Sunday, June 20, 2010

THE TEA YOU HAVE BEFORE TEA - Saturday 5th June 2010

It’s like this. You leave work tired and hungry. You have to pick up a few things from the supermarket.

Have you noticed that you never go to the supermarket on a full stomach? And being a while since you had something to eat there’s always a bit of slack in your trousers.

Anyway, you push through the turnstile and blow me down, if there aren’t any baskets there. Every second time I go shopping I have to scrounge around the checkouts and bring a stack of baskets back to where they should be.

You do the right thing. You start in the fruit and vegetable section, move round to the fish, drop a bottle of peach tea into your basket, load up with a few groceries and then think ‘Hmmmm, I could do with something on the way home.’

You sneak back to the vegetables section and get a handful of cashews.
Now nuts are good for you. If you look at cashews, they possess herbal health benefits that include killing bacteria and germs, stopping diarrhea, drying secretions, increasing the libido, and reducing fever, blood sugar, blood pressure muscle spasms, migraine headaches, tension, soreness and fatigue. They help reduce gallstones, facilitate the utilization of iron and the elimination of free radicals.
The big problem is they pack a powerful energy punch. Cashews are around 2,400 kilojoules (kJ) per 100gms, which is about the size of the handful you scooped into the plastic bag. To put things in perspective, depending on your size and the amount of physical activity you get each day, you need between 7,000 or 8,000 a day.

Be that as it may, you’re as hungry as a horse and 100 grams doesn’t seem all that much as you navigate the lid on the box, and dip the shovel in. Two cashews fall on the floor. You look around. No-one’s watching. You stoop down, pick them up and stuff them into your mouth; can’t let good food go to waste.

You’ve cleaned the full 100gms up by the time you’re half way home and stick the empty bag under the seat to hide the evidence.

It’s your turn to cook tea. You’re still hungry. The smell of food in the supermarket and the thought of food at home has made you even hungrier. You could eat the crotch out of a low flying duck.

But first, before you get started, you need a few Ritz cracker biscuits just to tide you over. (They’re called Ritz because no-one ever had 1 Rit.) Now, whilst Ritz cracker biscuits have 2118 kJ /100gms, the redeeming feature is that each one is very small. But that only provides you with all the more reason to get through 20 of them while you’re cutting up the vegetables. There’s around 600kJ.

And they do taste better with some dip. Some of the dips contain 2000 kJ/100 grams. On this night you pull back and only have half the container, there’s 1000kJ, and all of which raises a thirst; and after all it’s been a long hard slog at the office. You’ve come home tired and depressed so the next thing you reach for is a central nervous system depressant. Duh!

The Heart Foundation reckons you’ll benefit by having a glass of wine a day; you interpret that as one’s good, two’s better and three’s best. Today it’s mid week so you decide to go easy, and restrict yourself to two glasses. A regular glass contains about 300kJ, your glasses contain 400 kJ. All up 800 kJ.

So if you want to know why your trousers are so tight they’re ring-barking you, let’s add up the kilojoules you’ve had before you’ve had your tea:

• cashews 2400
• cracker biscuits 600
• dip 1000
• wine 800

Total 4,800 kJ

On the track
Out on the stepper this morning. Started a bit late so only got in 35 minutes all at level 6: 510 calories and 657 steps.

Then off to the gym. Christine and I are back in the gym, which feels good after an extended break. We took It easy - otherwise you have to pay for it tomorrow.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and eat and apple on your way home.

John Miller
www.millerhealth.com.au
www.fitandhealthyonline.com
www.globalbackcare.com
www.crookback.com.au

Epilogue. I forgot to tell you about the Cherry Ripe that someone put into the basket at the supermarket. That was an extra 1500kJ after tea.

No comments:

Post a Comment