Editorial
Front Page - Friday, December 18, 2009
Holiday gorging
Jay Edwards
If God had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn’t have given us grandmothers.
— Linda Henley
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. — Calvin Trillin
WebMD has a feature called “Holiday Food Horrors, which quotes a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that says the average person puts on a pound during the holidays and never loses it. Only one? This adds up to serious weight gain over the years, 52 extra pounds in my case.
Here is a list of the foods that they WebMD calls naughty and nice.
Naughty: Turkey skin. The skin of turkey and chicken is loaded with saturated fat. Not a big problem for me to give this one up. But I remember one year when we took the kids to Disney World. There were people walking around everywhere eating these giant turkey legs. I felt like I was in a Flintstone cartoon.
Speaking of that, who would you rather date, Wilma or Betty?
Another no-no is dark meat, which is tough because I especially love chicken thighs marinated in Wishbone Italian Dressing; hold the skin.
Naughty: Stuffing. My mother makes the best stuffing (the correct term is dressing) in the galaxy. I don’t care how good you think your mom’s is, this is better. WebMD says a single scoop may have up to 550 calories. What do they know?
Nice: Try making wild rice stuffing instead. I don’t see it happening.
Naughty: Buttery mashed potatoes. This is an easy one for me to give up, just filler. My brother Bill would disagree. What does he know?
Nice: Mash the potatoes without milk, butter or salt. Bill
would cry.
Naughty: Sweet potato casserole. I will never eat any of this even though sweet potatoes are supposed to be very nutritious. How could something that healthy taste good anyway?
Naughty: Pecan pie. I’d give up an arm for a piece of this stuff. Unfortunately one slice has 500 to 800 calories.
Nice: WebMD says to nibble on a bowl of mixed nuts instead. Who am I, Euell Gibbons? By the way, did you know Euell’s middle name was Theophilus?
Naughty: Fancy finger foods. I don’t eat body parts.
Nice: Chilled shrimp and fresh fruits are nutritious low-calorie appetizers. Sounds pretty good.
Naughty: Potato pancakes. Never had one so I’ll keep it at that. Why screw up pancakes with a potato anyway?
Nice: WebMD says if you’re doing the cooking, use olive oil instead of corn oil. If you’re doing the eating, limit yourself to a couple of latkes with unsweetened applesauce on top. Not sure what they’re even talking about.
Naughty: Eggnog. Alcohol, heavy cream, eggs and sugar make a frightening combo – a single cup of eggnog contains about 340 calories and 19 grams of fat.
I’ve never been a big eggnog fan, but we have some friends who have a milk punch party every New Years. It’s great. They invite half the state.
Nice: Make low-calorie eggnog with skim milk, egg substitutes and artificial sweeteners. Blah.
Naughty: Mixed drinks. This is starting to depress me.
It reminds me of the line from that classic Kirk Douglas movie, “Ace in the Hole,” when newspaper publisher Jacob Q. Boot asks reporter Charles Tatum (Douglas) if he drinks a lot. “Not a lot — just frequently,” comes the quick reply.
Cocktails can be surprisingly high in calories. I’ve never had one but an 8-ounce white Russian made with light cream has 715 calories. Sounds pretty good.
Nice: WebMD says to mix up a wine spritzer by adding a splash of wine and sparkling water to pomegranate or cranberry juice. This not only shaves calories, but also contributes to your fruit servings for the day. Yeah right.
Naughty: Cakes and cookies. Every Christmas my wife makes rum cakes. I’ll tell you how good they are. One morning, years ago, when we were living in Fayetteville, Kathy looked out the back window and saw our neighbors, Patsy and Bill, standing very still in their back yard and staring at the ground.
Kathy later called Patsy, who told her that one of their old dogs had died and they had buried her that morning.
Kathy made a rum cake later and took it to them.
The next day Bill brought our plate back. We both told him how sorry we were about his dog. He sighed and said it was all right. Then he smiled and told Kathy he was thinking of killing his other dog, so that she would make him another one of those cakes.
Enjoy the holidays.
|
|