.gov “Eggs”

[12]whatscookingamerica.net “Egg Whites vs. Whole Eggs”

[13] Wikipedia.org “Egg”

[14] whatscookingamerica.net “Egg Whites vs. Whole Eggs”

[15] Wikipedia.org “Egg”

[16] whatscookingamerica.net “Fried Eggs”

[17] whatscookingamerica.net “Eggs”

[18] History Channel Modern Marvels “Eggs”

[19] Wikipedia.org “Egg”