Eat This, Not That

Byrd is overweight and trying to shed pounds. I'm underweight and trying to gain.

I don't have high blood pressure or high cholesterol (yet), so I really don't watch what I eat. But Byrd does have high everything, and Byrd does have to watch his intake.

We're always having these major food issues as a result. Byrd designated me his "food police" to help him eat healthier. But he doesn't appreciate watching me practice the opposite of what I'm preaching. I stuff my face with whatever I feel like (even at my worst, I usually don't eat more than 1000 calories a day), while telling Byrd he can't have any.

Yet even after guiding Byrd toward healthier foods, packing his lunches, and cooking dinner five or six nights a week, neither one of us was having any success reaching our weight goals. I was burning all my calories preparing his meals (ha ha), and he was sneaking fast food during work because he was still hungry even after eating the lunches I made him (as I discovered when he got food poisoning last week, vomiting pickle slices, which raised my eyebrows since we do not have pickles in our house).

So I bought the book Eat This, Not That. And by reading it, I realized where I was going wrong. I recommend the book if you are a frustrated grocery shopper like me.

For instance, I keep buying the wrong wheat bread. I didn't realize that mistake until I read what the book described as a proper nutritious bread: high fiber, no sugar, serious grains. I buy a wheat bread that has barely any fiber in it and a lot of sugar. Mistake!

Similarly, in purchasing what I thought were healthy snack foods--granola bars, puffed rice cakes, Ritz crackers, and even yogurt--I was really buying foods with lots of sugar, trans fat, and/or saturated fat. I didn't bother to read the ingredients list or compare nutrition labels (I don't want to spend hours in the store, I want to grab and go). Dummy.

The nice thing about the book is that it has lots and lots of pictures. Pictures of things I should be buying, and pictures of things I shouldn't be buying. It makes for a quick and easy reference.

Byrd, who is close to illiterate and rarely touches books, really enjoyed looking at the pictures. This was great for me because I thought, hey, he will learn something from a neutral source rather than from his nagging know-it-all wife.

Well, okay, it was great... until he started recognizing things that I often buy. "Oh, look, that's our margarine spread under 'Eat This'," he commented, "but that spreadable butter you bought that one time is a 'Not That.' It is banished from this house!" (Insert dramatic arm wave here.)

I had to yank the book away from him before he saw which column my beloved Oreos fell into. He'll be banishing those delicious cookies over my dead body.

The Pit Bull Placebo: Go forth and purchase!

I just finished reading The Pit Bull Placebo, Karen Delise's new book, and I was not the least bit disappointed. Chock full of the serious research and amazing insight I've come to expect from Delise (also the author of Fatal Dog Attacks: The Stories Behind the Statistics), this new book was impossible for me to put down.

I strongly, strongly urge you - if you are truly interested in the hows and whys of the pit bull stereotype - to go out and get this book. There is currently no other book like it out there. Delise talks about the history of the "dangerous breed" mythology, examining newspaper reports about dog attacks starting in the mid-19th century. Back then, Bloodhounds were the popular "bad breed." From there, Delise traces the rise and fall of several villified breeds, ending with a fascinating refutation of all the ridiculous myths that now belong to the pit bull. Never in my life have I seen such a thorough scientific analysis of the "pit-bull-bites-are-like-shark-bites" myth - and I could not contain my glee over her conclusion, which oh-so-subtly suggests that anyone who makes such a claim is most likely out of touch with that thing we call reality.

Along the way, Delise delivers an unparallelled smack down to the "bad boys of BSL" (by which I mean Kory Nelson, Paul Wesselhoff, and all those other myth-spreading, pit bull hating, downright lying fear-mongerers) that sent me into an unstoppable euphoria. You tell 'em, Karen! Their hateful, unsubstantiated stereotypes may get five minutes of fame in the papers, but your book grants their words eternal recognition - as the moronic rantings that they are.

Of course there's much, much more to this book. I can't possibly cover all the things she discusses and do it very well; I keep coming up with more and more topics that this book tackles quite successfully and I'd rather not just rewrite Delise's book.

This is a fabulous book for pit bull owners, politicians, journalists, and... well, and just about anyone else who has any sort of interest in pit bulls. I'm afraid I simply cannot give it the rave review it so justly deserves, as the sheer joy and amazement and wonder which I felt as I finished the book left me virtually speechless. In fact, I was so overwhelmed that I could only say "Wow" for half an hour afterwards. A few days later, I am still trying, and failing, to communicate my endless respect and admiration for Delise and the insane amount of research she has done (so that we don't have to, honestly).

Go out and buy the book and read it for yourself, that's all I can say. I promise you will not be disappointed. You can buy it online:
http://astore.amazon.com/happypitbull-20

Wow.