Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Bloomberg’s Sodas

June 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 1 Comment

So the news came out yesterday that our dear mayor wants to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sized sodas and sugary drinks everywhere. I’m not a fan of the government making rules for your life but people are just getting too fat. The cheap junk and fast food is just awful. We’re way too fat here in NYC, too. Years ago, in the 70s, I used to go home to St. Louis and find all the people there fat, while we New Yorkers were normal or slim. Not any more. (Having just been in Nashville, I can tell you that people are not fat there.)

And how about portion sizes, which is what Bloomberg is talking about. The big American size is so endemic that it’s hard to find normal sized dinner plates. We have an old dishwasher at our country house and it was a struggle to find dinner plates that would fit in. What has happened to us? I’m tired of standing on the subway just because some one person is taking up not 2 but 3 seats!! Or how about the fact that we all pay for the medical problems of heart disease, diabetes and hypertension, just to mention a few.

How is this for an idea — I think our mayor should also consider giving each and every resident a full-length mirror. I’m convinced that people have no idea how they look. If they knew, they’d surely do something about it, don’t you think?

What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to teach people how to eat right, and to get in the habit of cooking to be able to prepare totally delicious, nutritious meals on any night of the week, even a weekday! Add a little LOVE while you’re cooking and you will please everyone, including yourself. And you’ll feel a whole lot better in every respect.

Take a look at this meal I prepared last night for four in an hour. It is a spoon cut sirloin beef roast, (38 minutes to cook at 350 degrees!), sautéed kale and beet greens with a little garlic and olive oil and yellow beans pan sautéed with just a touch of butter. Totally nutritious and delicious, and everyone loved it!

Sirloin roast beef with sauteed kale, beet greens, and yellow beans in white and green bowls.

Dinner in an hour!

More than 40% of U.S. may be obese by 2030

May 9, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

(These statistics are staggering!!! Eat right. Eat healthy. Be happy. Spread LOVE through cooking!)

Reprinted from Crain’s New York Business

The rate of obesity’s rise in America is slowing somewhat, even though a third of the population is already considered to be obese, and that figure is still expected to rise to 40% by 2030.

By Bloomberg News May 7, 2012 3:07 p.m

(Bloomberg) – The obesity rate may rise to 42% from about a third of the U.S. population by 2030 if nothing changes, according to a report.

Preventing that increase may save about $550 billion in medical costs over the next 20 years, Eric Finkelstein, the study author and an associate research professor at Duke University, said during a press briefing. The findings, presented Monday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weight of the Nation obesity conference, also suggest the surge in obesity may be slowing.

Two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight and a third are obese, according to the Atlanta-based CDC. The findings predict that the number of people who are severely obese, or about 100 pounds overweight, will double to 11%. Those people are at the highest risk for health conditions caused by excess weight, including diabetes and heart disease.

“Obesity rates have been skyrocketing,” Mr. Finkelstein said. “If we can keep obesity rates flat, we save about $550 billion.”

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index of more than 30. A 6-foot tall adult man weighing 221 pounds (100 kilograms) or more is considered obese, as is an adult woman standing 5 feet, 6 inches tall weighing 186 pounds or more, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Previous studies had assumed the rate of change would remain the same over time, with obesity prevalence reaching 51% of the population by 2030. This study takes into account a number of variables including the cost of fuel, alcohol, fast food, the unemployment rate and changes in demographics.

New drugs and technologies, increased access to recreational facilities and a reduction in childhood obesity may help lower the obesity rate in the total population, the authors wrote in the study published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Even a 1 percentage point decrease from the current trend would lead to 2.9 million fewer obese adults in 2030, about the same as the population of Chicago, according to the paper.

Overheard at Fairway

April 13, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

So I’m shopping at the local grocery store here and I overhear this conversation of this seriously overweight young woman with her young son about three years old in her cart in the vegetable aisle. She’s explaining to him (and he’s overweight already – are you surprised?) that she’s buying some cabbage. I’m thinking, okay, good, a vegetable. Then she says to him that she’s going to “Cook it in some butter, then combine it with some noodles and sour cream and, you’ll really like it!”

Really? Excuse me? Can you ruin a good head of cabbage more for your already way overweight bodies?

I was aghast. A vegetable is great but loaded with all the fat and carbs she’s talking about – this kid already has a problem and she is feeding it even more. Help her!!

Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Bloomberg’s Sodas

More than 40% of U.S. may be obese by 2030

(These statistics are staggering!!! Eat right. Eat healthy. Be happy. Spread LOVE through cooking!)

Overheard at Fairway

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