Zola

Does Wine Make You Fat?

We’ve talked about beer.

Today we are going to give wine its day. People ask, “Does wine make you fat?”

“How can I drink my wine and not gain?”

Those are two big questions, followed regularly by, “Can I drink wine and still lose weight?”

Let’s explore.

First, I’ll tell you a story. I had several Plan Z dieters around the country who were very successful in their first round of Plan Z. Happy-Happy with their results. They went through the ZReduction phase of Plan Z and lost the weight. We taught them how to keep it off during the ZReboot phase; including consuming liquor, beer, and wine. They were happy campers. They now knew how to maintain their weight and eat happily forever.

But they wanted to lose more weight.

The next time they did Plan Z they had a little too much bravado. They decided to try the diet and still drink their wine after work. They followed the rest of the diet protocol closely. Never cheated. Well, they did cheat because you’re supposed to give up wine while on ZReduction but besides that, they were free of diet mistakes.

They reported back.

They lost about 60% less weight when they did a round of Plan Z while they drank wine.

Hmmm...

They thought they could get away with it. One glass on day one and it was smooth sailing. They lost weight. But I have to tell you, it catches up with you.

I’m going to quote an interesting excerpt I found online. There is a lot of debate on how or why consuming alcohol makes you gain weight (or lose it slower). It’s mind-boggling. It goes everywhere from the fact that you lose your inhibitions and just pig out, to calorie counting. Well, truth be told, dry wine (which most enthusiasts drink) is not high in calories. Only about 100 calories a glass.

This guy I’m quoting is not a scientist. He’s a recovering alcoholic who now blogs about the subject and counsels addicts. Usually, I can corroborate what I post with the study links that go with it. I can’t do that this time but I have a tendency to believe this guy. It makes sense. So put this through whatever filter you have and see how it impacts your thinking.

When alcohol is consumed, it’s broken down into acetate—which is similar to vinegar. The body burns acetate before any other stored energy in the body. In other words, it thrives on the alcohol instead of any excess fat you might be working towards reducing. The body prefers acetate to sugar and fat. In other words, your body will cling to the treats you had earlier in the day or week and thrive on the alcohol. That’s why plateaus are so common for those who drink and are working towards fat loss.

To make matters worse, alcohol has a knack for temporarily stopping the body’s lipid oxidation. This makes it even tougher for your body to burn existing fat. If you’re looking to gain weight, scientifically the best approach is to drink a lot and eat a lot of fat.

I might argue those last three words because we don’t believe fat makes you fat. Carbohydrates do and there is tons of science now to back that up.

So can you drink wine and not gain? I’d say, "Yes." In ZReboot we prove it with folks all the time. The old adage of “everything in moderation” comes into play but the studies out of countries like France prove the point, too. I have been in France for an extended period and I can tell you they love their wine and the incidence of obesity is observationally almost non-existent.

Here are some numbers to make my point:

So if you stick to dry wines you should be able to drink a glass or two with your meal. Or, relax with a glass after work.

So how much is too much? That depends on your liver and how your body reacts. Most studies say stick to a glass or two, yet how does that compare to other things you buy in the grocery store? Here’s an interesting tidbit -- how many grams of carbs in a medium apple?

Answer:  25

And who eats a medium apple anymore? They are getting bigger and bigger. I was listening to a radio talk show the other day and they had a guest who was there to promote new apple hybrids coming into the United States. Much of the conversation swirled around how the farmers are figuring out how to breed sweeter and sweeter apple hybrids and they may have started off in places like New Zealand, but they are making it to the United States over the next couple of years. Start watching for signs in the produce department for apples with names like: SweeTang, Juici, Opal and Snapdragon. I’ll never forget the first time I bit into a Honeycrisp apple. No apple had ever tasted so good or so sweet. And those things are huge. They run more like 30 grams of carbohydrates. Thankfully they also provide a lot of fiber. So swirl that glass of wine if you choose and savor it. Enjoy it - if you drink it in moderation you shouldn't gain weight. But don't expect to lose weight while you're doing it. Wine is not a diet food.

Cheers,

by Zola

Kitchen Cleanliness

A lot of people call me a clean freak. My house is pretty spotless most of the time. I have two cats, but I don’t have any small, human children, so frankly, this is not that hard to do. My husband and I split up the household duties pretty evenly.  I do the menu, shop for the food, and cook it. Sometimes he chops veggies.  He’s a great sous chef.  He also loads my dirty cooking tools in the dishwasher. I do the cat litter.  He refuses that job completely.  But in exchange, he does the laundry.  Now that we downsized, the laundry is just a few steps outside the kitchen, so he runs small loads almost every day.  He also vacuums and mops the kitchen floor.  What a guy.

There are few other things I do that revolve around my cooking and my kitchen that I thought I’d pass along:

When I cook meat, I pay close attention to make sure my kitchen remains sanitized. If the meat I buy comes from the grocer wrapped in plastic, I put a few paper towels on my cutting board. Then I slit open the package across the top and remove the meat. This way I don’t have to tilt it and spill the drippings all over the counter. The paper towels and the cutting board may have a few drips on them, but they won’t have much. Then I carefully remove the cutting board and sanitize it. I get another one out to cut my veggies. I have several cutting boards of various sizes for this purpose. The packaging goes quickly into the trash.

Let’s say the meat I brought home from the grocery store is wrapped in butcher paper. I get out a cutting board and put it on the counter. I open my butcher paper on top of the cutting board. Then I unwrap the meat and either transfer it directly from the butcher paper to the cooking pan or I prep it on top of the paper. Maybe I have to cut salmon, or maybe I’m trimming fat off a pork tenderloin. Whatever it is, it goes from the butcher paper to the prepped pan it will be cooked in, even chicken. I might pat it dry if I need to sprinkle a rub on it, but I don’t wash it in the sink. I stopped doing that years ago (I’ll tell you why in a minute). Whatever raw meat I am taking from the butcher paper to the cooking pan never hits the cutting board, the counter, or even the sink. I then wrap up the butcher paper and take all of the drippings that have collected there and put it all directly in the trash.

Some people gag at the thought of not washing chicken. There’s usually a drippy mess in the bottom of the package. That’s true. I see it just like everyone else. Clean freak that I am, I am confident I am doing the best thing. With several salmonella scares of late, this topic has been on the news recently. I was listening to the radio one evening and they were talking about a study that analyzed the rinsing of chicken over the sink. They used infra-red technology and were shocked by what they found. They determined that when you rinse your chicken in the sink, you send microscopic splatters of water, along with contaminated chicken juice, all over your sink area and your countertop. That’s the biggest reason people get food poisoning from chicken. They give it to themselves by not prepping correctly. The splatter goes all over the place. It gets on your kitchen dish rag if it’s anywhere near the sink. It gets on the fixtures and then you touch them. Even if you wash your hands after washing the chicken, unless you sanitize the whole area, you’re doomed to pick up the germs and transport them to other parts of your kitchen or even to yourself. Lick your finger and BINGO. If you are one of those people who keep a squirt bottle of hand sanitizer near your sink, you just contaminated that too. How ironic.

When you cook chicken to 165 degrees or higher, all of the microbial bad guys (including salmonella) are DEAD. You don’t need to worry about them anymore. So if you cook your chicken until it’s no longer pink in the middle then you’ve removed the risk of salmonella transference when you eat.

Speaking of things around the sink…

When people come over and want to help in the kitchen I am VERY grateful. Some guys pull up to the sink and even volunteer to wash pots and pans. They ask for a dishrag. I hand them a sponge. They look at me a bit funny at first but they get used to it and get quite handy at using a sponge. I transferred from using a dishrag to a sponge years ago. Here’s why:

We’ve all heard that our sink is probably the dirtiest place in our house; at least that’s where the highest variety of germs hang out if we are not careful.

When I was a kid, we were a 'dishrag household.' We had seven kids. That dishrag got a serious workout daily. I’m making an ugly face as I type this just from the memory. I used to make the mistake of sniffing that rag sometimes. It was gross! I think there were times when that rag was around the sink for days. You know what people do. They use it, rinse it, and then hang it over the arm of the kitchen sink spout. It dries there and they use it again.

Not me. I use a sponge. After you clean up, it’s so easy to put that sponge in the dishwasher on the top rack and when the dishes are done, voila, I take out a sanitized sponge along with it. I rotate two of them so there is always a back-up in the sink. Even if it doesn’t get washed every single day, it’s a far cry from that grody rag. If you don’t have a dishwasher but you have a microwave oven, I hear that does a great job of killing the bacteria too.

So there you have it; two kitchen cleanliness hints that I use on a daily basis. Feel free to comment on this article and offer up your own ideas.

Cheers!

by Zola

Herbal Aromas

I gave up planting fruits and veggies years ago but I have not given up on herbs. Every year I make sure I have plenty of those.

I’ve changed some of what I plant because my garden is much smaller now. But there’s nothing like cooking with fresh herbs. I love stepping into my garden to pick herbs when I need to incorporate them into a dish. They smell lovely when I’m in the yard sipping tea or drinking ice water while reading a magazine on the porch.

Some people have what they call an herb garden. They pick a patch of land and concentrate on planting all their herbs in one place. When I lived in Chicago patches of land were hard to come by. My garden was patches and pots scattered across a balcony. I incorporated my herbs right in with the flowers in the pots.

There are certain herbs I make sure I have every year:

Basil is my mainstay. I used to plant purple and green basil but now I stick with the traditional green. I make sure at the mid-point of summer to make plenty of pesto with my basil. Then I freeze it in teeny containers so I can use it throughout the colder months. I garnish dishes all summer long with individual basil leaves that I cut into a chiffonade.

Chives are fun. They are a perennial but I don’t have room for a chive patch anymore. I just buy a couple little plants and put them in pots amongst the flowers. I love the little purple flowers and use them either in salads or as a cutting flower in a little vase on the table. I love the texture of the plant in the garden. The spikes of chives leaves sticking up make a nice counterpoint to flowers.

Sage is another favorite. There are lots of kinds of sage but I just concentrate on the traditional green. One exotic thing I do is take the leaves and gently deep fry them in coconut oil. Serve them as a snack at a dinner party. Even people who don’t usually like sage love deep-fried sage. They taste like little potato chips with a sage profile.

I have been known to plant sorrel. I use that in salads. It’s pretty, too.

I always have mint and parsley. Each year I rotate which mint I choose and which parsley. I might go curly or flat on the parsley. Or both. I garnish with curly parsley and use the fresh stuff in cooking because it has more depth to the flavor. I plant cilantro. I also might plant spearmint, peppermint, and sometimes even chocolate mint.

I miss planting things like tarragon and rosemary. But alas, I just don’t have room anymore. I’m a big fan of lemon balm, too. I used to have lemon thyme growing along the path in my big garden. You can actually walk on it and it holds up well. As you walk it releases the lemon smell. The aroma is heavenly.

The smell of basil, mint and lemon balm growing in the garden are my absolute favorites. Sometimes I pull off a leaf or two and rub it between my fingers and soak up the aroma. When I’m reading in my garden I can smell the fresh herbs growing in the pots around me. For me, that’s the smell of summer.

What are your favorite herbs to plant? Do you do them in pots or do you have an herb garden? Let’s share herbal stories - you can post your favorite garden herbs in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

Since we’re talking herbs I thought I’d give you my pesto recipe now. That way, when your basil is mature you’ll have this recipe at the ready. It's delicious.

Cheers,

Pesto

I have seen in some restaurant menus that chefs have made pesto with walnuts, so I decided macadamia nuts must work too. Now I can attest. They not only work, it tastes great!

by Zola

How to Stay Regular

I have discovered a great way to stay regular.
And it’s not fiber.
It’s a mineral. Magnesium.

Lots of people have a challenge staying regular. Overweight or skinny. Constipation can be an issue; and one that can interrupt your life in a most uncomfortable way.

When dieting, lots of people get constipated. As you reduce the amount of fats you eat, Mother Nature needs help keeping the flow of waste products moving.

Most Americans don’t get enough magnesium from their diets. That’s mostly because we eat too many processed foods. If we ate enough nuts, beans and things like seaweed we’d get all the magnesium we need and we’d also get the side benefit provided by magnesium. We’d “go” right on schedule.

I now take magnesium citrate. One pill a day. It’s not expensive, and it works. Some recommend you take it at night before bed, and voila.

I found it better for the way my body operates to take it in the morning. Magnesium citrate works so well, at first you might be hanging around the bathroom more than you want. And urgently. After that, your body gets used to it. For a while I only needed one every other day. That worked for me. Everyone is different. Now I take one every morning.

Magnesium has so many other benefits beyond keeping you regular. It’s really vital for your health. Dr. Mark Hyman put this column together. He has a brilliant way of making the seemingly complicated, so simple. He’ll explain how there are many kinds of magnesium and how many have a myriad of benefits.

Want to stay healthy? Take magnesium.

Want to sleep well and get rid of those nasty leg cramps? Take magnesium.

Prone to headaches? Take magnesium.

The list of magnesium benefits is a long one, so I hope you take time to read Dr. Hyman’s blog post and I hope you consider adding magnesium citrate to your supplement list.

For an additional boost of magnesium you can add cauliflower to your diet. One head packs a walloping 88mg!

Cauliflower Pancakes

Put some cauliflower on your plate with my Cauliflower Pancakes recipe.

Cheers,

by Zola