The Junk Food Nutritionist

You may know that I was working in an ICU when COVID-19 first hit my hometown. As a RDN & CNSC, I provided nutrition support to those patients who were on ventilators & couldn't eat by mouth.  However, I have since transitioned to working in a different facility. Sometimes, I am still working with patients with active cases but, more often, I am working with patients recovering after COVID-19 or other illnesses. You may have heard the phrase "Long haul COVID", which refers to the negative health effects that someone experiences after the acute phase of COVID-19 infection. But, in my experience, there can be a prolonged recovery period after other critical illnesses & injuries as well, called post-viral syndrome or post-ICU syndrome. Here's why: In general, illnesses & injuries trigger proinflammatory pathways. These trigger cytokine signaling (sometimes called the cytokine "storm") and increased metabolism (or catabolism).  This catabolic pha...

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...

A year ago, if someone had told me I was going to be living on ice cream, yogurt, and smoothies, I’d have been pretty happy. When I actually have to do it, I dread my next meal.  For once, I don’t want to eat. Every swallow hurts.  I was encouraged to eat a diet of soft foods, like yogurt and ice cream, until additional medical testing could be completed. So, I bought three flavors of ice cream and four of yogurt. I bought flavors and brands I like regardless of the price, telling myself I’d need the calories if everything else hurts too much. But the fact is, even a bowl of warm, melted ice cream is hard for me to get through. It tastes good in my mouth, but I get stabbing pains along my esophagus once food or beverages enter it. And doctors don’t know why yet.