Banana Bread with a Boost

I love banana bread! This afternoon I decided to play around with a new recipe. While baking is more precise than cooking, you can still tweak recipes and end up with delicious - and healthful - baked goods.

I started looking at this recipe from the Food Network and this recipe from Allrecipes.com. I mostly followed the Food Network version, but made several substitutions to eliminate saturated fat, boost protein and add omega-3 fatty acids: 

Instead of 8 tablespoons of butter, I used 5 1/2 tablespoons of canola oil.

Instead of 2 cups all-purpose flour, I used:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder
• 1/2 cup ground flaxseeds

Instead of 1 cup white granulated sugar, I used 3/4 cup brown sugar (less sugar but more flavor).

I also used less than the 1 teaspoon salt called for by the recipe - probably around 1/2 tsp.

The result? Yum! - delicious, hearty, moist.

Garden 2011

This is the second year of our garden. We planted slightly less, but I think we will end up producing more edible vegetables (last year we were not able to eat much of the cabbage or broccoli due to whitefly infestation).

This year we have 6 tomato plants. The two plants to the far left and far right sides I found spontaneously growing in the main garden bed and transplanted. I'm not sure what variety of tomato they are - I guess it will be a surprise!

 In the main garden bed we have eggplant, cucumbers, bush beans (which have already started producing!), zucchini (that's the huge one in the center) and broccoli. We also planted spinach seeds, but they didn't do so well - we'll see if they come back but I'm not going to count on it.

I really wanted to plant swiss chard as well, but never got around to it.  I may start some in a large pot to have well into the fall.

Inaccurate Nutrient Calculations (and statements) are Everywhere

Lately, I've been reading several articles about the national restaurant menu labeling legislation passed in March and the abundance of professional opportunities expected to arise in the upcoming months. Specifically, I'm referring to Section 4205 of H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, which mandates that restaurants and food vendors with more than 20 locations make calorie and nutrient information readily available to consumers. (What, you haven't read the whole bill?)

It's abundantly clear to me that menu calculations must be conducted by someone with both nutrition and culinary expertise. Let me provide an example:

Last week, I received nutrition information from a vendor to use in my calculations of a patient's food record (this vendor supplies certain types of meals to the hospital). Here's the info I was sent for one meal (fish and mixed vegetables):

350 calories 

3.5g total fat
116.20 calories from fat
5.90g total carbohydrate
31.40g total protein

What's wrong with this picture? Well, let's start with the basics: fat has 9 calories per gram, protein and carbohydrate each have 4 calories per gram. Clearly, the item above must have more than 3.5g of fat if the fat is contributing 116.2 calories (116.2/9 = 12.9 g of total fat is more likely to be the case). However, if you multiply all the macronutrients (fat, carb, protein) by their calories, I still don't end up with 350 total calories: