It’s been a long time since I posted a recipe. In comments, I mentioned I was making sorbet and I thought I’d share.
I’ve also mentioned I’m on a diet. I’m trying to lose 1 lb a week which means I need a 500 calorie deficit a day. So, why the heck am I making sorbet? Well, it’s diet sorbet! (Actually, I’m not sure if it’s sorbet because I add a little cream. But in the US the legal designation for “sherbet” requires 1% -2% dairy; so it’s not sherbet. I’m not selling this, so… whatever. )
Here’s how I came to be making ice cream: Way back in grad school, Jim and I owned an ice cream maker. We often made sorbet– normal sugar loaded sorbet. It’s easy to make and, because there is no time for ice crystals to form, it’s better than most sorbet you can buy. Eventually, as with many home food making fads, we bored of making sorbet and gave the machine to Goodwill. Years passed.
Now, I’m on a diet. It’s summer; it was getting hot. I discovered several things:
- I can buy erythritol based sugar substitutes at Whole Foods under the brand “Sweet Simplicity”. Erythritol is sweet and has the necessary bulk to act as a fairly decent substitute for sugar in a sorbet recipe without degrading the mouth-feel of the sorbet. Aspartame, sucralose, stevia, and saccharine will make sorbet sweet, but the won’t contribute anything positive to the oozy-gooey mouth feel you like as ice cream, sherbet or sorbet dissolves in your mouth. Stevia and saccharin also taste icky. (You can find brands of erythritol at Amazon; see erythritol
.)
- I discovered thickener called “konjac flour”, which is also glucomannan — a diet supplement (which may or may not work). It definitely works as a thickener, thickening even without heating. It happens to be an ingredient used to make turkish ice cream. I don’t use it the way the turks use it, but adding a little konjac makes low fat ice cream or sorbet a little creamier than if you don’t add the konjac. Obviously, adding lots cream does the same thing. 🙂 To learn about it’s use in ice cream read: 1, 2 and 3. (I bought my konjac flour mail order. To find suppliers, go to Amazon: glucomannan
- I found a used 1 1/2 quart Cuisinart ice cream machine on craigslist; I paid $15. (Naturally, Amazon has ice cream makers
- I googled and found a bunch of sorbet recipes. I also read a fair number of articles on how different ingredients affect the consistency of ice cream. Then, I decided to experiment. I’ve varied amounts of and types of thickeners, amounts of fruit and use of different sweeteners. For some reason, using gelatin and some konjac together seems to give a better mouth fell than than using gelatin or konjac alone. Gelatin alone is pretty good though, so if you can’t get the konjac, or think it’s too weird for words, leave it out. Using the erythritol is also better than using aspartame or sucralose. Adding the 1 T of cream also makes the sorbet nicer.
Here’s my current “standard” recipe for fruit sorbet for two. The sorbet pictured is cherry. (This makes lots of ice cream for 2.) To make the ice cream, you will need a blender, measuring spoons, an ice cream maker and measuring spoons.
Recipe
Serves two people who want to make hogs of themselves of 4 who consume more moderately.
- 3/4 c water total.
- 1/2 package of unflavored gelatin (e.g. Knox brand.)
- 1/3 – 1/2 cup Erythritol sugar substitute.
- 9 oz. unsweetened frozen fruit. (This 2/3s of the 12 oz bags stocked at my grocery store. )
- 1 T heavy cream.
- 1/4 t konjac powder. (Optional, but it does make the sorbet a little creamier.)
Have your ice cream maker prepared to make ice cream. (With my maker, this means freeze the freezer bowl for 12 hours to make sure it’s cold. Place it on the machine stand and insert the paddle.)
Pour 1/4 C water into a microwave safe measuring cup; sprinkle gelatin intowater and let sit for 5 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup water and sugar substitute, stir to blend. Place in microwave and heat until boiling; stir to make sure all sugar substitute is dissolved.
Meanwhile, place frozen fruit and cream in a blender. When water mixture has boiled, let it sit for 1 minute, then pour into blender. Blend until fruit is pureed. While blender is running, slowly sprinkle— do not just dump– the konjac (i.e. glucomannan) onto fruit mixture. Let run another minute.
Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker bowl, and blend until firm. (Approximately 10-30 minute depending on how cold both the frozen fruit and freezer bowl were.)
Serve immediately or scoop into a covered container to firm further in the freezer. I find the texture is excellent if I allow to firm up to 1 hour. Experiments without the cream, glucomannan and gelatin indicate a serious degradation of quality if frozen 24 hours. (The sorbet becomes rock hard, and you can see ice crystals. Allowing it to stand on the counter and stirring can remedy this, but it’s an issue.) I haven’t had any “gelatine/glucomannan/cream” sorbet left over particular recipe left over to test for degradation of consistency after freezing 24 hours.
Nutrition
I entered the ingredients using frozen cherries at Nutrition Data to create a nutrition analysis based on dividing the recipe into 2 servings. The short story is 100 calories: 15 g carb * 3 g fat * 3 g protein. The medium story is given in the chart below. The long story involves even more charts, but I don’t know how to share my recipes on Nutrition Data.
If you have an ice cream maker, and can find the ingredients and are on a diet, give this a try. Unless your doctor has you on a very severe low calorie or low carb diet, or you have an aversion to sugar substitutes or weird ingredients, you’ll love this. If you do have an aversion to weird ingredients, use real sugar and leave out the konjac. That probably tastes great too– though the calorie count per serving will increase to roughly 300 calories all from sugar.
IPCC projected trend : reality :: 1 lb per week : ll’s recipe plan
i’m looking at heavy cream + fruit and seeing projected weight loss significantly falling off from projections. Only issue is how many weeks will it take to falsify?
This is not a criticism. It’s just that as an aging obese person I am developing a preference for mitigation rather than (caloric) reduction strategies.
Cheers.
George–
I’ve been staying pretty much on track. However, a sizable fraction of the deficit is coming from exercise. I’m trying to burn about 1800 extra calories/ week by cardio and eat 1700 fewer calories a week. I don’t tally food so much, but the “rules” are:
1) zero wine Monday-Thursday. Remember to put fizzy water on the table when the inlaws visit us or we visit them on Fri-sat-sun and always drink 2 fizzy waters between servings of wine. (Wine is 140 cal a 4 ounce glass. Most people pour 6 oz. )
2) only “approved” mid-meal snacks. (These are low fat yogurt with fruits and artificial sweetener, carrots, fruit, veggies etc. No bread with butter, jelly, left over pizza, cheese etc.)
3) Must eat at least 5 servings veggies a day.
4) Lowish carb main dinner. (Last night I substituted a 1 C cous-cous, garbanzos with oninons, zuchinni, garlic, fennel and oregano for 1 C rice. We also had another veg.)
5) After dinner snack must be lowish calorie. This is split with Jim so I can’t get ridiculous here. That’s why I’m making the 100 calorie sorbet. Otherwise, Jim’s going to break out the 300 – 500 calorie Pillsbury turnovers or Texas Sized Sugar-and Sourcream slathered Cinnamon rolls and I’ll eat one.
6) Avoid restaurants if possible; eat only 1/2 entree if I go to a restaurant– exception: Our regular sunday breakfast place.
7) At regular breakfast place: Substitute 2 poached eggs for fried. Substitute fruit for hash browns. Eat only 1 slice of toast instead of both. No butter on toast.
8) Lunch and breakfast are mostly unchanged except I substitute artificial sweetener on my cheerios and *must* eat at least 2 cups veggie with my sandwich at lunch.
9) Make sure to display a fruit or veggie platter when my inlaws bring chips. Take fruits and veggies to brothers in laws house if I go there. (They serve cheese, sausage, chips and dip. I do eat some. But alternating with veggies reduces how much.)
Did I mention the dinner and snack changes are causing Jim to lose weight too?
Anyway, I know how I eat when I’m not on a diet. I’m not starving myself, but this does cut between 200-300 calories a day rather easily. My brothers in law are also encouraging me to make more sorbet when they visit.
Oh– I should add my other weird weight loss “trick”. I bought Arcorac dishes to replace my previous set. The Arcorac dinner plate has a 10″ diameter; my old set was 10 3/4″ diameter. The bowls hold a slightly smaller volume than my old bowls. These tends to make me plop 10% less food on the plate. Of course, it can’t prevent me from eating seconds, but 10% less food is useful.
You seem remarkably disciplined for anybody over 50 (heck, remarkably disciplined for any age!). If you are having success, then more power to ya…
Maybe you could write a diet book; more market than for climate science. 🙂
You could put all the food in a bomb calorimeter first.
But then you’d be left with a diet of CO2 and water. hmm.
Become a houseplant.
SteveF–
I diet and fall off the wagon in binges. When I’m on a dieting binge, I can always manage to lose weight and get in shape. Then… I fall off the wagon for years at a time. Then, I look at myself, decide I’m a fat pig and get back on the wagon.
That said, a “glucomannan diet recipes” book might be useful: These sorbets with the glucomannan are very filling and tasty. I’ve been experimenting with other foods with greater or lesser success. The stuff is the main ingredient in Lipozene. There is some evidence it’s helpful for some people (probably because it slows digestion in some way and keeps your stomach with fewer calories and for a longer period of time.) It also supposedly keeps bake goods moist, it gels, and has a number of other nice properties. So, using the erythritol and glucommanan in a muffin recipe might make yummier, lower cal snacks. (Low fat muffins tend to dry out; low sugar/low fat muffins tend to be, well, bread. ) I’m going to be experimenting. I’ll post successes here. Less successful stuff are at my unread diet blog. 🙂
Sadly, that 3,500 calories = one pound thing does not really work, especially with exercise. We don’t entirely understand why. Part of the problem seems to be that your basal level of activity (not to be confused with your basal metabolic rate) goes down in exercisers when they are not exercising. Put simply, the body sees you burning extra energy and does what it can to conserve — less shifting in your seat, less foot-tapping, etc. You actually lose a lot of the calorie-burning benefits of exercise that way, although not the general health benefits.
Cut food out of your diet and the same thing happens. You get hungrier, and your body starts burning the calories it gets more efficiently.
With this and that, >90% of people who lose weight on a diet gain it back within five years. Obviously, it is nonsense to talk about “lack of willpower” as a primary causative factor in obesity when <10% of people keep weight off successfully. The people who succeed are the odd ones.
Still, we can only try. I'm on 2,000 calories a day, weights, and 1/2 hour running or on the stair climber. The only really successful strategy for long-term weight loss? Bariatric surgery. 10-year all-cause mortality (which includes all complications during and after surgery as well as anything else that kills you) is only 0.6 in the treatment group as opposed to controls (that's highly impressive). It works and it helps people. But obviously it's not the answer for most of us.
Sigh. I better get to the gym.
Re: Robert (Jul 9 11:13),
Well, I agree if what you mean is that you can’t just try to keep a tally and expect to be able to do the math and get things to work out. I think the first law does apply, but it’s really hard to estimate how many calories you really burn based on any general purpose formula for resting metabolisms, calories burned during exercise etc.
I don’t think lack of will power is the primary causitive factor for obesity.
To the left is me in the “after” period of my diet-exercise frenzies (5 years ago.)
Below is me in April– about 5 pounds heavier than today:
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_10667" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="Anthony, Jeff, Steve and Lucia at Stefani\'s."]
So, the diet is to go from what I looked like in the picture in April 2010 to somewhere in the vicinity of the picture in 2005. Unfortunately, this requires dieting.
Lucia,
“I look at myself, decide I’m a fat pig and get back on the wagon.”
If April 2010 is when you looked at yourself, then your “fat pig” standard is fairly stringent. I’d look at the three very fine gentlemen sitting next to you as a reasonable baseline comparison.
On a less healthy note, our Friday office BBQ features blue cheese burgers with bacon and avocado 😛
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/photo.jpg
You can see our office cat Ike putting in a cameo in the background.
“I don’t think lack of will power is the primary causitive factor for obesity.”
I didn’t think you thought that. As I think I pointed out recently, just because I’m willing to have an argument doesn’t mean everything I say is an argument. Sometimes I just think I have something interesting to say about the topic at hand.
“I’m not obese, and I don’t even think I’d get there no matter what I did.”
Again, not saying that. Which was why I said: “obviously it’s not the answer for most of us.” I brought it up because I think it’s interesting and because it illustrates how hard it is to successfully diet.
Zeke—
Ike is gorgeous! Our favorite cat of all time was an Orange cat. Those burgers look great! Are those some kind of tater tots in the bowl?
Robert
Ok… I should have said ” I agree with you that obesity is not a lack of will power.”
Dieting is difficult. I find it nearly impossible to lose weight if I don’t exercise. For some reason, I do find it easier to not buy a doughnut at the grocery store when I know I burned extra calories through exercise than when I think the goal of maintaining the weight I prefer futile because I’m not exercising and I’d have to eat practically nothing to stay at the weight I prefer.
I also find that I have to be pretty vigilant about monitoring the food kept in the house. My inlaws bring chips. If any are left over, they won’t take them. In principle, I could save them for the next visit; in practice, I have to throw them away. Otherwise, I’ll eat them on Monday. So, the “willpower” is the will to throw the chips in the trash on Sunday night. I don’t have the will to not eat the if they are in the house on Monday.
I know other people for whom dieting seems impossible for various reasons. Some people can’t control the pantry. Maybe “willpower” would help– but for many people, it’s not a matter of using your will to sit in front of food and then not eat it. That’s too difficult.
My most successful periods of weight loss have been/are when I go significantly long periods without eating anything. For instance, if I eat dinner at 6pm, and don’t snack then before I go to bed, and then get by with a banana for breakfast, that’s 18 hours of not eating (other than the banana), if I eat lunch at noon. Then, of course, no snacking between lunch and dinner. I think this gives the body time to start burning off calories without dragging down the efficiency of the system with more food.
In any case, I’ve also been advised by my skinny little brother (who is also a monk)that you need to control your stomach rather than have it control you. That means smaller meals at the same time every day. It’s a personal bootcamp. The same food (more or less) at the same time everyday, in the same amout, can get boring (I’ve done it with eating rice), but if the goal is to lose weight, you gotta do what works.
Andrew
Andrew_KY–
I couldn’t use your method. Never. I wake only a little hungry and my hunger tends to peaks around 3 pm pretty much all the time. I’ve known people who do as you do and it works for them.
I’m afraid I don’t think I could motivate myself to follow your brother’s mantra. As you say, you gotta do what works for you. What I do mostly works for me– when I decide to do it.
When Eli was in the sorbet business, liquid nitrogen worked a treat and, of course, you need the glass blowing torch for creme caramel.
Eli–
Details on how you implemented your liquid nitrogen technology. Did you get the mixture uniformly cool? Of was the outside really cold and the inside still all runny?
I use Jacques Pepin’s recipe for creme caramel. No blow torch is required.
Sweet dreams of
Ben & Jerry, when I
last saw my waistline.
I’ve got a question about the instruction “slowly sprinkle– do not just dump– the konjac (i.e. glucomannan) onto fruit mixture.” These sort of do-it-precisely-this-way-and-not-that-way instructions are fairly common, but they always make me wonder what happens with the incorrect method, as I haven’t the faintest idea what’s happening from a chemical point of view.
So, may I ask what happens if you just dump it in?
Harold–
If I dump 1/4 tsp of konjac into boiling water, it nearly instantly forms a 1/4 tsp “lump” of gel that is very difficult to break up. It doesn’t gel as quickly in cold water, and it doesn’t form a lump if you sprinkle and stir vigorously at the same time.
So, if you sprinkle into fluid being rapidly agitated in a blender with cold fruit mixture, the konjac will be uniformly dispersed before it has a chance to gel.
Since the mixture in the blender is pretty cool, and blended, I’m not sure whether you’ll have a clumping problem if you just dump in– but it’s is much safer to sprinkle and not dump. Sprinking is pretty easy- just tap the spoon with the powder.
You could dump and find out for sure. . .
When I was diagnosed as diabetic my doctor put me on what was basically an adkins diet… less than 50 carbs per day and no sugar… I could eat all the fatty foods I wanted (which I did) and I lost 40 lbs in 5 weeks… and despite all of the fatty foods, my cholesterol and such came down… so kill the fruit (fruictose = sugar), pasta, bread, potatoes and such and have a ton of kielbasa
Lucia –
Thanks for the response. I know absolutely nothing about kitchen chemistry. [And an equal amount about konjac.] I’d much rather learn from others’ knowledge, rather than perform trial and error experiments — I create quite enough error without deliberately introducing more.
Calorie counting can be useful but the human body is not a bomb calorimeter, fat for example is ‘burnt’ very inefficiently. It is not to everyone’s taste but a high (animal)fat/low carb diet is a good way to lose weight, no hunger pangs and thoughts is I think the big plus. Eat all you want… and still lose weight… amazing, well no, what really was amazing was the amount of vitriol nutritionist ‘deniers’ (around 2002) poured on a simple empirical claim.
Here is the original William Banting diet (1864), I do not know if it has followers. Banting lost about a pound a week for 38 weeks.
For breakfast, I take four or five ounces of
beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon,
or cold meat of any kind except pork ;
a large cup of tea (without milk or
sugar), a little biscuit, or one ounce of
dry toast.
For dinner. Five or six ounces of any fish
except salmon, any meat except pork,
any vegetable except potato, one ounce
of dry toast, fruit out of a pudding, any
kind of poultry or game, and two or
three glasses of good claret, sherry, or
Madeira — Champagne, Port and Beer
forbidden.
For tea. Two or three ounces of fruit, a rusk
or two, and a cup of tea without milk or
sugar.
For supper. Three or four ounces of meat or
fish, similar to dinner, with a glass or
two of claret.
For nightcap, if required, A tumbler of grog
-—(gin, whisky, or brandy, without sugar)
—or a glass or two of claret or sherry.
http://ia311238.us.archive.org/3/items/letteroncorpulen00bant/letteroncorpulen00bant.pdf
Re: HaroldW (Jul 9 21:10),
Understood. Recipes don’t usually explain why, they just describe a series of steps that will result in the product you want. Asking why is useful, but that explanation is going to be separate.
I didn’t know anything about Konjac until a month ago. But the lumping if you dump is typical for many thickeners. Similar things happen with cornstarch, egg yolks etc. So, all have a methods to avoid forming one lump. With corn starch, you stir into a little cold water before pouring into a hot liquid you want to thicken (for example, gravy.) I did try dumping a 1/4 tsp of konjac in water and stirring with a spoon…. it lumped. But sprinkling into the blender works great every time. (You don’t have to be tremendously careful. The blender does most of the work of stirring, but just tap the spoon to let the powder spread out as it hits the surface.
Re: harold (Jul 10 01:41),
I’ve read Atkins does work for a fair number of people. I find myself unable to follow Atkins though. I tried it a long time ago and it just doesn’t suit me.
When I’ve been successful, I’ve eaten lower carb than suggested on the food pyramid (which is pretty high carb). So, I guess I eat “medium carb”. I don’t eat high fat.
The diet book I like best is “Volumetrics”. It suggests eating foods with lower calorie densities. If you look at the food summary graph above, you’ll see two pyramids. The one on the left shows “fullness factor”. I try to find foods that have a high “fullness factor” and try to avoid foods with a low “fullness factor”. After that, I look for tasty foods and make sure I get enough protein (which isn’t too difficult). I don’t really worry about carb/protein/fat percentages or limiting anything in particular.
I think if you obsess too much over details like carb/protein/fat, dieting can get too complicated and you fail. (One advantage is Atkins is simple. You don’t sit there counting or tallying every bite you eat or analyzing the carb/protein/fat balance of your diet.)
Konjac sounds like fun, have you tried making jellies with it? I had tried using xanthan gum as a thickener but that seemed to like going lumpy. Especially after I lost lab access and couldn’t borrow agitators any more. As for weight loss, my method is my trusty old Galco belt. If I’m on the last hole and it’s feeling tight, it’s time to lay off the junk food and beer 🙂
The real shocker for the AGW is starting
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
and will continue until it ends probably in the coming months re Roy Spencer global temps
See u then!
Atomic
It is sort of fun to experiment. Except… are you a US or UK english speaker. Is British “jelly” what we call gelatine or jello in the US?
For now, I’ll assume you mean what I mean by “jelly”. 🙂
I haven’t tried jellies, jams or preserves mostly because I don’t eat jellies. I know you can buy special “Sure Jell lite” pectin to make reduced sugar jellies; I think that involves the whole hot-water bath thing you need to make traditional jellies. Since I almost never at jelly (jam) or preserves, I’m not going to do that.
I also don’t eat much jello!
Ah, UK english, so more jello. From doing some research, looks like a different mouth feel and doesn’t melt in the mouth compared to traditional jelly/jello. For making jam/jelly, I’m not sure it would spread well, but could try slicing it a bit like processed cheese I guess.
But jello applications, am thinking family and friend’s kids, who seem to love it more than the stress it gives me making it, and waking up to find it hasn’t set. More practically, am thinking it could a be quick & dirty way to make jello shots. The bulking effect may also help avoid over consumption. More evilly, I’m also due payback on a friend’s practical joke. I had been thinking of jellifying his pool, but the traditional way would’ve needed heating it and hoping it set. This could make it a lot easier 🙂
I thought this was a pretty cool website. This talks about the science of ice cream, not sorbet, still interesting though.
Yes, this sets without heating. Not nice though!
Carrick– Food science stuff is really cool, isn’t it?
I’m fascinated whenever I run across articles discussing how to make foods have the textures we love.
Lucia, I started looking when I saw Eli’s comment about using liquid nitrogen. It wasn’t clear to me how rapid freezing using LN2 would affect the texture compared to slower freezing from more conventional methods.
But yes… I do find this sort of thing fascinating.
Carrick– It’s not clear to me either. But I’m curious about what he did.
Who said YT is good for nothing, example here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqoxvy7gESs
Think mythbusters also did it, when I tried it, trick seemed to be the stirring.
The only diet I have ever seen work, long term, was the ‘bread diet’.
You eat only bread one day, and drink only water. Whatever bread you want, but not sweetened. Wholewheat, rye, toast, whatever. No butter. As much as you want. In fact, its important to eat enough not to feel hungry.
The next day you eat whatever you want.
When you reach the desired weight, you taper off, so that it is first bread every two days, then every three, and if your weight rises again, back you go to bread ever two or every other day.
It works. The reason is, it raises the percentage of complex carbs in the diet and lowers fat.
michel–
I suspect the other reason it can work is that even with the admonition of eating “as much as you want”, few people end up eating more than 1,000 calories of dry bread on their bread days! You could probably do the same thing with only rice, only plain beans, only roasted chicken breast, only apples or any number of “only X” diets. (Only grapefruit or celery days might result in some feeling really tired– but it depends a bit on how your body manages its glucose levels.)
lots of grooming , not enuf meat on the bone
Lucia,
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Heston Blumenthal. His restaurant the Fat Duck in Britain is perennially named as one of the top three restaurants in the world. He is famous for innovation and takes a very scientific approach to cooking and the tools used for cooking.
Here’s a recipe for Fizzy Blackcurrant Sorbet using, appropriately enough, frozen CO2. I haven’t tried it yet myself, but it looks dead easy, takes two minutes to freeze and is supposed to have the smallest ice crystals imaginable making for the smoothest of Sorbets.
It’s certainly easier for me to get and handle dry ice than liquid nitrogen.
Here’s a YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_hwtVVrD8U
Bon Appetit!
SteveE– Ohhh! Yummy. I’m going to have a party, and I’ll do that if I need to make two flavors of icecream!
Winnphoo–
Ok. Are you suggesting I need to fatten up?!
Lucia,
Given the “cooking” method it looks like one of those recipes you can do in front of people to impress. Imagine…instant ice cream!
CO2 may cause warming, but dry ice is totally cool! 😉