Nutritional Yeast

I have heard about this item for years. It's one of those items that is sold in health food stores and crunchy granola people swear is amazing. Although I border on being crunchy and granola, I still see myself as separate from them. I hate patchouli, hacky sack, and drum circles. Because of that, I've never tried nutritional yeast until this week. I really wish I had tried it sooner. It's delicious. I just sprinkled some on popcorn with garlic salt and devoured it.

I would describe the flavor as similar to fake cheese popcorn flavoring, except without the mental thought of, "What is this?" People describe it as nutty, cheesy, savory or umami. It's also really nutritious. A serving of 2 tablespoons and contains 8 grams of complete protein, 4 grams of fiber and only 1 gram of fat. Most companies fortify it with B-12 to help vegetarians and vegans get that into their diet. It naturally contains high levels of most of the other B vitamins.

I don't think I'm alone in avoiding this product. I think part of the problem stems from the name. It sounds like something you'd find on the shelf next to castor oil. People have tried to improve that by calling it nooch, yeshi, brufax, or savoury yeast flakes. None of those help. Nutritional yeast, although clinical sounding, is very accurate. It differentiates it from active yeast, which is used to make bread. It's simply a yeast that is cultivated on molasses then heated to "kill" it. The most common yeast used is a member of the fungi kingdom, so it's related to mushrooms and the yeast used to make alcohol. It comes in flake form, so it sort of resembles gold fish food. I wish I had a better description.

Despite it's weird appearance and unappealing name, I will continue to use this as a popcorn topper. A small amount of it doubled the fiber, tripled the protein and added many vitamins and minerals to my snack. I may also add it as a topper to other savory dishes like potatoes or other vegetables. I may also try it in some recipes.

Day 1B--starting over

It's been a long, long time since I've updated this blog. Sadly, my exercise regimen died off completely shortly after my last post in August. I started feeling tired and thought I just had been overdoing it, so I took a week off, but I only got worse. I thought I might be low on iron, so I started taking some iron pills to fix that, but still got worse. I eventually went to the doctor and, after many blood tests, was diagnosed with pernicious anemia. I was placed on B-12 supplements, but by that point I was so deficient that it took several weeks to get my energy back to a level where even mental exertion was possible. There was no way I was able to run or bike.
That forced inertia until the temperatures cooled led easily into pure laziness. I don't like the cold and am not a huge fan of running on the treadmill. Basically, I got a ton of knitting done over winter. If you want to see my creations, please check out my etsy shop. That laziness, coupled with no decrease in the amount I was eating, led to weight gain. I'm back at the same weight I was a year ago. I'm starting back on the road to fitness, but won't be doing any measurements for a few months. I hope to keep myself accountable to stay motivated. My first motivating tool is my daily step log. It's publicly available, so people will see if I'm slacking. When I used this chart in 2009, I had over 2.5 million steps in 12 weeks. That was summer and I was biking, so I don't think I'll hit that this time. I just hope to increase my activity level each week so I can lose some of this weight and get back to my 2010 starting point again.