That's Fit

The Thai prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, was recently forced to resign for having a TV cooking show (considered moonlighting). But he could have been canned for cooking his signature dish -- pork leg stewed in Coca-Cola.

It turns out the Thai prime minister's Coke cooking method isn't all that unusual. Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has also tried using the soda in unusual ways, and the Coca-Cola website has lots of recipes available including French Onion Soup (with Coke... eew) and Diet Cherry Coke Lentils (double eew).

I can think of plenty of other ingredients that would add better flavor without all the unwanted and artificial ingredients. I think cooking with Coke is clearly a case of just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Though I know the benefits of healthful eating, I'm all for having a treat now and then. I love a good batch of fish n' chips as much as the next person. But some of the foods that people dunk into a deep fryer just amaze me. How -- and why -- would anyone ever come up with these ideas?

Fitz just told us about chocolate-covered bacon. That's pretty outlandish (not to mention it sounds utterly disgusting). But the deep fryer holds it's fair share of nastiness, too. Maybe you've spotted some different concoctions -- like deep-fried Twinkies -- at your local greasy spoon. Or maybe you've visited your state fair and sampled some of the newest trends in fried foods.

If you must indulge, just remember to keep high-calorie, high-fat foods like these to extremely rare treats -- your arteries will thank you.

Want whiter and brighter teeth? Look no further than your food. Grab an apple, some carrots, a cucumber now and then and you'll scrub your stains away. It's the abrasive or crunchy quality of these foods that do the trick, says Elisa Mello, DDS, a cosmetic dentist in New York City. Items to avoid: Red wine, coffee, and cola, which may darken your pearly whites.

Another cleaning trick, says Mello for Woman's Day magazine (July 8, 2008), is to sip staining beverages through a straw and then chase with plenty of water to prevent them from leaving a mark.

For more tips on eating for healthy teeth, check out fatfreekitchen.com.

Many people have a tendency to forget about or grossly underestimate serving size. Fortunately, nutritional labels do tell you how many servings are in a jar, bottle, can, etc. of a particular food. They also list other nutritional information (e.g. Carbs, Protein, Fat, Sodium, etc.) per serving size on their labels. But, most times we do a cursory examination of these labels, assuming that the number of carbs, calories, and fat listed means for the entire food item. So, it's very easy to miss the fact that you may be eating upwards as three or four times as much of the bad stuff than you thought you were.

Here's a breakdown of the four foods highlighted in an issue of Men's Health. Granted, none are healthy in the first place, but you'll see that eating the product in its entirety is even worse than you may have thought.

KING-SIZE SNICKERS BAR: 170 serving size calories listed on label. 510 calories in entire bar.

20-OUNCE BOTTLE OF COCA-COLA: 100 serving size calories listed on label. 250 calories in entire bottle.

3.75-OUNCE BAG OF CHEX MIX: 130 serving size calories listed on label. 455 calories in entire package.

4-PACK KEEBLER SOFT BATCH COOKIES: 80 serving size calories listed on label. 320 calories in entire package.

Again, these foods are not exactly staples of a healthy diet to begin with, but the point is illustrated nonetheless. The same serving size issue applies for foods that people generally consider to be healthy, as well, so a serving size review is still warranted.

It appears as though there may be a risk to drinking diet soda after all, although it has nothing to do with the alleged risk of obesity. Rather, there is evidence to suggest that drinking dark-colored diet cola (and dark-colored regular cola) can increase your risk of kidney disease.

Based on a report published in the journal Epidemiology, drinking two or more dark-colored sodas -- such as Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and similar generic brands -- per day doubles your chances of kidney disease.

The phosphoric acid found in dark colas, but not in clear sodas such as Sprite and 7-Up, is what gives it its unique taste, but also what may lead to the development of kidney stones. This, in turn, can potentially lead to complications and disease.

I suppose this is yet another reason to just stick to plain ol' water.

I recently saw this article from eDiets on the best alternatives to soda. Their choices? Vegetable juice, fruit juice, teas and coffees, enhanced waters and spring waters. These are all great choices, but if I was a soda addict, I don't know that they'd cut the mustard. So I decided to come up with my own list of my favourite soda alternatives:

1. Club Soda and Cranberry Juice. I drink this pretty much every day. It's basically just half club soda and half low-cal cranberry juice. It's refreshing, fizzy and very low in calories.
   
2. Italian Sodas: Italian sodas are kind of like the previous drink, but with flavoured syrup. I buy low-sugar vanilla-flavoured syrup, add some club soda or carbonated water, stir and enjoy! And the Olive Garden has delicious Italian sodas if you're out for a meal.
   
3. Homemade Lemonade: I make my lemonade the old-fashioned way -- with lemons and Splenda. It's quite a treat!
4. Homemade Iced Tea: Here's how you do it -- take your favourite flavour of tea, brew it with boiling water in a jug, ad some ice and and a squeeze of lemon, and let it cool in the fridge for a while. You can also add Splenda if you like it sweet, but I like mine au naturel. My favourite tea flavours to use are peppermint and Rooibos.
   
5. Chocolate milk: If I am really craving something chocolaty, I'll have a half-glass of chocolate soy milk. Or I'll use skim milk with some reduced-sugar nestle quick. It leaves me feeling quite full and satisfied!

Of course, I'm also a water fiend--I drink at least 64oz a day--so enjoy these but please make sure you're getting you share of good ole' water too.

For many of us, the reason we're overweight or obese isn't down to what we're eating -- it's down to what we're drinking. Soda, alcohol, juice, smoothies, lattes -- these are all major sources of calories, yet we don't think of them that way because we don't sit down with a knife and fork to eat them. CNN has done a report on this as part of their America's Killer Diet feature.

Keep in mind that drinks have a lot of calories. A large soda with your burger and fries has about 400 calories -- that's more than the fries! A syrupy sweet coffee drink from Starbucks can have upwards of 250 calories. And beer? 160 calories a bottle. For more calorie counts, check out this post on Fitbuff.

Here's a challenge: Quit the juices, the soda and the booze for a week and see if you lose any weight as a result. Drink water and tea instead and eat as you normally would. I bet you'll notice a difference -- if not in your weight, in your energy at least.

If you're a fan of soft drinks based on citrus-like flavors instead of the standard cola (like Pepsi or Coke), you're probably receiving more of a caffeine boost than your cola-drinking friends and family.

A recent study, not surprisingly, found that many citrus sodas contain a higher caffeine level than those cola cousins, and that caffeine amounts can vary widely between citrus soda brands and even within the same brand as well. Is there a difference between standard Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Code Red? Probably, according to this study.

The research points to something important -- why aren't caffeine levels required on soft drink cans and packaging? Other ingredients are there in the Nutrition Facts label -- why not caffeine?

I am usually of the philosophy that the grosser two flavors sound together (like banana and peanut butter sandwiches) the better they usually taste once you actually try them. But I'm not so sure about this one, called Pepsi Ice Cucumber. Yeah, that's right! Cucumber-flavored Pepsi! Eeeeew. I'm half curious, but I have to get past the idea that just thinking about anything both sweet and cucumber-flavored turns my stomach a little.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) we in the U.S. won't get to try it since it's being released for a limited time in Japan only. I suppose if it's a raging success over there we might get lucky, but I'm not holding my breath.

And no, I'm pretty sure drinking one of these would not count as a serving of vegetables!

The Coca-Cola company recently announced that it would voluntarily start putting the caffeine content on the labels of products containing the ingredient. This is part of a company wide initiative that comes among expectations that soon the FDA will require labeling of caffeine content across the board. Caffeine information has already been on the labels of a couple of its products, Full Throttle and Enviga, and by this May all Coca-Cola drinks with any level of caffeine will have new labels.

I do believe this is a good thing, but I can't help but think- Great, yet another thing to watch for on nutrition labels.

India has a problem with Coke and Pepsi, and it wants them to cough up the ultra-secret recipe that is 120 years old. So what's their beef with the soft drinks that so many millions of people enjoy? Well a recent study showed that both products may have "unacceptable levels of insecticides." Say what!?

Apparently, the research found out that the drinks contained 30 times the amount of pesticides that they had in 2003. If you're like me, just the very fact that they have any pesticides in them is news.

Getting that formula is a lot harder said than done. From the article: "Coca-Cola's original recipe, according to company policy, is kept in a bank vault in Atlanta where only two executives -- banned from traveling on the same aircraft -- know it." How's an angry nation going to penetrate that kind of defense? Well, the companies have four weeks to comply, otherwise India could suspend sales.