Compare and contrast nutritional data resources: USDA vs. Google

A friend of mine is on a diet for science (they're taking part in an investigational weight-loss program through a local university), and so they have to count calories very carefully. So far, they've been using a handbook by "the CalorieKing", provided by the program, as well as internet searches of varying reliability.

When I've wanted to look up nutritional information -- say, after a fitness professional friend suggested that I increase my magnesium consumption -- my go-to resource has been the super-comprehensive but somewhat user-unfriendly USDA National Nutrient Database. Dig it. There are some 8,000 foods in the system, both organized by category and searchable by name. Look at the nutrition packed in that CSA kale we got this week! The only question I'm left with is, what's the percentage of my DRI (formerly known as Recommended Daily Allowance, or RDA) for all those nutrients? I have to cross-reference with another USDA website or a PDF file from the Institute of Medicine, which is too bad.

Google to the rescue, maybe. They've just announced that they're rolling out a nutrition data aggregator. Soon you'll be able to type "how much magnesium in kale" into Google search, and you'll get an honest-to-goodness Nutrition Facts label right there on your computer or handheld screen.

Neato burrito, so to speak.

I'm not in line for an iPhone today. Are you?

As everyone stands in line for their new iPhones this week, a quick reminder of a John Scalzi post from 2005, Being Poor.

Here at Rowhouse Livin' I've been using a BlackBerry Curve for a few years now, and I was a late upgrader to a smartphone at that. Why haven't I moved to a snazzier smartphone? The primary question, though, is why am I using a smartphone at all?

I use a smartphone because the law firm's clients need their e-mails answered whether I'm at my desk or not. And I can't be tied to my desk all day, because I have to see other clients, I have to run errands, and I have childcare needs, ranging from mid-day emergencies to after-school sports games I want to see. I was fine with a regular cell phone until I was browsing DiBruno Bros. one afternoon for a birthday gift, and a client phoned me. She had e-mailed me a document for review and advice on before she signed it. A deadline was pending. And I had to tell her, "Oh, sorry, I won't be back at my desk for another 45 minutes." Long story short, the client thankfully didn't fire me right then and there and find another lawyer -- and I ordered my first smartphone that afternoon. My only smartphone, so far.

If I weren't a lawyer, or in some other work where I need to have access to my e-mail while out of the office, I'd seriously think twice about upgrading to a smartphone. To me it seemed that I didn't have much choice, if I wanted to keep current clients and win new ones. And the increased monthly cost would likely be offset by increased professional revenue. So I jumped in.

To save money, I got the device that was free with a contract with the carrier I'd been using for years and was perfectly happy with. The BlackBerry Curve has a lousy web browser, but the phone does what I need it to do: phone calls, text messaging, and e-mail. Reasonable handling of small PDFs and office suite documents. Google just changed its mapping functionality with the BlackBerry web browser, but that's what god invented atlases for.

Other than my monthly plan's bill, my phone is cost-free now, and I intend to keep it that way until the device gives up the ghost. I don't need further functionality -- think: do you need the bells and whistles on your phone? Really, the only thing I'd gain by upgrading my smartphone now, other than a higher monthly bill, would be a little less teasing from the wacky friends who get on my case for using an antique device.

So. Are you reading this while in line for a new iPhone? Feel free to leave a comment while I run a data backup on my antique.

Keep eating rice and beans: arsenic in rice will not kill you

At first, I was all, "You should eat rice and beans a lot because it's cheap and healthy."

Then I was all, "What is this crazy article from Consumer Reports about arsenic in rice (also complete PDF of the results)?"

Consumers Union tested all manner of whole rice and processed-rice products, finding a surprising level of arsenic across the board, especially in American-grown rice. Interestingly, organic rice didn't necessarily have a lower level of arsenic than conventional rice. Arsenic levels appear to go down as the rice products are more processed, and white rice tends to have less arsenic than brown rice. Most relevant to the way Rowhouse Livin' uses rice, Consumers Union suggests that if you eat brown rice, you should limit your consumption to about a half cup (cooked, or 1/4 cup uncooked), twice per week.

Wait, what? Let's look at the actual numbers. Consumers Union found that a half cup of cooked brown rice -- a small serving for Rowhouse Livin' -- ranged up to 9.6 micrograms of arsenic. The federal limit for arsenic in drinking water is 10 parts per billion, which means 10 micrograms per liter. (New Jersey's limit is 5 ppb, according to Consumers Union.) So it appears to follow that eating a half cup of cooked brown rice could net you the same amount of arsenic as drinking a quart of the worst water in the U.S.

Arsenic is toxic and carcinogenic. Your lifetime risk of dying of cancer caused by arsenic in your tap water is possibly 13 in 1,000, though it's probably closer to 1 in 1,000. Note that in 2010, heart disease caused 193 deaths in 1,000 (PDF, p. 5). But brown rice is a high-fiber food with cardio-healthy nutrients that can lower your risk of heart disease.

On the other hand, Consumers Union says that "[p]eople who ate rice had arsenic levels that were 44 percent greater than those who had not, according to [their] analysis of federal health data." The "levels" there were arsenic levels in urine. Consumers Union does not include units, however, so it's unclear to me how significant that figure is. The way Rowhouse Livin' sees it, 144 is 44% greater than 100 -- but what was that 100 of? If it's "100 grams of potato chips," then no big deal. If it's "100 milligrams of caffeine," then I may be a little more alert and wakeful this afternoon. My meaning: what were the initial levels, that the rice-eaters were 44% greater than?

To be clear, I'm not saying I'm happy to learn that my urine may have 44% higher arsenic levels than the urine of someone who never eats rice.

But it does inform what we're going to do here at Rowhouse Livin' with this article. First of all, we're not going to quit eating brown rice. In my view, the positive effects on my cardiovascular health outweigh what looks like a very small lifetime risk of dying of arsenic-caused cancer. The Consumers Union article suggests rinsing brown rice before cooking, to "[remove] about 30 percent of the rice's inorganic arsenic content." While rinsing white rice may remove vitamins and minerals sprayed on it to enrich it, rinsing brown rice shouldn't remove any nutrients, nor the angiotensin II tissue, located under the outer layer of the rice grain, mentioned in the Science Daily article linked to above.

Rowhouse Livin' is going to keep eating brown rice and beans. How about your household?

Care and feeding of cast iron cookware

In light of a recent news item pointing out an association between non-stick cookware and childhood overweight, and another linking Teflon to heart disease, I'd like to talk about cast iron pans today. I own a few pieces of cast iron cookware, and I have a confession.

I regularly immerse them in dishwater full of detergent to clean them.

Alton Brown would scold me. Lodge would fire me. The author of this very good, comprehensive how-to would say I'm not careful enough. But you know what? I like a clean kitchen.

And a cast-iron pan that seems irretrievably "de-seasoned" can be brought back to life by cooking up a batch of french fries. And who doesn't like french fries?

Find cast-iron pieces at yard sales, flea markets, and thrift stores. For the urban home economist, there is really no reason to ever buy it new (though, if you do, follow the manufacturer's instructions for first use). Gnarly, rusty, sticky pieces can be retrieved; cracked and warped pieces cannot. What pieces should you get? Rowhouse Livin' gets by with a small skillet, a large shallow skillet, a round flat griddle, and a dutch oven. If you dig frying whole chickens, then you may enjoy keeping a large deep skillet on hand as well. Most other sizes and types will be superfluous for everyday cooking.

Clockwise from top left: Slow cooker, dutch oven, griddle, 8-inch
skillet, 10-inch skillet, tea kettle. Two of these things are not like the others.

Scrub the newly acquired cast iron with fine steel wool and wipe out dirt, old seasoning, and rust. Repeat until clean and free of rust. Add a tablespoon or more of vegetable oil (a high-temperature frying oil, not a salad oil), spread the oil around the bottom of the pan, and heat the pan on medium for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and, using a paper towel or napkin, spread the oil up the sides of the pan. Remove excess oil and let cool on the stove (or in an unheated oven) overnight. The next day, make a batch of french fries in the pan.

We use the small skillet for frying eggs. Its surface is so well seasoned that it acts like a nonstick pan under a egg fried sunny-side up in butter. Too bad my doctor tells me I should poach my morning breakfast egg instead. The large shallow skillet is more of a workhorse: tomato sauce (yes), fried rice, sauteed vegetables of all kinds (greens, summer squash, eggplant, broccoli, etc.), and french fries, on days when I feel like spending a lot of time cleaning up splatters from my stove afterward. The round griddle sees weekend duty cooking pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. The dutch oven serves as a cloche for baking bread, and as a spacious kettle for my devastating dairy-free potato-leek soup in the winter.

The dutch oven is not cleaned, really, between baking loaves of bread. After a few rounds, I brush out some accumulated burned crumbs, but I find no need to clean it with soap. As for the flat griddle, it gets a quick wipe with a plastic scrubber -- kludged from a plastic net sack that once held onions -- under running water, but no soap or detergent. Pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches simply don't stick to it. The two skillets, however, do get a dunk in the sink for cleaning. I wait until I've finished all the other dishes, and the detergent is about worn out, and I clean them as quickly as I can with the plastic scrubber and with as little detergent as I can get away with. But fried rice sticks, and so does pasta if I toss it with the sauteed vegetables in the skillet. So I pour some room-temperature water in the skillet and let it sit for a half hour at the most to try to loosen that food residue up, but sometimes only some detergent and elbow grease with the scrubber will work. Dry with a towel and inspect: if it looks a little raw, spread a small teaspoon of vegetable oil on the bottom and sides of the pan, let sit overnight, and then wipe off the excess in the morning. If it looks really raw, you know what to do. That's right. Make a batch of french fries.

What more could a kitchen want? Oh -- a slow cooker. Next!

Shift in attitudes or short-term behavior change?

NBC reports that Americans "are getting a better handle on their debt" and that "mortgage delinquencies are tracking lower than this time a year ago." I don't know what "tracking lower" means, but I think it means that fewer people are behind on their mortgage payments right now than they were at this time last year.

The article doesn't explain why, but I'll suggest a reason, and it's sobering: in 2011, banks foreclosed on nearly 2 million properties. So is the reduction in mortgage delinquencies "a shift in consumers' attitudes towards debt," as an economist states for the article? Or has the market just operated really efficiently for the past 12 months?

Contrary to the NBC article, however, CNN reports that "foreclosure starts -- the earliest stage of the foreclosure process when delinquent borrowers first receive notices that they are in default -- rose" in July 2012 compared to July 2011. It likely depends on how you define foreclosure (filing or the sending of the first delinquent notice) and when you start your stopwatch.

Over at BBC, they're asking if Americans are getting off the hyper-consumption train, "[b]ecause while manufacturing is picking up and property sales and construction are both coming up off the floor, US retail spending remains distinctly shaky." And Americans have been saving more of their income than they were seven years ago: 4% now, but just 1.5% in 2005. Evidently, periodicity on BBC's question must be about 15 years: remember Your Money or Your Life (first published 1996) and Affluenza (1997)? The 1990s were supposed to be the decade of frugality, scaling back, and simple living. But once the dot-com boom brought us out of the early 1990s recession -- Gen Xer here, what a great time to finish university that was -- there was no looking back. People like stuff. When they have cash, they spend it on stuff.

I don't think there's any evidence here that people are saving money because they want to do so more than they want to buy things, or that their attitude toward debt has undergone a "shift." I think it's that Americans lost square footage when they lost their homes to foreclosure, so they can't engage in the same consumption behaviors they've been used to engage in. So I think people will be happy to start filling up their homes again when they do have the space. George Carlin explained it well years ago, way before the 1990s recession, though he did use some NSFW language:



That's all your house is: it's a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff!

Timely: How long can you go without electricity?

Half of the nation of India lost their electricity this week. At this writing, the government is restoring power to the regions of the country hit hardest. But at the power failure's peak, some 600 million people had no electric for a day or more, during a summer when the monsoons are not delivering as much rain as they usually do.

How many days can your household survive without electricity? Survive, or survive comfortably? What if it were winter instead of summer? Do you have a generator, and why or why not? What does any household need in order to get by for a few days without power? Or a week?

Do you live above the fourth or fifth floor of your building? How about your workplace? And do you commute to work by train or subway? Another grid outage question: Do you have cash on hand in case the ATMs go out and the banks won't open?

I should do a longer post exploring what I do in my home.