Dabbling in Vegetarianism (& other alt-food fun!)

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Actually I'm not that convinced about the whole grain thing, apart from fiber it's basically the same thing and I am yet to see any real study (double blinded, statistically significant) making a clear distinction. It does taste different, and the fiber content might help (there are some conflicting studies on the subject) but calorie and health wise I don't see a reason to put one clearly above the other.

You may know more on the subject than me though. 

[Opsa]

Just the extra fiber alone is worth it to me.

When I was macrobiotic I used to make a big pot of brown rice once a week, and just eat it cold the rest of the week. Sometimes I'd throw in different veggies to keep it interesting. I'd also add things to it daily, such as seasonings, parmesan, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, even hot sauce! (Likely this added a lot of sodium in some cases, too.)

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Side note:

I just tried using a raw egg on the rice cooker (with the rice obviously), it messes up the cooking time and I had to put the pot on the stove to finish cooking the rice, although it tasted quite good once it was done.

[Aggie]

Fibre is a great thing all on it's own, and keeps me feeling like a regular guy.

Calorie-wise, wheat bran is indigestible and can actually absorb fats (so the calories on the label might actually be overstated slightly, AFAIK the US controls for this better than some places). Glycemic index is the key term here - refined starches like white rice and white flour are very efficiently broken down into glucose by the enzymes in your saliva and from your pancreas, to the point where it's absorbed into your blood almost as fast as if you ate pure sugar (glucose or dextrose; sucrose actually has a lower GI than white flour and is therefore probably 'healthier').  This means your body needs to crank up the insulin to deal with the sudden sugar rush. Fibre slows down the rate at which your stomach releases food to the intestines, and therefore provides more of a time-release effect (which probably explains why 4 tablespoons of oats, cooked into oatmeal for breakfast holds me until lunch).  The fibre also makes it harder for your body to get at the starches, with the same effect.

If you are eating high-fibre foods with your white grains, it's less of an issue.  Re: rice, we cut in about 30% brown rice or other whole grains, which is still light and tasty but keeps some fibre present (plus it's traditional Korean-style cooking).  I can't take straight brown rice, except basmati. Short-grain brown is like a brick on its own.

A little kimchi on the side is plenty of seasoning for my rice, although the sodium content is significant there, too.  I'm not concerned about salt at home, only when I'm in the field - there's WAY too much hidden sodium in processed food, and Canada is worse than most countries for it. If I don't watch labels I can eat 2 or 3 times the RDI without knowing it.


Found some pickled seafood in a supermarket - haven't tried it yet but it looked interesting (mostly calamari).  Not as high in sodium as you might think, and although it's high in fat, that's because it's packed partly in canola oil, which you wouldn't actually be consuming too much of.  Should keep reasonably well, and go nice with pita. 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Have you tried parboiled rice? For what I read the GI is actually lower than brown rice.

Also apparently ice cream has a relatively low GI... 

[Aggie]

I've discovered that one can cook hard-'boiled' eggs in a hotel coffeemaker, if one is patient.

[Lindorm]

Aggie, I heartily sympathize with your packed food problems. I sometimes have quite similar problems myself, when I am away on a long duty -perhaps even one that stretches over three days. While you could of course eat out the whole time, that would be a expensive option, not to mention the fact that there simply are no restaurants, fast food joints or anything similar in some of the places we go to, nevermind the times we have our "rest periods" -not to mention the fact that when things go up the wall, you might end up sitting out in the woods for eight hours. And then you have the whole taste and health issue complex... Food for me should aslo preferrably be reasonably light and compact, since my backpack is full enough as it is with work-related junk.

I try to bring packed lunches/dinners/whatever with me, as far as practicable. We do have a hotplate in the cab of our locos, some are also fitted with microvawes, and there is a small fridge that usually works. Still, it usually means food that has to sit in a backpack for a period to quite-a-while. Some of it also has to be possible to eat whilst driving.

I eat quite a bit of salads, usually with some olives, capers, pickled chili peppers etc thrown in. That way, I usually only season them with a sprinkle of dry spices, such as pepper or Creole Seasoning, which keeps them from going mushy as they would if I pured on a dressing. To this, I usually add some charcuterie that's been cured or smoked, so it will keep for a while (ham, cured sausage etc), or sturdy cheese or a tin of tuna that I open at the time of eating. Another standby are "diet smoothies" -you know, those low-calorie drinks often used for dieting, either pre-mixed or in the form of a powder you mix with water and shake. They are hardly food, but they don't need refrigerating and they usually contain bulking agents that help you feel sated. This also helps keeping my girth in check -you don't burn a lot of calories if you are just sitting in a cab and moving a few handles back and forth.

Especially during the cold season, I bring a small camping pot, some pre-made soup and some frozen wok vegetables along, and cook soup on the cab hotplate. It gets a bit more filling and nutritious with the veggies, and if I add some herbs and other stuff to the veggies, it can get somewhat tasty, too. An extra bonus is that the frozen veggies act as a ice block, keeping other stuff cool. There are some hotplate virtuosos out there in the cabs who cook tons of stuff on the hotplates -bangers and mash, pancakes and whatnot. Some drivers have even been known to lug around a waffle iron and a plastic bottle full of waffle batter, using a 230V-outlet in the cab and making waffles as they go along.

I also bring a bag with mixed nuts and dried fruits to use as an energy booster when needed. Fruit is also a good standby, since it keeps reasonably well, is healthy and tastes good. It is a bit heavy, though.

I have been thinking about doing some experimentation and do a bit of cooking directly on the diesel motor  -making some sort of meat en papillote, for example, wrapping it very well in tinfoil and placing it on some suitably hot engine part to let it cook. We'll see what happens...

[Aggie]

Thanks for the tips!  Currently working 12-to-15 hour night shifts, with lots of sit time, going on 6 days now.  Haven't had much of an appetite due to the shift-lag.  Did haul the Cobb out and bbq on the tailgate yesterday afternoon (night? after work, anyways, it was sunny) for a treat.  Generally bbq on site is a no-go, what with the explosive atmospheres.

I've fallen back to the old standby of roast chicken, hummous and pita, with some bbq pork leftovers from yesterday.  Realized I might have been taking the orthorexia a bit overboard due to life stress and needed to quit sticking as insistently to veggie food for now (although I suspect I'm still losing weight anyways ).

Concur with dried fruit and nuts, especially for busy days - quick energy and good for you.  I have been getting in the habit of packing a bar of very dark chocolate as well; I can ration it easily whereas I gobble milk chocolate like Augustus Gloop if it's in reach (therefore I rarely buy it).

[Darlica]

LOL
I just have a very hard time imagining you going Augustus Gloop... Sorry... 


Character and self restraint are good, in moderation like everything else. 

Tailgate BBQ sounds good, how did you treat the pork before roasting it?
(Yes I know this is a veggi thread but please let it slip under alt-food fun)

[Lindorm]

Today's issue of the free "newspaper" (yeah, right  ) Metro had a feature on a young student who had developed some interesting alt-cooking / student ghetto cooking techniques. Among her ouvre was cooking rice and frying bacon on the hotplate of a coffee machine and baking bread with a hair strightener.

Aggie, do you have a 12V cigarette lighter-adapter for your hair straightener? 

[Aggie]

I just have a very hard time imagining you going Augustus Gloop... Sorry... 

OK, not for chocolate, but I'm a wolf - eat lean when pickings are slim, gorge when there's a fresh kill. I can literally sit down and eat a savoury meal for 2 hours or more at a leisurely pace, take an intermission and go back for more. When we in Korea for the first time, we were going to eat a 'half table' (37 different dishes between 2 ppl - if we had 4 we'd have got the 'full table') but had eaten lunch recently, so I just wandered into the nearest pub and drank a glass of beer (ok, it was a 1 litre mug) to get my appetite back. 

Did the pork with a custom spice rub of mine (mostly coriander, pepper, coarse salt, crushed dried garlic, smoked dried chilies, thyme and maybe a few other things).  Grilled some tomatoes, onion and pineapple at the same time to go with the pork, and roasted some baby potatoes in the base of the Cobb.

My hair is straight enough as it is.  I do have a 12-volt kettle that I could probably boil eggs to order with.  It's got a rack for heating up cans of soup by partial immersion.

[Darlica]

I stand corrected...


That spice rub sound delicious! Do you mind if I take notes?

[Aggie]

No, please use it - I keep a pepper-grinder full of whole pepper and coriander around especially in summer, as it goes good with nearly everything; this spice blend was an extension of that concept, targeted mostly for steak but good on nearly anything grilled.  I even made some up for Christmas gifts this year.

Note that garlic powder will work if necessary, but I buy dried sliced garlic and crack it to a fairly coarse consistency (similar to coarse salt) for the mix.  The chilies are home-smoked and dried, but if available a dried chipotle would be just fine.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Thread resurrection: rise, Rise! Rise from the depths of yonder years! 
---
Slowly but surely I'm turning to the dark (light?) side, and I'm avoiding animal flesh as much as a I can. I still eat eggs, milk, and of course, cheese, but I'm trying to avoid chicken, beef, pork and fish.

It doesn't mean I'm always successful (quiche Lorraine anyone?) but all things considered I'm happily surprised that I can do it.

I have been moving philosophically in this direction for a while but reading the Better Angels of our Nature I found myself inconsistent by being carnivorous. Suddenly arguments about suffering vs intelligence, and the number of animals killed to reach the same amount of protein (as in how many chickens vs one cow) touched a fiber.

This doesn't mean I'll apply for peta membership soon, but I definitively see things much differently now.

[Opsa]

Join us.... JJJJOOOOIIIIINNN UUUUUSSSS! Mwahahaha! 

I am glad to hear that someone else has taken the semi-plunge, as it were. I think the only way to go about it sanely is they way you have done it, Zone my friend. That is to say- you're not going all holier-than-thou with it, which I think is exactly the worst way. You're doing what you can live with, and not being too spastic if you stray a little. Ya gotta live.

I'm going to have to read this Better Angels of our Nature book, now.