Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

I like fries

I remember the first time I had French fries as kid. It was of course at a McDonald’s. I was hooked to that crunchy and salty goodness ever since . If I’m ever heinous enough to be on death row, or unlucky enough to catch a rapidly deteriorating terminal illness, my last meal would definitely be French fries, with a side of fried chicken.

For heath reasons I seldom indulge in the French delicacy. A few times per years is the maximum. Nowadays also for price reasons, I am skipping the fries when I buy burgers. $5 for a scoop of fries is downright robbery when it’s just a bunch of potatoes and saturated fat. The margins on that has got to be up there with soft drinks.

Good news is, modern technology has made making fries at home easy and almost as good as the outside stuff. An air fryer is all you need, plus the requisite multi-pound bag of frozen pre-cut fries from Costco. Entirely self-contained, no oil splatters. Admittedly this still cannot beat the absolute freshest batch right out of a proper oil vat, but it’s pretty damn close. For the price difference, it’s unbeatable.

The trick then is to buy only the burger from McDonald’s, or the chicken tenders from Wingstop, as takeout. Have the air fryer at home set on a timer, and you’ve now got fresh fries to go along with soon as you arrive. Even better: I can have fries anytime I want without leaving the house. The kid me would have fainted at the thought of such joyous reality.

Healthy can be cheap

The greatest-of-all-time (GOAT) in terms of comfort food for me has got to be fried eggs. Pair it with some rice and roaster seaweed, and you’ve got the perfect poverty peasant meal. I am lucky to have income above the poverty line, and that combination still remains a constant meal choice for me. Love it.

Whoever said it is expensive to eat healthy is a lie. Rice, beans, and lentils are exceedingly cheap per pound. And it’s got your main three macros covered: carbohydrates, protein, and fiber. Beg at a street corner for a few hours, and you might be able to add an egg or two to that mix.

What does get expensive is variety. No one wants to eat rice, beans, and lentils for three meals a day, every single day, three sixty five days a year. A variety of healthy foods can get pricey. Especially if you’re like me and prefer the nicer kinds of fish (raw salmon is the GOAT), and the most prime USDA cuts of beef. Sweet potatoes are definitely pricer than lentils.

If I were indeed poorest of poor, I’d have no issues eating the same cheap thing for all the meals. Blaming poor health outcomes on the high cost of groceries completely forsakes the agency of a person. Even peasants have choices they can make. Of course it’s tough to eat without variety. I hate it too! But that’s the sacrifice one has to make for the sake of health.

The discipline to eat monotonously also comes in handy whenever I need to enact some austerity into my spending. That’s why eggs, rice, and seaweed will never go out of style for me.

I prayed for this

For the longest time I’ve wished for Costco to offer salmon poke. They’ve only ever done tuna, but not anymore! On a recent trip to Costco I was ecstatic to find a Sriracha flavored salmon poke. Even better, it costs less per pound than the equivalent tuna. I get my preferred fish and I save money. Cannot be beat! Pairing the poke with rice is absolutely fantastic.

It seems I am stuck at 166 pounds body weight for past month. (I weight myself every morning soon as I leave the bed.) Looks like I’ve reached a wall on this slow bulking plan. The math is simple: just eat more. But in exercise it’s slightly more complicated. I’m already eating as much as I comfortably want to eat. Adding more calories would mean having the act of eating be something I actually have to stress about. And I definitely do not want that.

The amount of calories that got me to this current weight isn’t sufficient to keep the number on the scale increasing. Makes sense: I need more calories to sustain this new weight. Therefore the more I gain, the more I have to eat to simply maintain. What got me here won’t get me to the next level up.

Obviously when I say bulking, I mean gaining lean mass. It would be enjoyably easy if it were just a matter of straight poundage. All I’d have to do is mash down a few crumbl cookies every day. Before long I’d be heavier and flabbier at the same time. Conversely, gaining muscle whilst limited fat gain is way tougher to execute. I really don’t want to add another protein shake into the daily rotation.

I think a solid end goal for me, at 5 foot 10 inches tall, is about 175 pounds. That’s a sizable amount of muscle mass, but not overly high to make it difficult to maintain in terms of food intake. Nine pounds is a significant amount of weight to gain when you want it to be as much lean tissue as possible.

Bottom line: got to eat more. Pass the salmon.

Cooking for others

This era of high food prices is really causing me to rethink about outside food consumption. I don’t see a reason to pay $30 for a simple meal when I can make that same dish at home for cheaper, healthier, and with more meat. (As a consistently lifter of weights, more protein is always good.) The skills I learn cooking for myself and the recipes I keep will last an entire lifetime. The kitchen smells great, too.

The only tradeoff? Time commitment, of course.

Another joy to be found in cooking at home is in sharing the food with others. There’s a great motherly pride when someone eats the food that you’ve made and they absolutely love it. No wonder parents everywhere get their feelings hurt when their kids tell them a particular dish tastes not so great. All that love and attention in making the food, crushed in a moment of child-like honesty.

Is Thanksgiving not the epitome of sharing this kind of love? No one bakes a turkey for themselves (even a high protein eat like me have no need for a 20-pounder); it’s all about doing it for the culinary enjoyment of others. It would be entirely different - and loses its meaning - if an entire Thanksgiving feast is made to order. The time commitment is the point. Though the least the non-cookers could do is clean up afterwards.

This coming Thursday I hope you get the privilege to cook for those close to you.

Get the fat

This may be stating the obvious, but two percent Greek yogurt tastes so much better than the non-fat version. Much like how whole milk is the only true milk out there. Those of you drinking two percent milk might as well be drinking water, because that’s what you are buying.

It’s a shame the Costco Kirkland brand only sells non-fat Greek yogurt. For the tasty stuff I have to shell out more money for the Fage brand. In an era of everything-cost-way-more-than-it-use-to, I aim to save a buck here and there when I can. Buying in bulk at Costco with its house brand is a great way to execute that strategy. Alas, it can’t fulfill everything. At least I get 5% cash back at Whole Foods (where I buy Fage Greek yogurt).

It’s occurring to me more and more than when I look at (the high) menu prices of restaurants, that perhaps I should make the same food at home instead. For example: I have strong affection for Korean food. When I see my favorite dish - beef short rib soup - is encroaching into the 30 dollars territory, it’s time to learn how to cook it myself. Save a bit of cash, and it’s probably healthier, too (way less sodium).

I’m reminder of my friend who lives over in Switzerland. Eating out prices have always been expensive there, so whatever dish she desires to eat, she learns to make it. Who would have thought that I would come to face the same situation here in America. Or perhaps it’s just me? I guess a lot of people out there are making more money than me to afford restaurant food frequently.

The price of protein

I shop at Whole Foods because I’m buying produce for just myself. So what if the stuff there is more expensive than less prestigious(?) grocery chains? I alone can’t possible eat enough food for the extra cost at Whole Food to add up significantly. Besides, as an Amazon Prime member with an Amazon Prime Chase Visa card, I get 5 percent cash back. (Spend money to make money, am I right?)

If I were grocery shopping for a family, that changes everything. No more organic eggs from free-range chickens. No more organic milk from grass-fed cows. Paying for pre-cut fruits would be an insult to the ancestors. Food for the family will be purchased as cheaply per weight as possible.

I recently noticed how vastly more expensive beef and fish is compared to chicken and pork. Pork chops are something like three times less expensive per pound compared to the cheapest cut of steaks. As a frequent lifter of weights, I need to eat a lot of protein. Because I only shop for me - and lucky enough to make decent money - I have no qualms springing for the more pricey steaks and salmon. If this were me 10 years ago (read: much poorer), it would be chicken and pig meats only. Cows are a delicacy.

Same is true if I had a family to feed: fish and cows are very occasional treats only!

While I do lament not starting weightlifting in my twenties, at least in my thirties I don’t have to resort to chicken and rice for my staple nutrition. A gram of protein is a gram of protein for sure, but I much rather eat salmon sashimi than pan-fried chicken thighs (bone out, of course).

Chicken and Accutane

The rotisserie chicken at Costco remains one of the best food deals on the planet. Six dollars for two pounds of cooked chicken meat. Weightlifters looking to gain mass on the cheap should move next to Costco just for easy access. Have a hot dog and soda while you are at it, too.

It is somewhat bothersome that the chicken is put into a plastic bag. A piping hot roast straight out of the oven and into something entirely plastic. I’m no evangelist against polyurethane, but that cannot be completely healthy, right? I’ve stopped heating up food in the microwave with any sort of plastic container or wrapping a long time ago, and so should you.

Costco should use a paper bag alternative, or a compostable container. Raise the retail price slightly if you have to. I’d gladly pay for more for zero heated plastic.

Two months into the Accutane treatment for my chronic acne, and a new side-effect has materialized. Accutane causing intense dryness for the entire body is well-known and par for the course. I’d thought that meant my skin would become dry and cracked like on a cold winter’s day. I was wrong: my dry skin is showing up in the form of tackiness, a mild stickiness to the epidermis. Crossing my legs would cause the thighs to adhere to each other like velcro.

The skin is also fragile, too. Not just towards sun exposure, but impacts. Small abrasions that usually wouldn’t amount to anything can now wound the skin. I am definitely not going on mountainous hikes wearing shorts during this Accutane cycle.