If you ever wanted a guide as to what food to avoid, the NY Times has a great review up of “Eat This, Not That!” by Men’s Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko, and they include a nice little list of some food no-no’s included in his book:

• Worst Fast Food Meal: McDonald’s Chicken Selects Premium Breast Strips with creamy ranch sauce. Chicken sounds healthy, but not at 870 calories.
• Worst Drink: Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo’d Power Smoothie. With 166 grams of sugar, you could have had eight servings of Ben & Jerry’s.
• Worst Supermarket Meal: Pepperidge Farm Roasted Chicken Pot Pie. One pie packs 64 grams of fat.
• Worst “Healthy” Burger: Ruby Tuesday Bella Turkey Burger. With 1,145 calories, not a very healthy choice.
• Worst Airport Snack: Cinnabon Classic Cinnamon Roll. Packed with 813 hot gooey calories and 5 grams of trans fats.
• Worst Kids’ Meal: Macaroni Grill Double Macaroni ‘n Cheese. With 62 fat grams, it’s the equivalent of 1.5 full boxes of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese.
• Worst Salad: On the Border Grande Taco Salad with Taco Beef. A salad with 102 grams of fat and 2,410 mg of sodium.
• Worst Dessert: Chili’s Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream. At 1,600 calories, it’s like eating the caloric equivalent of three Big Macs.

Now there is some food for thought. HA! I crack myself up.

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Last night my wife made “chicken” sandwiches…that weren’t really chicken. They were breaded soy patties from MorningStar Farms called “Chik Patties Original”. Absolutely amazing. If she had not told me what they were I never, in a million years, would have known that it was not actually chicken meat. We have been trying to watch our meat intake (of every kind) and her finding these patties was fantastic. They taste exactly like a breaded chicken breast…I don’t know how they do it, but they are quite good. You could serve these to guests and they would never know it wasn’t chicken.

I was apprehensive when she told me what they were, but now I know I could eat these in place of chicken anytime. I used to be scared of this stuff, but…yum. Next up, their “chicken” tenders!

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The United States Department of Agriculture has rejected a call for an outright ban on all “downer” cows in our food supply. Why is this important? Because studies have shown that “downer” cows have a much higher risk of getting and transmitting Mad Cow Disease:

Government regulations prohibit slaughtering cattle for food if the animals cannot stand or walk on their own… Cows that cannot stand up are supposed to be kept out of the food supply in part because they may be infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. The disease is extremely rare in the United States, but of the 15 cases documented in North America, most in Canada, the majority have been traced to downer cattle. Washington Post.

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease because they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak. Yahoo News

So why was this ban even brought up by a Senate Appropriations subcommittee? Because of that huge beef recall that started on February 18, which was apparently set off by sick cows in the Chino, CA based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., where undercover video “showed workers kicking, shocking and otherwise abusing “downer” animals that were apparently too sick or injured to walk into the slaughterhouse. Some animals had water forced down their throats, San Bernardino County prosecutor Michael Ramos said.” Sounds fun. And then we get to eat them…yum!

But even after the video tape of the abuse of the “downer” cows came out, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer “told Congress yesterday that he would not endorse an outright ban on “downer” cows entering the food supply or back stiffer penalties for regulatory violations by meat-processing plants in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation’s history.”

He must have a very big back pocket for all that lobby money to fit in, no? I mean, I am just assuming that would be why someone would actually choose to allow meat from very sick cows into our food supply.

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