A year's diet, visualized

From BoingBoing: "One woman documented her meals for a year and turned them into a series of data visualizations. What did I learn? Well, for one thing, how important it is to gather and group data into logical and easily comparable categories. For another, this woman ate more french fries than fruit. (Via Liz Landau) — Maggie"

Commuter breakie, triple cookie, fro-yo-ho-ho

Breakfast on the hoof (or rather, in the Explorer, on the way to the train): a single reheated Pillsbury cinnamon bun. Also a can of diet cola.

Lunch was the last batch of chicken/rice/mayo. The work day was punctuated by cookie/Coke Zero breaks, three each. Three! Water I found no time for.

At North Station, I picked up a diet Mountain Dew and a raisin bran muffin for the train. Dinner, at around 9, was a leg of rotisserie chicken, and a heaping cupful of leftover salad -- cukes, tomatoes, onions. I had a glass of water with dinner, and then made J. and myself a pitcher of piña colada, same recipe as earlier this week. Were we doing this as a subconscious celebration of Obama's visit to Puerto Rico? Freud only knows.

Thinking of my health and safety, J. smuggled a half-gallon carton of cookies-'n'-cream frozen yogurt through the fences and into the freezer. I had a bowl of three scoops, and went to sleep.

Pancaches, packet tea, Uno's

A groggy breakfast of three pancakes, with blueberries, bananas, oleo, and syrup. I believe I had a can of diet Mountain Dew; have you heard of it? I had a bottle of "fuzzy" water (as J. calls it), the strawberry-kiwi kind, on the train.

Lunch was again chicken and rice with the tangy mayo. Over the course of the workday, I had two cans of Coke Zero, and three (3) pink princess sugar cookies.

I took an hour to lie on the grass at Boston Common and work on poems, during which time I refreshed my musing self with a bottleful of instant zero-cal, sucralose-sweetened, peach-flavored iced tea, made from a sachet that came in a bundle of office supply samples.

At workshop proper, I had a cup of Qdoba's tortilla soup, without cheese and sour cream -- behold my restaint. I also bought, and ate at least half of, an order of vegetarian nachos, for the table: Chips! Cheese! Sour cream! Pinto beans! Mild salsa! Behold my hunger.

In the car with J. on the road to the west, we shared a can of Coke Zero. Our destination was Uno's in Leominster, where we'd play out the rest of the evening while watching the conclusion of Game Seven of the Stanley Cup finals. We split an avocado egg roll app, and an order of scampi-style shrimp with white beans and a bread stick. I imbibed multiple diet colas, and had a third of J.'s order of honey-BBQ [such as it is] boneless chicken bites. On impulse, when the aroma of another table's order wafted over to us, we also got some french fries. Ketchup ensued.

Waffles, leftovers, a late dinner

Breakfast was waffles! I'm telling you folks, this kind of decadence can't be sustainable. Oleo, syrup (not low-cal: we'll have to remedy that), blueberries, and bananas. The original stack was two, but when my back was turned, a third was added. I have a suspect in mind. I drank, most predictably, a can of diet Mountain Dew.

Lunch was another piece of leftover chicken, with a cup of the same rice pilaf, and again a teaspoon of the olive-oil mayo. Tasty. Also during the workday, a few refills of my water mug, a can of Coke Zero, and two of the princess sugar cookies.

After work, I went to the gym, and drank a bottle of water there. At the Melville apartment, I had a few spoonfuls of the macaroni-chicken-turmeric-pea dish from the other night, just to ward off the quiet ache of stomach grumbling.

A very late dinner (11ish?) while watching Seinfeld when I got back to Lunenburg -- two bowlfuls of J's pasta dish, consisting of whole-wheat elbows, mushrooms, spinach, and a sauce consisting of low-fat sour cream and... other things, which in my haste to inhale the meal I did not consider too carefully. At the chef's suggestion, I added much salt. Also a leftover hot dog with mustard (no bun); a can of Coke Zero, and half of J's bottle of fizzy water.

Hot buns to start, but an otherwise restrained day

Breakfast on the run to the train: two Pillsbury cinnamon buns, with a can of diet root beer.

Lunch: a cup of rice pilaf, reheated, with a piece of grilled chicken, skin-on. I mixed a teaspoon of reduced-fat, olive-oil-adulterated mayo into the dish. Kate stopped by and ate her lunch wrap from the Campus Trolley here, and gave me a bite, so that's what, one-tenth of a serving of lettuce and tomato.


Dinner was 1.5 hot dogs on grilled rolls, with mustard, ketchup, and finely-diced red onion; salad with spinach, tomatoes, red and green peppers, and onions, with a little raspberry vinaigrette; and cheese tortellini tossed in olive oil and pasta cheese. I drank diet Mountain Dew, surprising no one.


We made bagel chips with the leftover mini-bagels from Saturday's shower, and only tasted them; I'll probably make dipping paste with white beans or chick peas or maybe cucumber. J. and I, while we sliced bagels into thin little bagel proto-chips, shared a mini pecan roll that had snuck into the bagel box.

We went to the gym, and split a bottle of kiwi-raspberry water there, stayin' hydrated. Back at the house, we refueled with pina colada -- Bacardi rum, a banana, canned chunk pineapple with the can juice, crema de coco, some white wine, and the ice. It was great, plus, potassium.

J. and I split a pretty-pretty-princess sugar cookie in the shape of a crown (another leftover from the shower) while we watched some of the Bruins game.

Jamie Oliver's junk food living room

Jamie Oliver's passion for reforming the way American schoolchildren eat so far (according to progress shown on the show Food Revolution) is both ineffective and unlikable. But I like that he keeps working toward having an effect, even if his tone often seems miscalibrated -- too strident, too alienating, polarizing. But the newest episode shows him taking a new leaf, bringing in persons for whom poor eating habits have resulted in health issues in later life, and the response from his student audience looks to the camera like a positive one. Oliver seems to be dividing his resources between two aims: the catalytic one, by which he hopes to kindle a new attitude towards diet and personal growth, in parents and students; and the journalistic, involving his scrutiny of the entrenched system that allies school cafeterias with industrial food suppliers. It'd be nice if he had few cut-away segments, showing the work of a separate journalistic, investigative team, that could focus on these political questions, while Oliver himself presses on with the campaign for cultural change. The photo above shows a house filled with a year's worth of junk and fast food, which Oliver used to ignite new awareness in the family living there: eat better or doom! They were thoroughly disgusted by the spectacle of their poor dietary habits in aggregate, and professed their shared intention to change their ways. Great. Inspired, I took a look online for a recipe for homemade Greek-style yogurt. I'll get off the crap food yet.

Hitchens on healthier eating habits

Incidentally, and to give you a brief report on food intake, I have found it relatively easy to ingest smaller portions of leaner and better nosh, such as mercury-sodden swordfish. But here’s what causes me to laugh in a hollow manner: almost every diet guide that I have been shown contains a stipulation about the “size matters” element of the platter. Your chunk of fish or lamb or lean steak should not be larger than a cigarette pack or a deck of cards. That’s a terrific way to wean a guy who will go to Las Vegas to make an idiot of himself at the blackjack tables where they bring you free booze as long as you lose, all the while making detours to the nearby Indian reservation where they sell smokes by the ton.

-- from "On the Limits of Self-Improvement", Part II for Vanity Fair

Cereal war; Chinese revolutions; afternoon snacking

When I wandered into the kitchen, J. was there finishing a bowl of Cinnamon Life cereal. I poured in about a serving of Frost Mini-Wheats, thinking to stretch her milk -- but when I turned back around after returning the box to the cabinet, she'd already eaten most of the new cereal! It's like a war zone sometimes. So, breakfast before brunch: a few bites of cereal. The remnants. The survivors.

On the way to brunch -- with the Greater Boston Humanists, in Cambridge -- I had a diet Mountain Dew. Once there, we shared in a meal service Chinese-American-lazy-Susan-style: dumplings, scallion pancake, battered fish in a tangy sauce with peppers and onions, beef with broccoli (!), shrimps with noodles, another noodle dish, canned chunk pineapple served in a heap with toothpicks, fortune cookies.

After, a half-pint of "Le saisonniere" at Cambridge Brewing Company. On the ride home, some comfort food -- a NutRageous bar split with J.; a few swigs each of her diet cola and her fusion hot drink, a blend of 7-11's bananas foster-flavored cappuccino and hot cocoa; a very few of her sachet of honey-roasted peanuts; four of her vanilla-wafer cookies.

At home, between rounds of cat care and laundry sorting, I made a dinner of sauteed chicken flavored with turmeric, with peas and some whole wheat, shell-shaped pasta, in a sauce of mayonnaise, Parmesan, and herbs. Cat care left me without an appetite, so J. had dinner and I kept sorting laundry.

On the drive back to Lunenburg, we stopped for gas and I got the now-too-sleepy-to-live J. a bottle of zero-calorie cola, which we shared.

In bed, processing books for online sale, I knocked back a can of the ol' diet Mountain Dew. I have to kick this stuff.

Bridal shower crumb-collecting, and pizza for two different reasons

In the morning, I swigged half a bottle of kiwi-strawberry fizzy water from the nightstand. Also a chocolate truffle from a dish in the kitchen... they were just there.

Foregoing a real breakfast -- perhaps discouraged from eating by the crap habits of the past two days? -- I was next made to feed when Joe and I stopped by the aftermath of J.'s sister's bridal shower. I had a mouthful of warm mimosa that taste and smelled like cooled sweat; a glass of cranberry juice and another of water; a vanilla bridal shower cupcake; an Italian anise cookie; a bite or two of pecan roll; a wheat mini-bagel with cream cheese; some kind of ruggalah-like pastry; and a bite of an intensely pink, crumbly Italian cookie. Realizing that man was not meant to live on cookies alone, I walked next door and bought a slice (well, they come in orders of two slices each) of barbecue-chicken pizza from Sal's, and had a bottle of diet cola with that.

We went to a movie, J. and I, and avoided buying concessions: a small victory. AFTER, though, we stopped at Taco Bell, and I had a "Fresca"-style chicken burrito, and my part of a large diet cola.

Back at the house, we snacked late in the afternoon. I had two slices of reheated pizza, and a sip or two of J.'s chicken-and-stars Soup at Hand product. Also half of a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich on wheat bread.

At around ten o'clock, a knock on the door was heard knocking on the door -- J's mother wanting to know if we want some of the food they'd brought back from Texas Roadhouse. So, J. and I toddled downstairs, and split a plate of chicken-fried-chicken and mashed potatoes, covered (not heavily) with a white gravy. I had a can of diet Mountain Dew, just like I did earlier in the day with that reheated pizza.

As I'm typing this entry (and as I experience a flush of consternation, at how erratic today's eating was, and how unhealthy), I'm looking forward to a midnight snack of water and vanilla-frosted cookie.

Continental breakfast, chicken lunch, a nonsensible dinner

I woke J. up to go to Dunkin Donuts with me -- her favorite way to start the day, in these days before the days when we'll have a griddle in the kitchen and the luxury of time to use it -- but I realized there was no time so breakfast had to be skipped again.

When I got to work, parents on campus with their incoming freshmen were milling about with paper plates in the lobby outside my office. I put my things down and helped myself to a little of their continental breakfast -- a cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese and marmalade; a small piece of poundcake; two apples. I ate the pastry, but the apples sat on my desk all day -- Monday snacks? I drank water with this.

But then, oh happy day, J. shows up after her job interview, and in high spirits. Off to Raising Cane's chicken restaurant! [J. says: "It's not a restaurant."] I had three chicken fingers with their tangy sauce, fries, cole slaw, and a piece of greasy Texas toast. Great stuff, right? J. had brought food from the convenience store next door for herself, and shared her pretzel-filled M&Ms. I drank diet cola with this feast.

At Panera, during poetry discussion with the one other person who showed up for workshop, I had a half a turkey sandwich, with a bowl of their new (conveniently low-cal) soup, chicken orzo with lemon. Also diet cola with lemon.

At North Station, J. met me with a diet Mountain Dew, and shared a slice of pizza from the concourse with me (buffalo chicken with banana peppers?) on the train.

Before bed, we were goaded into sampling princess-crown-shaped sugar cookies. I had just the one.

Qdoba for lunch was more than enough

Skipped breakfast, so around one o'clock I made a peanut-butter-and-reduced-sugar-raspberry-jelly sandwich, on wheat bread.

J. eventually arrived at campus, and we went to Qdoba in Kenmore Square for lunch. I had a poblano pesto chicken burrito, and I asked for only a light helping of cheese and sour cream. We also split a chocolate chip cookie, she and I, and, on impulse, a cheese quesadilla. I had a bite of her taco salad, and did not like it much; no tortilla for architectural interest, and an overwhelming salsa. Diet cola with lime.

During the workday, the department director came into the office with a free sample of some new Starbucks concoction -- about two ounces of thick coffee drink over ice, with a drizzle of chocolate or caramel over some whipped cream. It was gone in an instant.

I also drank water during the day. After work, for the train ride home, I got a diet Mountain Dew, and a Nutrageous bar to share with J.

The Qdoba was hearty enough, so I didn't feel any need for dinner. At home, at around eleven, J. whipped up two batches of microwave mini-bags of popcorn, 100 calories each. We shared these in bed, and went to sleep.

Unlock achievement: sherbet glut

Breakfast, courtesy Patty Dee's Kitchen Griddle, was four pancakes with oleo and (corn-syrup-based) syrup. Wait, no, five, since when my back was turned, someone -- J.? -- placed an extra flapjack on my plate. Sneaky. Also a can of Coke Zero, since my feet were dragging after a restless night sleeping in a stuffy room. I've learned that feng shui is a barrowful of bunk, so there's probably no solution to the stuffiness problem.

Lunch was a bucketful (alright, a take-out-container-from-Olive-Garden-ful) of Sunday's leftovers: one-and-a-quarter chicken breasts, a single strip of grilled sirloin [For efficiency's sake, let's call that "grilloin"? - Ed.], and two cups or so of spicy Zatarain's rice mix. Also several mugfuls of water, essential for washing down the aforementioned rice.

Dinner was a spontaneous stop into the Beantown Pub, where we'd previously enjoyed an evening with raucous compatriot Ryne H. I had a turkey reuben sandwich of sorts, with turkey breast, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut, on a bulky roll. Also a nice cauliflower side, and I had one bite of my sad-looking pickle. Sad.

We went to a movie -- X-Men: First Class, a tepid and overly-expository affair made a little prettier by a gleefully serious performance by Michael Fassbender as Magneto -- and then we went home. I make a note of this only to point out that we did not glut ourselves on concessions, which is, by any account, an improvement to our record.

At home, though, the gnawing sensation of hunger began to nibble in J.'s trunk. I hopped out of bed to reconnoiter the freezer, and brought back a good kill: half a half-gallon carton of black raspberry sherbet. She was put off by the ice crystals which had formed inside, though, so set it aside on the nightstand. Where I found it at 3 in the morning when I couldn't sleep.

So ad to my kill count for the day, about three-and-a-half servings of sherbet. The disappointment I feel is matched in intensity and depth by the distress of my GI tract.

Tomfoolery at Texas Roadhouse; a Zachary-Daiquiri

Breakfast was a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats in skim milk, with a coupla blue berries.

Lunch: a reheated bin of leftovers, consisting of sweet-and-sour pork strips, two tired teriyaki chicken wings, vegetables in a gooey sauce, and white rice blended with the Zatarain's jambalaya dish from Sunday evening.

On the train ride home, I had a package of Keebler's peanut-butter-and-jelly crackers, and a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew.

For dinner, J. and I redeemed a meal voucher at Texas Roadhouse in Leominster. I had a few forkfuls of her sweet potato (undressed, meow) and of her baked beans, and a little dish of steamed veggies, two of their fresh-baked rolls with butter, two-and-a-half glasses of diet cola, half of the half a roasted chicken we split, a Caesar salad, and my portion of the basket of jalapeno-and-cheddar "Rattlesnake Bites" we ordered as an appetizer. Below, Jeremy Teel of Texas Roadhouse shows Good Morning Kentucky's Kellie Wilson how to make these tasty little fat pills:



We had some fun with our meal, since we quickly got bored with the restaurant's entertainment options (namely, shell-your-own-peanuts and make-goofy-faces-at-the-kid-in-the-adjoining-booth). Photo, copyright 2011 Jenna Dee:

At home, before bed at 11 or so, I made J. a daiquiri, with an ounce of rum; a splash each of Chambord, lemon juice, and Chardonnay; a cup of cube ice; fresh sliced strawberries, and a few chunks of watermelon. It was the best damn daiquiri I've ever tasted. J. thought so too, since she only gave me a taste. Greedy thing.

No cookie before bed tonight.

Bun scraps, French-Cambodian fusery, the whole damn cookie

Part of the "rind" or outer whorl of a Pillsbury cinnamon bun, rejected by J. in a fit of culinary pique. A Pillsbury biscuit, left over from dinner the night before, with oleo and apple butter. A can of diet Mountain Dew.

A work lunch at Elephant Walk, Brookline -- salad of spring greens, pamplemousse with a drizzle of balsamic, and a goat cheese galette. Entree, a pan-roasted cod fillet over a raft of spinach, with cheddar cheese gnocchi and a cheddar-wine sauce. Also five pieces of the little baguette-ette bread they brought to the table, with butter, and five glasses of water. Five!

At the Clarion meeting at Panera at six, a toffee-chip cookie, recommended by the counter girl as "the best kind'.

At 10:30, when we had arrived back in Lunenburg (following a failed attempt to redeem a gift certificate at Texas Roadhouse in Leominster -- they'd closed early!), dinner was two inches of (I think chicken) kielbasa with a half cup or so of vegetables -- red potatoes, mushrooms, green beans. We hotted up some fish sticks in the microwave to augment our meager portions: four for each of us, with a 'tartar sauce' concocted out of bottles I found in the fridge -- a smidge of cream horseradish, some buttermilk ranch dressing, some sweet pickle relish, a dollop of asiago-peppercorn dressing.

Feeling my oats, I had a WHOLE vanilla-frosted cookie before bed. Also another glass of water.

*

J. has been calling me out for explaining this or that trait or preference as "faux flaws", that is, things I'm actually proud of but about which I'd feel boastful if I didn't seem to apologize for them. I think she's full of beans, as a rule, but it is a useful thing to watch out for. Maybe it is a faux flaw, this affected report of having been tortured by the feelings accompanying my consumption of an ENTIRE cookie? Or maybe I'm trying to perform indignation, so that my relationship with food eventually changes to align with my false outrage. Maybe a cookie would help me think about this.

Sunday homemades, and bright-green garlic soup

A slice of homemade boule, fresh out of the cast-iron pan, smeared with butter and honeycomb. J.'s friend Polly actually ground the flour herself, riding on a bicycle whose drivetrain had been linked cunningly to a portable grist mill, at the first ever Petersham market day. (Also on sale, jars of dried winesap mushrooms from the local Grace Note Farm -- tantalizing, and how very hobbit-like.) Polly's parents are cultivating mushrooms, too, shiitake; J. inspected the stack of logs which had been impregnated with the fungus, and which should start fruiting next year.

With the encouragement of said Polly-parents, I also tried a smear of Marmite on the end of my bread. The flavor was puh-puh-powerful, yeasty and aromatic, with the same kind of glutamate register as a tomato broth. I didn't enjoy it, but could see how people come come to. Will have to try eggy soldiers sometime, sticks of toast dipped in soft-boiled egg and then Marmite.

To go with the bread, I'd scrambled some eggs -- fresh from the farm, that is, from the Petersham market, they were, with chives I snipped myself from the household kitchen garden, and seasoned with turmeric and some of the ground dried chili pepper the father grows himself. A nice kick. I drank water with breakfast.

On the drive home from Petersham, we stopped at a Burger King for lunch, and split a veggie burger and diet cola.

Back in Lunenburg we nibbled at some leftover Chinese savories, a shrimp tempura ring and a beef (!) skewer, and had some white cheddar crackers. This wasn't more than 200 calories of junk, though, since we knew dinner was coming soon.

Dinner was: a cob of corn with oleo, a Woodchuck cider, half a skinless chicken breast and a strip of sirloin (!!), both marinated and done well on the grill, a scoop of Zatarain's jambalaya rice, a flaky Pillsbury biscuit, and a helping of Caesar salad. Dessert was a kiddie-sized cake cone from Cherry Hill, clearly meant for some monster-sized kids. Flavor: graham cracker ice cream, with graham-cracker bits, and chocolate-covered honeycomb bits. So good! Reminded me of the invention I never invented, the candy bar that is a chocolate-covered graham cracker. Alas, Wonka beat me to it. I also, of course, had a spoonful or two of J.'s cup of ice cream, but it was too bitter, some kind of Kahlua mess.

Before bed, I had a few slurps of J.'s mug of cream of garlic soup. There had been a tub of peeled garlic cloves in the fridge from when J.s' (soon-to-be) brother-in-law and sister had come over to make ravioli in garlic cream sauce; I'd announced I could make use of it, so I did. We toasted mashed garlic and olive oil in the pan (and turned it bright green), and then cooked this with white wine and chicken broth. Meanwhile ("back in the lab..."), we blended cooked potato with more chicken broth in the Cuisinart until we had a creamy smooth base for the soup. We put this over medium heat, strained the garlic mush through a paper towel and colander, and added the garlic wine-broth mix to the potato base. We added milk to the right consistency, and simmered the pot for 40 minutes. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and thyme, and pretty good. The flavor is mild, and the color isn't the bright kelly green that we feared it would become when we saw the transformation of the garlic in the pan.

BREAKING NEWS: I am reminded, hours after the time of original posting, by J. that before bed, we ALSO split a frosted besprinkled cookie. This accuracy is important for future biographers, so, thank you J.