Category: #foodie

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#foodie health My San Francisco Chronicles stores sweet treats

Penguino’s Gourtmet Yogurt

Found Penguino’s Gourmet Yogurt inside of the Metreon Building today while exploring the area with my siblings. The place intrigued me enough to lure me in to try some of their frozen yogurt.

I tried the soft-served frozen yogurt in the natural flavor with chocolate chip cookie dough on top. The other flavor option was mango, but I figured with the cookie dough topping that the mango would not go so well.

It was decent frozen yogurt, but I felt a little unfulfilled after eating it. I remember reading on Sparkpeople before that frozen yogurt is actually not too healthy for people. Sure, perhaps it’s lower in fat/calories than regular ice cream, but in terms of nutrients/probiotics/etc. it provides (as opposed to regular, non-frozen yogurt), the frozen yogurt doesn’t provide any of the bacteria cultures.

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#foodie My San Francisco Chronicles restaurant sweet treats

Indian Ice Cream?

While walking in the Mission today, my sister and I stumbled upon Bombay Ice Creamery, a little ice cream shop situated beside an Indian/ethnic grocery store. At first we were in a bit of disbelief over Indian ice cream, but nevertheless we went in to poke around the shop a bit.

There were some standard flavors (Chocolate, vanilla, etc.), but there were also very exotic flavors such as lassi and Indian food-inspired flavors. At the moment, I can’t name many of the flavors off the top of my head, but I know I wanted to try some. Unfortunately, my sister and I had some huge burritos (at El Buen Sabor), and she advised that it probably was not wise to mix Mexican fare with Indian desserts.

So very true, so very true. Next time, Bombay, next time.

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#amreading #foodie health My San Francisco Chronicles sweet treats

Hungry Girl in San Francisco.

Today after work I managed to go see Hungry Girl aka Lisa Lillien give a talk and sign her new book at Borders in Union Square. I don’t remember how long I have been following her newsletters, but every time I receive them I feel like I’m more well-informed on certain foods. The swap recipes make me realize how really unhealthy most average sweets/general foods are in terms of fat content and calories. Insanity…

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the whole session due to work ending around 7pm. Still, I was able to grab some free samples/coupons and get my book signed by Lillien. A great way to end a long 10-hour workday, indeed!

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#foodie fruit observation

Psychological Allergies.

My friend introduced this term/phrase to me a couple of months ago: “psychological allergies.” Basically, these are “allergies” we have against certain foods for psychological reasons, i.e., the taste of certain foods makes us feel sick, etc. We are not really allergic–just have an aversion against the food.

Recently, I have developed a psychological allergy against oranges. Why? I received too many oranges during Chinese New Year and became sick of eating them day in, day out. I had way too many and had to give away some oranges to friends and homeless people. Granted, I can still eat oranges, but I feel sick when I eat them now. Something about the texture makes me feel queasy these days.

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#amreading #foodie drink health

Craving for Tea; Mindless Eating.

I had a random craving for tea today, so I ended up buying two boxes of tea while grocery shopping. I find the craving “random” since it had not occurred before…

Anyway, lately I have been reading the book Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. I had been meaning to read this book for the past two years since I kept reading reviews/excerpts about it through all my health magazines. After finally getting the chance to crack the book open, I find it to be an interesting and somewhat startling read. A lot of the information I had already known before from the two years of healthy habits I have been practicing (watch portion sizes, put away tempting snacks from visible view, etc.). Yet, there have also been other facts/tidbits that I did not know about until I read it in the book.

For example, today I finished reading a portion about how iced water actually helps the human body burn calories due to the body working harder to regulate the iced water when it enters into the body. Hm! I decided today that I would start drinking more iced water in my apartment. More calorie burn, the better.

And I finally have figured out the term to use when it comes to “organic foods” or any “organic/healthy” restaurants out there: the “healthy halo” effect. So very true: seems most people automatically assume that just because a place serves supposedly healthy foods that they can pile up on the food inside and still stay “healthy”. It may be true to an extent, but not when these people end up piling on other not-so-healthy items on their foods (i.e., cream dressings, etc.).

After I finish the book, I hope to use the re-engineering strategies inside to change a few bad habits in my lifestyle.