There Must Be Something Wrong with Grape Nuts

There really must be. It's the nature of my "I've found a food that fixes my nutrition problems!" experiences that I get all excited about a food then find out it has some terrible property that will kill me faster than McDonald's Happy Meals (well, not quite, but a little exageration for emphasis.)

Yesterday when I did my nutritional software day based on the eating plan I wrote up in yesterday's entry, my RDA's came out great! The only thing that was low was copper, and even protein was very high! It's the Grape Nuts! (I also had some kale and collards in there which help some.)

So I did my traditional archives search, and I found that Michael Rae has never explicitly said that Grape Nuts are evil. Now, this could be a case of "They call it something else in Canada," in which case he has said repeatedly that Grape Nuts are evil, but he's calling them something different that I wouldn't know to search, like "bad crunchy cereal berries that resemble cat food." No one else seems to have anything terrible to say about Grape Nuts by name, except for a very old post in which a Paleo follower trashes Grape Nuts along with every other non-meat non vegetable food.

Fortified cereals seem to have gotten a lot of criticism, and if I read correctly (keeping in mind how I frequently screw these things up on the first reading and have to read the same post five times before I understand it) for the same reasons as mulit-vitamins do: the nutrients aren't as easily absorbed as those naturally occuring in foods and some nutrients are present in potentially toxic levels, at least to CR folks. Still, I am wondering if eating Grape Nuts, which solves my fiber, iron, calcium (in addition to the milk) and most other vitamin problems, at least according to my software, is a good solution for now? Thoughts? It seems too silly, an inelegant solution, too pleasurably crunchy and easily contained in a zip lock bag. But who said CRON had to be difficult? Wait, everyone said that.

Yesterday veered a bit off the planned path. I wasn't hungry at all at lunch, but I ate a cup of romaine with some of my vidalia onion vinegarette to be social. In the afternoon, I still wasn't hungry, but I drank an iced latte with skim for calcium and a late afternoon coffee pick up. Then a co-worker stopped by my office and suggested we go for drinks after work at the Iron Hill Brewery, which is a great brew pub not terribly close to here but in a direction that helps one avoid the worst of the traffic. So we went there, and lo and behold, a Trader Joe's had just opened next door! Wow! I could hardly contain my excitement. So after drinking a beer and reading the menu but not ordering anything at the brew pub (which actually has great food, but nothing in my calorie range) I headed over the the TJ's and by this time was starving! I looked in the prepared foods section and found a portabello florentine wrap that had 410 calories total... more than I would normally eat at that point, but still close to my calorie goal for the day. So I ate that, bought some TJ's Harvest Hodgepodge, which is frozen cauliflower, red pepper, broccoli, carrot, snap pea, water chestnut, baby corn, and mushroom, 150 calories per bag and delicious with just a dash of lemon squeezed on top. Bought some celery as well. Upon returning home, I drank 30 calories worth of unsweetened cranberry juice dissolved in water with a squeeze of lime.

So my calories for the day were:

eggwhite scramble 140
grape nuts 200
romaine 10
salad dressing 20
cottage cheese 90
skim milk in the iced latte 80
beer 110
portabello mushroom florentine wrap 410
cranberry juice 30

total: 1090

Over target, but not by much, and the day before was light.

Lots of spinach in the wrap, though the grains were unnecessary. I would have been better served to have gone home, steamed the harvest hodgepodge, put some olive oil on it along with the lemon juice, and eaten that. You'd think that after an archive fix I would have done just that. But no, I was sub-optimal. I kinda feel sub-optimal right now too.

Today is better planned: eggwhites, celery sticks with that new fancy spicy mustard, harvest hodgepodge, cottage cheese, olives. That's what I have packed for the office. I will have to make something when I get home, but I think that will be relatively early today. Anytime before nine pm is relatively early for me.

Didn't pack Grape Nuts... but probably will tomorrow, or may eat them at home tonight. Will also get some skim milk in at some point. Unless you guys can talk me out of it.