The Junk Food Nutritionist

I haven’t shared an entrée recipe in a while. Sometimes I think about sharing one but worry that it detracts from the “junk food” aspect of the blog. Well, today’s dinner was deli cious junk food. Carbs or starches often get labelled as "junk." The star of tonight's meal was two carb-heavy ingredients: mashed potatoes and white flour.   Seriously. These two carbs come together to make a dish called gnocchi. Often, chefs will add egg, but I don't cook with eggs and my gnocchi turned out just fine. Here's what I did... I combined 1 cup of leftover mashed potatoes with ½ cup of white flour. I kneaded them together on a cutting board. (Any flat surface will do.) Then, I rolled the dough into a rope and cut it into segments. I was raised eating gnocchi without any fancy lines. If you want to make lines on it, like many stores sell it, you can roll the dough against the tines of a fork.   I brough...

                I was invited to a potluck party to watch the big football game…at the last minute.                 What!? I love preparing food to share with others. But, I’d rather have advance notice.                 My usual potluck favorites: fruit salad, quinoa salad, hummus with crackers or vegetable chips, or dessert with a dietitian twist.                 Well, I didn’t have enough fruit for fruit salad and I was missing the sauce I usually add to my quinoa salad. I’d already gone grocery shopping and didn’t want to go back out to find any special ingredients.                 So, I thought about ...

I already knew I wanted to make some sort of strawberry-swirled brownie. I chose hers for a base because I liked the portion sizes. She makes desserts for two! As in, I wouldn’t have a bunch of extra dessert sitting around for days on end and possibly getting moldy (which has, unfortunately, happened). Strawberry Swirl Brownies Adapted from https://www.dessertfortwo.com/strawberry-swirl-brownies/ I already knew I wanted to make some sort of strawberry-swirled brownie. I chose to use Christina's brownies for a base because I liked the portion sizes. She makes desserts for two! That means, I wouldn’t have a bunch of extra dessert sitting around for days on end and possibly getting moldy (which has, unfortunately, happened). That said, I had to vegan-ize it. 6 strawberries, fresh or frozen, pureed 1 Tbsp. chia seeds 4 Tbsp. margarine 1/3 c. cocoa powder 1/4 c. stevia-sugar blend 3 Tbsp. aquafaba (chickpea brine), or another vegan egg-replac...

I was excited when I got my hands on Sam Turnbull’s new cookbook, Fuss-Free Vegan: 101 Everyday Comfort Food Favorites, Veganized . Sam is the blogger behind It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken .                  Introduction Sam starts with an introduction, as any good cookbook author should. What makes her introduction unique is how personable she is in it.  I just pulled another vegetarian cookbook off my shelf for comparison. It dives right into the fact that studies show diets containing fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are nutritious. Boring. There is no mention of who the author is. Sam, on the other hand, is completely honest about who she is. She’s not a dietitian and doesn’t have a bachelor’s in culinary arts. But her introduction still makes me relate to her and trust her. Like many vegans, Sam used to eat animal products and thought it might be hard to go vegan. Sam says, “I...

I was happy to see a package at my doorstep. It’s the little surprises at the end of a long day that count, right? I opened it up to find a copy of Sarah Koszyk’s new book, 365 Snacks For Every Day of the Year.   Sarah is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and blogger at Family.Food.Fiesta . You can also find her on Twitter , Facebook , and Instagram . Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book to review. I was not paid for the review nor was I told what to say. The opinions expressed here are my own... Sarah starts with a little introduction. She snacks, just like the rest of us, and sometimes those snacks come from convenience stores. She also provides a little bit of information about why we need to snack. She keeps it easy to understand, which is great because not everyone has taken anatomy or biochemistry. Sarah wrote this book to help others determine the healthier snack options available at stores. It is not so much a cookbook as it is a list of sn...

This versatile recipe can be used as oatmeal drop cookies or an oatmeal snack bar, not just as a breakfast bake.   To skip to the recipe, click here . A reader requested I get back to the original focus of the blog—healthy “junk” food.  Whether you consider this recipe healthy junk food or not, is up to you. Some of you might think it’s not healthy because it has fat from peanut butter and oil, while others may think it has too many carbs. Personally, I think this is a healthy recipe. You’ll get fiber from the oats and banana, while getting protein from the peanut butter. And, there's no added sugar. It will also depend on the ingredients you use.   For example, I used organic vanilla extract, not artificial vanillin.  I also opted for natural peanut butter, made from just peanuts, oil, and sugar. To me, that's healthier than peanut butters made with a lot of additives. One major name brand peanut butter has this long list of ingredien...

 Need a gluten-free and/or vegan treat for your Valentine?  After the jump, I'll share a simple recipe for vegan peanut butter cups and chocolate-dipped cookies. If, like me, you don't have someone special to share Valentine's Day with, you can make these simple chocolate treats for yourself.

As you know, I am a fan of junk food, especially sweets. I believe that everything can be consumed in moderation. For me, that doesn't mean only having dessert once a month. For me, that means having dessert daily but in a small portion and, preferably, making that dessert myself so I can control the ingredients.  Today, I'll show you how to control the amount of sugar in your chocolate chip cookies using two different recipes and two different sugar substitutes. Recipe 1   First up is a cookie made with sucralose (commonly known by the brand name Splenda). I like that sucralose was made from real sugar (sucrose), unlike aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame potassium, and xylitol.  Before stevia became mainstream, sucralose was my sugar substitute of choice for this reason. I still find that sucralose products can be easier to work with because it is used in a one-to-one ratio, meaning 1 cup of sugar can be replaced with one cup of sucralose be...

Take a look at the ingredients list on one of those cardboard rolls of biscuits you can buy in the refrigerated section of the store. Here’s what I see on one mainstream product’s “homestyle original biscuits”: Enriched bleached flour, Water, Soybean oil, Sugar, Baking Powder, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Whey, Xanthan Gum. Hmm…It starts out sounding home-style—flour, water, oil, sugar, baking powder. You can make a biscuit with all these ingredients. But who, while cooking at home, adds whey and xanthan gum?  And some of this brand's biscuits have even more ingredients you wouldn’t cook with at home, including partially hydrogenated oils (a.k.a. Trans fatty acids or Trans fats, which I’m sure you’ve heard are worse than other forms of fat and should be avoided) and chemical preservatives.  Even a company that claims to be more natural has a long list of ingredients. But, if you make it yourself, you only need 4 ingredients. Making them yourself doesn’t tak...

By now, you’ve heard that a glass of wine a day is good for you. But, you probably also know that wine, like any alcohol has negative health effects. So, let’s sort through some of this research…. Looking on ScienceDirect for studies on “wine antioxidants,” I found more than 17,000. I narrowed it down to free journal articles published this year (2015), because we want the most recent data. I then selected three articles to share.   Consumers Views of Wine’s Benefits The first study I want to share actually studied consumers views of wine related to health benefits. Consumers were given a list of possible health benefits and asked to mark which health benefits red wine and white wine had. About three-quarters of respondents said red wine “helps the cardiovascular system” and “lowers your cholesterol.” Only 9% said white wine had the same benefits. Consumers seem to be right. Red wine contains more flavonoids (antioxidant or antioxidant-like compounds) tha...