zenpawn

Recently in the Yahoo! Eat To Live group, the topic of nutrition and recipe software came up. We all got to chatting and recommending, and I mentioned the one I’ve used for years, DietPower.

Susan, the list owner, asked whether it was easy to post the nutrition analysis to a blog. Indeed, it creates a rather attractive HTML page. So, I offered to show what it can do by crunching the numbers on one of her recipes. Unfortunately, the page it produces is too wide for the standard blog column. Click the image below to view in full.

It also lets you print out recipe cards, pie charts, and bar graphs. These last two are based on your PDA (Personal Dietary Allowance) settings, so I’m not posting them. Also, it would be a piece of (gluten-free) cake to remove their logo and such.

Enjoy the dish, and be sure to check out Susan’s award-winning blog for more scrumptious recipes, many of which meet the requirements of Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat To Live program. The link to her site is on the analysis sheet (and my blogroll). Also, the DietPower links on that page will credit you with $5 off… just for knowing me!

Quick tip for my CRONies: You can replace the noodles with zucchini strips, or better yet, glucomannan lasagna noodles to shave mucho calories.

Woohoo! New York is at the forefront of public health again. Last time it was the banning of trans fats. And now, after much debate, the legislature there has mandated calorie counts be displayed on restaurant menus. Here’s the story on CNN.

They’re talking about it in Canada too.

Whether or not it does the trick to improve the overall health of the populace, I’m for it either way. My opinion is we deserve honest and accurate information. The rest is up to us. Take it or leave it. While I would not approve of yet another consensual crime being added to the books, like, say, possession of a hamburger, this measure seems perfectly logical. And, I don’t believe it’s a slippery slope.

So, what do you think? Will it work? Would you like to see this come to your neck of the woods?

Before you answer, you might want to check out the piece 60 Minutes did on the topic in November:

 
Still haven’t found the time to read Eat To Live?
No excuses anymore; it’s now available on CD!

Sad news this morning: The first American World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer has shed his mortal coil.

Another article, this one from AFP.

 
To learn more about his tragic ascent and decline:
Bobby Fischer: Complete Games
Bobby Fischer: The Wandering King
Russians v Fischer

No, I didn’t just curse.

I have to laugh, because I’m reminded of when my friend, and fellow chess afficionado, Hugh, decided the last name of the famous player, Efim Bogoljubov, sounded like an expletive.

Of course, Kumquats, also spelled with a ‘C’, are members of the citrus family, and I recently had the pleasure of my first taste. Yet Another Fruit or YAF, as we might say in the “geek speak” of the software development community.

It was one variety in the mixed bag, or rather, ½ bushel (two “flats”), of citrus, kindly put together by the folks at Hickory Tree Grove:

The others shown here are the large navels on the bottom, hamlin juice oranges, satsumas (talk about easy to peel!), and tangerines.

Delicious, organic produce.

Thanks go out to Janet from one of the many raw food Yahoo! groups for bringing this small grower to our attention.

These are so fun to eat. You can just pop the whole thing, skin-and-all in your mouth. The peels are actually the sweet part of this little guy, while the inside is more tart. A great contrast. If you haven’t tried kumquats, I highly recommend you do.

As a logophile, activist, and game enthusiast (though I prefer those involving strategy, like chess and Go, or even Texas Hold’Em), this fun on-line challenge nicely covers all the bases.

What does playing a game have to do with activism, you ask? Well, with this one, for every correct answer you give, the socially-conscious advertisers* on the site donate rice to feed the poor.

If you enjoy those word game booklets you can pick up in the grocery store, or are studying for your SAT’s(!), I think you’ll like this too:

Have fun! We all win with this game.

If you’re a regular here, you know this holiday season my family decided not to exchange gifts. We’ve been gradually easing back on the commercialism with each passing year, instead making homemade goods and/or setting limits. It became less and less “strange” and more and more logical, especially as gift certificates started to creep in due to distance. This year we scrapped it entirely and it was soooo relaxing for everyone.

My sister and her husband were up from North Carolina. It was great to see them and chat the day away from morning through what I coined “linner” or “dunch” (we ate around 3 PM) and into the evening with dessert. They had a DVD of their trip to Peru that was absolutely breathtaking. The Andes are beautiful, and the remnants of the Incan society still standing today leave you in awe that these huge rocks were moved by sheer human might and the simple machines of our high school physics classes.

Unfortunately, our theme of quality time was interrupted when a snowstorm forced a cancellation of dinner plans with my Aunt and Uncle. Thankfully, my sister and brother-in-law were already with them, so they got to hang out, and I’ll catch up with them soon, perhaps for another of those “big ass salads,” as I like to call them, atop the mountain.

This video, entitled The Story Of Stuff, felt an appropriate way to conclude my happy little story.

For more resources after watching, you can check out their website.

If you’re a reality show junkie like myself, you don’t really need one, just the guilty pleasure. For the rest of you (sane people), here’s a good reason to cheer on one of the contestants.

This season, The Apprentice features celebrity contestants. Obviously, they won’t be competing to land a job with The Donald. Instead, like celebrity poker before it, they’ll be playing for a charity of their choosing. And we’re not talking chump change here, this is “Trump change”—a quarter million dollars.

Marilu Henner is our champion in this one. She’s there to win it for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Definitely a worthy cause!

Tune in Thursdays at 9 PM Eastern then come back each week and post your thoughts here.