Low Fat? yea right!

kids · Jul 15, 2002

LOL!

That ranch dressing is a hazard.

My 2 teenage boys and third who basicly lives here we go thru 2 qts of the stuff a week, they put it on everything which luckily includes dipping fresh vegies (spont. vegies in a teen boys !). Since I can't get it in a 55 gal. drum I use the packets of Hidden Valley and mix it with skim milk and fat free mayo...they don't even know the difference.

Love-A-Nurse · Jul 16, 2002

originally posted by kids-r-fun
lol!

that ranch dressing is a hazard.

my 2 teenage boys and third who basicly lives here we go thru 2 qts of the stuff a week, they put it on everything which luckily includes dipping fresh vegies (spont. vegies in a teen boys !). since i can't get it in a 55 gal. drum i use the packets of hidden valley and mix it with skim milk and fat free mayo...they don't even know the difference.

my daughter eats ranch dressing on her french fries. yuck!

michellelpn · Jul 16, 2002

:nurse: I am always happy to see that my kids 12 and 14 like to eat lettuce but I have also seen the large amount of dressing that they pour onto the salad. It looks like dressing with lettuce. HA HA!! I too have switched to low fat or fat free dressings and they don't seem to mind.

Michelle

OBNURSEHEATHER · Jul 16, 2002

I don't think I've ever even eaten normal salad dressing. I've just grown accustomed to the taste of fat-free dressing.

Heather

fiestynurse · Jul 16, 2002

Go for the regular dressing!! And eat all the fried chicken you want!! I have been on a low carb diet for the past 4 months and have lost 15 pounds. I have tons of energy and I am never hungry.

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?

By Gary Taubes

At the very moment that the government started telling Americans to eat less fat, we got fatter. The truths about why we gain weight and why it is so hard to lose it just might turn out to be much different from what we have been led to think.

If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations--eat less fat and more carbohydrates--are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true.

When Atkins first published his ''Diet Revolution'' in 1972, Americans were just coming to terms with the proposition that fat --particularly the saturated fat of meat and dairy products--was the primary nutritional evil in the American diet. Atkins managed to sell millions of copies of a book promising that we would lose weight eating steak, eggs and butter to our heart's desire, because it was the carbohydrates, the pasta, rice, bagels and sugar, that caused obesity and even heart disease. Fat, he said, was harmless.

Atkins allowed his readers to eat ''truly luxurious foods without limit,'' as he put it, ''lobster with butter sauce, steak with béarnaise sauce...bacon cheeseburgers,'' but allowed no starches or refined carbohydrates, which means no sugars or anything made from flour. Atkins banned even fruit juices, and permitted only a modicum of vegetables, although the latter were negotiable as the diet progressed.

Atkins was by no means the first to get rich pushing a high-fat diet that restricted carbohydrates, but he popularized it to an extent that the American Medical Association considered it a potential threat to our health. The A.M.A. attacked Atkins's diet as a ''bizarre regimen'' that advocated ''an unlimited intake of saturated fats and cholesterol-rich foods,'' and Atkins even had to defend his diet in Congressional hearings.

Thirty years later, America has become weirdly polarized on the subject of weight. On the one hand, we've been told with almost religious certainty by everyone from the surgeon general on down, and we have come to believe with almost religious certainty, that obesity is caused by the excessive consumption of fat, and that if we eat less fat we will lose weight and live longer. On the other, we have the ever-resilient message of Atkins and decades' worth of best-selling diet books, including ''The Zone,'' ''Sugar Busters'' and ''Protein Power'' to name a few. All push some variation of what scientists would call the alternative hypothesis: it's not the fat that makes us fat, but the carbohydrates, and if we eat less carbohydrates we will lose weight and live longer.

The perversity of this alternative hypothesis is that it identifies the cause of obesity as precisely those refined carbohydrates at the base of the famous Food Guide Pyramid--the pasta, rice and bread--that we are told should be the staple of our healthy low-fat diet, and then on the sugar or corn syrup in the soft drinks, fruit juices and sports drinks that we have taken to consuming in quantity if for no other reason than that they are fat free and so appear intrinsically healthy. While the low-fat-is-good-health dogma represents reality as we have come to know it, and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research trying to prove its worth, the low-carbohydrate message has been relegated to the realm of unscientific fantasy.

Over the past five years, however, there has been a subtle shift in the scientific consensus. It used to be that even considering the possibility of the alternative hypothesis, let alone researching it, was tantamount to quackery by association. Now a small but growing minority of establishment researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have been saying all along. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition

may be the most visible proponent of testing this heretic hypothesis. Willett is the de facto spokesman of the longest-running, most comprehensive diet and health studies ever performed, which have already cost upward of $100 million and include data on nearly 300,000 individuals. Those data, says Willett, clearly contradict the low-fat-is-good-health message ''and the idea that all fat is bad for you; the exclusive focus on adverse effects of fat may have contributed to the obesity epidemic.''

2ndCareerRN · Jul 16, 2002

I use the packets of Hidden Valley and mix it with skim milk and fat free mayo...they don't even know the difference

I don't use ranch as a salad dressing, but I do use it as a veggie dip.

I do much like kids, I use 2 packets of hidden valley, 16oz fat free sour cream and 16oz of fat free mayo to mix up the dip. I will also use a little milk to thin out if needed. This should also work for a dressing if thinned enough. The fat is gone and the taste is still there.

bob

Zohar · Jul 16, 2002

I agree with feisty, I eat all the fattening stuff I want, and I lost 45lbs. Just stay away from sugar and too much carbs.

live4today, RN · Jul 16, 2002

I, too, have to agree with feistynurse on that score. I do NOT eat anything that says "Fat free" on it, nor do I eat anything that says "low caloric" on it. I prefer to eat 'au naturale' and limit my intake of sweets as much as possible. It is much better to satisfy one's desire to have sweets (salty foods as well) in limited average proportions, than to eliminate them from the diet completely. We want what we can't have, so when our diet trip is over, we regain the lost weight PLUS some. However, if we eat what we enjoy in moderation, we tend not to crave foods or desserts because we are not depriving ourselves completely from the enjoyment of such foods and desserts.

I try not to eat anything made with white flour, white sugar, white rice, etc.......BUT.....do not totally deny myself the privilege of enjoying the fine dishes made with these items. I love fruit, salads with REGULAR blue cheese or Italian dressing (small amounts because I don't like a soppy salad anyway); some veggies, some meats, fish and poultry, and seafood (lobster, shrimp, and king crab legs).

Move that body, work it...work it...work it...you know...like the Clariol commercial??? :lol2:

Rustyhammer · Jul 16, 2002

I'm thinking of switching to diet beer.

-Russell

andrewsgranny, ASN, RN · Jul 16, 2002

Wow what a ton of info. Thanks y'all. I think I feel better about my fried chicken salad. :rolleyes: Still feel awful about the thighs. But oh well. Maybe I will try low carbs and see what happens.

Thanks again:kiss