Friday Five

[mamajoan]

In lieu of an actual post, here's the Friday Five. As always, they come from www.fridayfive.org.

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? If you didn't have breakfast, why not?

I never used to have breakfast, but now that I'm preggers it's a necessity. Usually I have an english muffin with peanut butter, but this morning I had an egg-n-cheese sandwich on a sesame bagel, from Dunkin' Donuts. This sandwich is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. I know it's terrible but I love it.

Oh, and hot cocoa. Yum.

2. What's your favorite cereal?

It changes a lot, but I'll say Corn Chex. I never seem to get tired of them. (I have a list of cereals that I like, and I usually buy whichever one is on sale. But if none of my favorites is on sale, I buy Corn Chex.)

3. How often do you eat out? Do you want that to change?

During chorus-rehearsal season I eat out at least once a week, because we always go for dinner after rehearsal. Other than that, maybe one other time per week, sometimes two. Do I want that to change? Well, in the sense that it's expensive, I guess so, but in the sense that I hate cooking and eating out with friends is fun, no. So, I'll call that a "sort of." :)

4. What do you plan on having for dinner tonight? Got a recipe for that?

Heh. I'll probably just boil up some pasta and put some margarine on it. This is what I eat the vast majority of my evenings. Sometimes I mix a vegetable into the pasta (canned corn is good, or frozen broccoli -- my favorite is canned artichoke hearts but they're expensive so I don't do them too often). Other times I eat a vegetable separately, or *blush* not at all. Lately I've been having more luck with fruits than vegetables.

I like to mix smoked tofu (from Smoke & Fire) into pasta too, but I've been off tofu for a while now due to the whole nausea thing. I'll probably give it a try sometime soon and see whether I can stomach it again yet.

5. What's your favorite restaurant? Why?

I have to pick just one? Oy. I'll say Mary Chung's, in Central Square Cambridge, because they have good food and it's cheap and they're friendly and they only give you chopsticks (you have to ask for a fork if you want one) and they make really good, if strong, Chinese tea. And they have a pitcher of water on each table, but the waitresses will come around with another pitcher and refill your glasses anyway, which just amuses me. Plus we always go to Toscanini's for ice cream afterward, so what's not to like? (The only downside of Mary's is that they're closed on Tuesdays which means we can never go there after chorus rehearsals. Which we *so* would if we could, because it's close to the rehearsal place and it's cheap and good and something everyone could agree on.)

Good thing I ate before taking that quiz, or I'd be pretty hungry now. :)

Comments

[retch.livejournal.com]

Ack! Joan, don't eat margarine, it is incredibly unhealthy! Butter is vastly better for you. If you are vegan (I don't remember you being vegan), use olive oil and garlic if you need the fat in your diet.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

hey, you found me! :)

I don't eat butter because I don't like the way it tastes. Anyway, I was told that what makes margarine unhealthy is the stuff they put in it to make it stay in sticks, so I buy it in tubs and tell myself I'm okay.

[retch.livejournal.com]

No, unfortunately, the bad parts are the vegetable oils that are used are pretty unhealthy to begin with. Then there is the hydrogenation, which is the biggie. Hydrogenated oils cause all sorts of nasty effects, and it is key to making margerine. Basically they hydrogenate oils because it makes them resist going rancid better, and allows them to be stable solids at higher temperatures. So the tub margerine is the same stuff, just packed into a different shape. Unfortunately hydrogenated oils behave differently in your body, and can screw up metabolic processes, get incorporated into cell walls where they change their behaviour, etc.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

yeah ... you're talking about trans fat now, I think. There was an article in this month's Consumer Reports about them. The thing is, butter is bad for you too, albeit in different ways. A person has to pick and choose her poisons, and I pick margarine as one of mine. *shrug*

[retch.livejournal.com]

Actually butter isn't particularly bad for you, it turns out most of the 'dangers' of fat that were hyped up in the 70s had no actual scientific basis. So the entire food pyramid with its focus on carbs that we were taught in school as being healthy is actually without strong supporting evidence. Whoops. :) And to make matters more frightening there is strong correlation between the push for lower fat diets, the rise of hydrogenated oils providing the bulk of the fat that people do eat, and the corresponding reduction in consumption of more natural, less processed fats like butter etc. and the rise of obesity and heart disease in the US. Scary stuff!