Agent Approved

Here's another recipe from 007. A new twist on a classic. Trader Joe's also sells an assortment of sprouted wheat bread (including Ezekiel). Sprouted bread is the only bread we typically have in the house. Exceptional ingredients in sprouted bread and protein to boot!

Susie and I make a version of this for our kids and they love it. This one is Agent approved!

Do you still crave Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and tomato soup but detest the artery clogging components of Velveeta, sodium and White bread. So do I.

Ingredients:

• Smart Balance Margarine
• Ezekiel Bread-Loaded with fiber and protein
• Carrot, celery, broccoli or asparagus spears as garnish
• Galaxie Brand Soy cheddar Cheese Slices or low fat cheddar

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Everyone loves the traditional American Icon, the Grilled Cheese Sandwich and tomato soup. We grew up on them with a steaming bowl of salty canned tomato soup. Well, how’s that working out for you? If you still make them with white bread, butter and Velveeta, well, you might consider altering the ingredients a bit to render this artery clogger a pleasantly satisfying, healthful lunch.

The processed white bread spikes blood sugar levels encouraging diabetes and contains nothing of any nutritional values; the Velveeta cheese is nothing but oil and then there’s the butter - well, you know.

This new version using Smart Balance, Soy Cheese and Whole Wheat Bread fools even my toughest critics; the grand kids. Simply don’t make a big deal of the change and no one will notice. Serve the sandwich with carrot, celery, radishes or broccoli pieces and buy BOXED soups in the healthy section of your grocers. Pacific brand is lovely. Brand name soups contain astronomical amounts of salt plus the interior lining of canned foods from coast to coast have been discovered to contain BPA; a carcinogen.

Prepare the classic sandwich in the traditional manner.

www.chefwendell.com
chefwendellfowler.blogspot.com

Life expectancy could decline for first time in 200 years

Obesity 'now a bigger threat than smoking'

Obesity has overtaken smoking and is now a bigger threat to people's health, American scientists have warned.

Expanding waistlines now cause as much or more disease than tobacco, and do as much or more to shorten healthy lifespans, they say.

Researchers have predicted for years that as incidence of obesity increased and smoking fell, there would come a time when the damage caused by the first would outrank the second. Now it has happened.

Researchers from Columbia University and the City College of New York calculated the Quality-Adjusted Life Years (Qalys) lost due to both obesity and smoking. Qalys are an internationally recognised measure of health gain or loss associated with treatments, diseases or injuries.

The results are based on interviews with 3.5 million adults, the largest ongoing health study in the US. Between 1993 and 2008, the proportion of smokers fell by 18.5 per cent while the proportion who were obese rose by 85 per cent. Smoking was found to cause more deaths, but obesity caused more illness.

Experts on both sides of the Atlantic have warned that the rise in obesity could lead to the first decline in life expectancy in 200 years.

Haomiao Jia and Erica Lubetkin, who led the study which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, said: "Although life expectancy has increased over time, the increase in Qalys lost from obesity may result in a decline in future life expectancy. Such data are essential in setting targets for reducing modifiable health risks and eliminating health disparities."

Measures proposed to deal with the obesity explosion have included a so-called "fat tax" and a charge on fizzy drinks and colas, which are major contributors among young people.

In the UK, the British Medical Association narrowly defeated a proposal for a chocolate tax in 2008. Gordon Brown vetoed a Downing Street proposal for a fat tax in 2004, on the grounds that it would fall disproportionately on the poor.

Taken from the Independent Online

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/obesity-now-a-bigger-threat-than-smoking-1857994.html

I've always said...

Something I have always been concerned with (and said to many), was that I did not trust caloric values on packaging or as published by restaurants, fast food chains or coffee houses. There are many who need to count calories, and there are those of us who may not. For those that do count as part of their nutritional regimen, be careful. What you see may not be what you get.

I am big on whole foods. Although, in today's fast paced world, packaged goods and eating out are nearly unavoidable. Part of my concern was actually based upon the different shape and size of so many "packaged" foods. How could it be possible that each and every piece of say almond nut clusters be identical in caloric and nutritional values. They can't. So, I always look at nutritional values as a "guideline", an average. Whole foods are no different, unless in a laboratory, how could one actually identify the calories in a banana? Is it small, medium, large? What is the weight in grams? Is the skin thicker or thinner and what does that weigh.

Now, don't make yourself crazy either. Be sensible.

Below is a link to a recent study published (very interesting read, specifically what these discrepancies can mean over extended periods of time) in the Journal of the American Diabetic Association, prepared foods may contain an average of 8% more calories than their package labels own up to and restaurant meals may contain a whopping 18% more. Worse still, as far as Food and Drug Administration regulations are concerned, that's perfectly O.K.

My advice, eat whole foods as often as possible, understand how to use labels and make sure you are getting a good balance of different nutrients.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100106/hl_time/08599195179800

Josh