Commercials are making us dumber

I have a problem with commercials.  Some of them are funny...I will admit I get a giggle out of a few (ESPN commercials especially).   But others...they're just dumb, and they make me angry.  And they make us all dumber.  I will go over a few particular examples and why they annoy me.  And this isn't all of them, just the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

1)  Product: Unknown, Selling point: Whole grains make you lose weight.

So I don't even know what the commercial is selling (something grain-y), some product geared towards women who want to slim down.  Whatever.  It starts with two women talking (again, I don't even know where they are or what they're doing, I'm just so irritated with the commercial I tune it all out).  One woman says to the other, "You look great! (maybe also You've lost weight...I'm not sure)  How do you do it?" while the other replies, "Eating right.  Whole grains!"  Then the commercial goes on to say something along the lines of "Studies show that people who eat whole grains tend to weigh less."  I find this ridiculous/funny because they are IMPLYING that eating whole grains will cause you to lose weight, however they know they can't outright say it in their commercial, so they just say that people who eat whole grains "tend" to weigh less.  That's like saying women who wear sports bras "tend" to weigh less than those who don't.  Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causality.  People who eat whole grains (and women who wear sports bras) are doing it because they're health concious (and the women in sports bras are probably going to the gym).  Health concious people are more likely to not eat a bunch of sugar, they probably watch their calorie intake, and they also probably try to excercise.  Eating whole grains does not cause weight loss.  Don't be fooled by their implications and their bad science!  Use your own logical minds!  "Suzie likes the color red.  Suzie is a girl.  Therefore, all girls like the color red."  FALSE!  Just because the chick in the commercial eats whole grains and is looking "great" does not mean that eating whole grains is going to make everyone who eats them skinny!

2) Product: Tyson Chicken Nuggets, Selling point: Kids like them

This commercial (and others in this commercial series) is really irritating.  Okay, so kids are picky.  So instead of making them eat their veggies or whatever dinner you put in front of them, you're going to let them just eat whatever they want?  What about when they need to eat those things?  I'm not a parent, so I have NO idea how difficult this will be when the time comes, but as it stands now I have a feeling I'll be a mean mom and will say to my kid, "Tough cookies, eat your dadgum green beans!  I didn't eat my veggies when I was a kid and it made me mean, so eat them or else you'll be mean to your kids too!"  I really hope I won't just let my kid skip their veggies because they "don't like it"...I mean, I like ice cream better than spinach, but I know I can't have ice cream for every meal (bummer, I know).  Chicken nuggets aren't exactly a "healthy" meal, you know?  "Well, little Bobby won't eat his spinach or carrots or green beans or freshly baked chicken breast...I know, lets give him little mounds of uniformly shaped chicken product coated in some gluten, sodium and sugar!"  No thanks.  And like the SNL skit says, "If it McComes from where I McThink it does - I don't want to McEat it!"

3)  Product: Kid's cereal commercials, Selling point: again, has whole grains and/or fiber!

Here's a good example of one of these commercials.  This makes me so angry/sad!  Let's all just take a step back and realize that Fruit Loops is what it is...a sugary cereal that turns your milk colors and gives you a big fat sugar high!  What?  It has 3 grams of fiber?  Super.  It also has 12 grams of sugar and 25 total grams of carbs per serving.  If you want to get your kid some fiber feed him/her a serving of strawberries or an apple.  Don't try to make Fruit Loops in to something it's not...it's NOT a health food...it's just sweet, empty calories.  I also love how the commercials always talk about "essential whole grains" like they're just as necessary as vitamins.  They're not.  Sure, they've been chemically altered and "enriched" to include some vitamins/minerals in them, but you can get those vitamins and minerals in REAL food, like fruits and veggies and meat...and those things don't have to be "enriched" by scientists and food labs.

Okay, I'm done with my rant for now.  Thanks for listening. :)

Menu for the week!

Below is my dinner menu for the week...I like to plan ahead so I don't stress out over what to make every night after work.  :)

Sunday - Herb Grilled Chicken a la the Healthy Irishman (we didn't do the celery root mash, just the chicken) & a spinach salad

Monday - "BBQ" slow cooker short ribs (using the sauce from the "Technical Fowl Honey Chicken Wings" recipe I have in my football crock pot instructions/recipe booklet, see below)

Tuesday - Burgers (yummm) (no bun, please!)

Wednesday - Zucchetti (zucchini, peeled and wilted in a colander, covered in your favorite meaty spaghetti sauce!)

Thursday - Fish & Broccoli...not sure what fish/recipe I'll use yet...depends on the fish that they have @ the store on Thursday!  But I'm thinking this one sounds good...Lime & Basil Tilapia.  Or I might just fry it up with some coconut flour, who knows!

Friday - Garlic parmesan chicken wings ... since it's the start of football season, what better Friday dish than some chicken wings?!  Yay, I'm excited for Friday!

Saturday - Again, it's football season, it's time for football food, meaning an almond crusted pizza! 

It sounds like we'll be eating well this week!  Yay for dinner!

Technical Fowl Honey Wings
12 chicken wings (24 chicken drummies)
1/4 tsp ground ginger (or fresh grated if you've got it!)
salt & pepper to taste

1 c. honey
1/3 c. Worcestershire sauce (unfortunately this is pretty much not paleo approved, but we're not doing shooters of the stuff AND the stuff we have IS gluten free, so we'll go with it for now!)
1 Tbsp olive oil (or your fat of choice!)
1/4 c. spicy brown mustard
1 oz. chili seasoning (you could buy a packet at the store, but check the ingredients!  We're just going to make our own with the chili powder and spices we have in our pantry). 

Since we're not making these as chicken wings, we'll only use the second half of the recipe.  I'll put it all in a bowl, stir it together, and pour it over the short ribs in the bottom of the crock pot, then I'll put it on low for abougt 8-10 hours. 

Hope everyone's having a great Sunday!  I'm off to finish my guacamole beef (which is exactly what it sounds like...cooked ground beef with a few spoonfuls of guacamole mixed in with it)!

Dude's Birthday

It's been a while since I've posted on here!  Yikes!  I need to keep up with this more!

Let's see, what's happened this past week?  Well, Dude was home all week instead of out of town for business, so that has been WONDERFUL!  Hopefully he doesn't have anywhere else to go for a while!  His birthday was yesterday, so for his birthday gift I got him this nifty little Sunrise Clock.  It's supposed to make waking up in the morning a little easier and a little gentler.  We have it programmed to where a light slooooowly starts to come on for 30 minutes prior to our actual alarm time.  It's pretty nice and works pretty well!  It's a lot less jarring than a normal blaring alarm clock. 

Also for Dude's birthday, I made zucchini lasagna.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  :)  Instead of using pasta, we used very thinly sliced zucchini to make the layers.  Here's the scoop!

Ingredients:
2 lbs Ground beef (grass fed if you can get it!)
1 1/2 jars of your favorite sauce (because I'm lazy and didn't want to make my own, I just bought the Organics brand Tomato & Basil sauce because it does not contain any added sugar or sweeteners)
2 lbs of zucchini, peeled and sliced into SUPER thin strips (best done with a wide mouth peeler)
15 oz. container of ricotta cheese
1 egg
A handful of fresh parsley, chopped
At least 12 oz. of mozzarella

First, I pre-heated the oven to 325.  I cooked up the ground beef (seasoned with garlic salt and pepper) and added the sauce, and while that was warming I sliced up the  zucchini.  Then I mixed the ricotta with one raw egg and the parsley, and I cut the mozzarella into chunks I could place around the pan.  Once I had all my ingredients I started the assembly.  I had a 9 x 13 inch pyrex baking dish, and I scooped out half of the meat sauce and spread it in the bottom of the pan.  Then I took the zucchini slices and layered them on top of the meat.  I had a lot of zucchini slices so I did about 2 layers just to make sure I got good separation between the layers.  Then I tried my best to spread out 1/2 of the ricotta mixture (it didn't work very well because the cheese was sticky and the zucchini was thin and pulled up pretty easily).  Then I added some mozzarella, and did the whole thing over again!  Another layer of sauce, zucchini, cheese, and more cheese.  I covered it with foil and cooked it for 30-45 minutes @ 325.  Then I took the foil off and turned up the oven to 350 and cooked it for another 15 minutes (until the mozzarella on top was all bubbly and starting to get a little toasty looking).  It was seriously good, and I don't even like lasagna on a normal basis!  Dude loved it, and that's what really mattered :).

For his other birthday present, we got him a fancy shmancy boning knife to help him cut up the whole chickens we buy.  :)  I'm looking forward to him using it!  We also got 2 boxes of Hatch green chiles from Central Market yesterday...so my car smells like green chile.  Awesome.  Dude was able to use our food saver and seal up bags of the green chiles so we could put them in our deep freezer. 

Well I think I've rambled on long enough...I'll be back soon to share more stories!  The next few months will be busy with football season, weddings, trips home, etc., so I'll have lots to talk about! 

Farewell for now! :)

One step forward, two steps back

It's Thursday!  Hooray!  Tomorrow Dude comes home! :) 

So I made progress in my workouts today...I split jerked 100 lbs over my head!  Woohoo!  That's a LOT of weight (for me!)!  Then I came home and ate ice cream and popcorn for dinner.  Like I said, one step forward, two steps back.  ::Sigh::  At least it wasn't wheat???  That's what I keep telling myself..."Hey!  It's gluten free, it could be worse!"...

I have a work bowling function tomorrow afternoon...basically the entire company is split into teams, we compete against each other in some sort of large bracket, and we eat and drink the whole time.  Really I think it's just an excuse for a bunch of accountants and engineers to get together and drink, but who am I to judge? :)  I am terrible at bowling, so I'm guessing we'll just be playing one or two games.

I finished my popcorn...I now want more ice cream...is that bad??

Oooh!  When Harry Met Sally is on the Oprah channel...gosh I love this movie! :)  BABY FISH MOUTH!  :)  "Baby talk?!  That's not even a saying!" "Oh, but baby fish mouth is sweeping the nation."

I did it!

Yesterday was a workout day.  In the morning I did my Crossfit Endurance programming (we did 100m relays) and then in the afternoon I did regular Crossfit.  Russell, the CFE trainer, mentioned that the workout was going to be "Angie" (a lot of the Crossfit workouts have names).  Angie is particularly daunting...it's 100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups and 100 air squats.  Normally I do this workout with assisted pull ups and knee push ups.  Lately I've been doing better about pull ups and push ups, so I decided yesterday that my goal was to at least do 50 regular pull ups and all 100 push ups from my toes, not my knees.  I got there, was mentally prepared, and did the workout.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I did ALL 100 pull ups without assistance!  100 kipping pull ups!!  WHAAAT?!  After I hit 50 I thought about going to the rubber band assisted pull ups, but I knew I still had some juice left in me, so I kept going.  Sometimes it was one at a time, but I kept grinding through and did ALL 100 pull ups (unassisted), all 100 push ups (on my toes), all 100 sit ups and all 100 squats.  I was happy that I didn't die and that I did it as prescribed!  Granted, both hands now have torn blisters (which are super painful), but it was worth it!  Today my hands, shoulders, triceps, back, abs and hamstrings alllll are very sore!  Thanks Crossfit!  Haha! :)