mini ice cream beats other ice cream

Each mini cone is 28 ml. My favorite iberri cone is 110 ml, more than 3 times bigger.

I don’t know why, but in reality, my kids and I tend to eat 1 cone, at most 2, never four, so this is extremely effective portion control, subverting the rational mind.

I guess my kids enjoy the fun of unwrapping. It slows down your eating and makes you savor it as a fancy food.

ice cream ^ fancy bread

In terms of BMI impact and calorie impact, I feel ice cream has 2 advantages

• lot of ice/water
• … filling like Smoothies with chia:)
• .. Lower calorie density like Smoothies 🙂
• portion control — for a few years, each time the amount I take is usually beslow 1.5 cones. In contrast, fancy breads (breadtalk++) tend to get consumed in much bigger portions.
• … perhaps due to social norm as stable food

Cakes and Breads have some advantages

• raw veg — to be developed as a diet habit, and fine-tuned. Now ice cream can also help me eat more raw veg but cakes/breads are usually more effective.

steamed broccoli

Gavin told me this is very healthy. Now I think

• 🙂 taste — mild taste. I like it
• 🙂 easy to cook — quick wash, add some water and microwave for 2 minutes
• 🙂 high fibre
• 🙂 low cost

The washed-frozen package is easy easier.

ice beats fiber: fill`food2address hedonic hunger

hedonic^homeostatic hunger

I can’t enjoy celery snack But..#other raw

In American culture, celery stalk is a popular snack. (So is baby carrot.) I often feel inferior and weak that I can’t tolerate these extremely healthy raw veg, but

• but most people brought up on Chinese food can’t tolerate it either
• but in U.S. most people would eat these raw snacks with a high-calorie companion such as cheese
• but I can enjoy raw reddish (including white), which is Not a “palatable” American snack
• but I can also enjoy raw onion, a common ingredient in Subway but not a popular snack by itself.
• …. In conclusion, I have a strong tolerance for raw veg. I won’t bother to debate on ‘stronger-than’.

This situation parallels yoga — where I’m constrained in many motions but very flexible in others. I tend to feel inferior and weak … unfairly.

nuts^other fatty foods

visually: nuts as dessert: sustainable strategy compares nuts against cheese, avocado and starchy-fatty foods

 

Is fish(+lean meat)fattening4me@@

I assume published calorie density is for cooked fish, including water content. I take these published figure as reference.  More important are

• fattening effect (on me) of a 100g fish vs starch or other foods. Veg and fruits are much lighter.
• binge risk — rice, nuts, ice cream, chocolate ,,, pose binge risk. I think fish doesn’t, due to high cost.

Note fish in soup is better by every yardstick, thanks to high water content. (However, the starch in the soup are fattening.)

In contrast, fried fish is inferior by every yardstick.

I assume fish has better calorie density then meats, and usually has more water content.

## what calorie-dense foods are binge-risky #nut

Note water content is arguably the biggest unsung hero/ having the potential to save the day.
Many otherwise binge-risky calorie-dense foods are saved by the high water content — fruits, smoothie, chendol, red-bean congee, even ice cream (with chia seed),,, The more water content, the safer, since the stomach gets filled up by the water content which serves as a binge-preventing circuit-breaker.

• nuts — prime eg. I can binge i.e. eat a lot quickly. Some people are naturally protected from this binge risk.
• creamy cakes, fried foods, chicken skin, potato salad — are the worst fatty foods. High binge risk.
• starch — I can eat a lot in one meal, including the fibrous starch like starchy roots.
• lean meat — (not KFC)
• cooked meat — I can binge iFF with rice

— a few foods with moderate binge-risks

• 🙂 chocolate? I usually don’t binge, not at the same level as cakes or potato salad.
• 🙂 avocado?? not sure. Not as tasty as cheese cakes and more natural and more fibrous.
• 🙂 fancy nuts and avocado? binge-risk is limited by cost ! Rather expensive, and seldom offered in quantity.
• — low risk
• 🙂 fish — (non-fried) I can eat quite a lot but fish is almost always low-fat, low-starch so I get filled up without too much calorie load.
• 🙂 porridge
• 🙂 whole fruits — most of us can’t eat too much fruits (with the sugar), largely thanks to the water content
  • Watermelon — i can eat a lot but not calorie dense 🙂

–fat without starch or sugar without starch are significantly less binge-risky than with-starch

• eg: cheese alone
• eg: fried peanuts and many fried nuts are not tasty
• eg: chocolates — actually i won’t eat a lot
• eg: red bean paste alone (not in a pancake) I won’t binge.
• gr8 eg: candies
• gr8 eg: raisin, dried fruits
• gr8 eg: visible sugar on biscuits and cakes
• gr8 eg: among Indian deserts, those very sweet are the least attractive

Quinoa: fibrous starch

Cooked Quinoa (not dry) has 120 calories per 100g, mostly from starch.

Fairly starchy. High fiber and fairly filling. probably more healthy than steamed rice.

Can be eaten on its own 🙂

 

visually: nuts as dessert: sustainable strategy

https://www.thekitchn.com/a-visual-guide-to-100-calories-of-nuts-snack-tips-from-the-kitchn-201778 has realistic photographs showing 100 calories of nuts

• fat — pound-for-pound, nuts are extremely high in fat (only topped by butter), but the “safer” fat, according to Mayo.
• protein — nuts often provide protein, presumably hunger-fighting
• fiber — nuts provide fiber, presumably hunger-fighting
• calorie — high, but generally researched as a healthy snack, if taken in moderation
• “inexpensive, easy to store and easy to pack when you’re on the go”, as pointed out by Mayo clinic https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/in-depth/nuts/art-20046635

Very few people point out the high fat + high calorie content of just a handful of nuts. A spoonful of nuts has roughly the same fat as a spoonful of butter/mayo, is equally addictive but nut oil is higher quality and comes with fiber.

I like the Raffles magazine summary – need portion control .. limit to tiny amount of nuts…. so tiny that I would rather eat a big serving once a few months.

I think tiny amount of nuts are good for salad.

My son doesn’t need so much heart-healthy fat. He can enjoy nuts but in very small quantity

— many fancy nuts are

• expensive, much more than peanuts
• exotic taste compared to peanuts
• Few consumers binge on these fancy nuts because … cost 🙂

As such, these are luxury equivalents of the ordinary peanuts, but they are marketed as very special and “healthy” superfoods.

— heart health

The benefits of nuts were clear enough for the FDA in 2003 to issue a “qualified health claim” for peanuts and certain tree nuts — almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, some pine nuts, pistachios, and walnuts. The claim allows some nuts and foods made with them to carry this claim: “Eating a diet that includes one ounce of nuts daily can reduce your risk of heart disease.”

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/is-peanut-butter-healthy

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/08/20/peanuts-health.aspx

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/7705466/Packet-of-nuts-a-day-can-reduce-cholesterol-levels.html — SMALL amount. “researchers found that those who ate plenty of nuts, of all varieties, had lower cholesterol levels than those who rarely ate them.”

— nuts compared to creamy cake, brownie, cheese cakes, cookie, scone, Indian deserts

All of those are fatty from animal fats, therefore less healthy.

Nuts have more fiber than those.

— nuts compared to cheese

Calorie density is better in cheese esp. light cheese.

In terms of binge-risky, cheese is usually an addictive ingredient in a starchy food, but nut is often binge-risky by itself.

— nuts compared to avocado: avocado: slightly better than nuts

–Conclusions:

1. For me, nuts are really fatty _desserts_. There are lighter desserts like rice pudding, nonfat ice cream …
2. wine can be healthy drink iFF you only take a small cup. Similarly, nuts is considered a “healthy” snack if you eat a few pieces, not a hundred pieces as I usually do.
3. eat in moderation, not asMuchAsYouLike as raw veg
4. possibly as a relief-food to go with raw veg
5. avoid nuts coated with a paste and deep-fried
6. avoid nuts coated with sugar