Tomatos! Romaine or Iceberg?

I know you all have heard the old wives tales growing up, for instance my mother used to tell me that I could not go swimming for an hour after eating. Is there anything to that? NO. I missed a lot of swimming as a kid because the mom’s wanted to take a break. 

Now I know the argument was you might get a cramp… but say somehow the science followed. So what? If a leg cramped up, all you would have to do is swim back to shore – no biggie with the other three limbs. I’m not going to go on forever on this topic but even at 50, I’m still mad about that “wives tale.”

 Before we get to myth’s I would like to mention that I have planted a tomato garden this year. I found a sunny, out of the way spot in the back yard and fenced it off from the dogs. I put in some good soil, bought some tomato starters and I have so many tomatoes that soon I’ll be set until the cold sets in (they haven’t matured yet). Here is a picture of the garden.

Tomatoes are expensive in the market, we usually buy a flat of them at Costco to save a little money along with some other veggies. I planted them too close together I think because I really have no idea how I’m going to get to the back row of tomatoes! :) 

I have heard another claim over the past 20 years or so – that the greener the vegetable, the better for you it is. Specificially many folk have impuned Iceburg Lettuce’s reputation for what they thought was good cause. Here is one video that specifically mentions iceberg lettuce.

Now this lady means well and much of the advice she is giving is probably good. I would like to point out that one common alternative that is bandied about as better for you than iceberg lettuce is romaine lettuce. Finally fed up with the years of people telling me how bad iceberg lettuce is and how great romaine lettuce is – I took a look.

Iceberg Letuce - Romaine Lettuce - Spinach - Kale

You know what? Both lettuces are very near the same nutritional content and iceberg lettuce actually did better on a bunch of fronts. Now if you also look at the spinach and kale, you will notice that these leafy veggies actually do have increased vitamins and minerals over the lettuces.

So the next time you (if you are one of the guilty ones) start telling someone that iceberg lettuce is not healthy, don’t offer another lettuce as an alternative! Try Kale or Spinach… hmm… I seem to remember that advice from somewhere.

Timeless advice from one of my childhood cartoons. All in all I guess eating dark green veggies are still good advice. I just wanted to point out that lettuces are all about the same so you might as well save some money and buy iceberg (if you can convince your family members).

Update: I hiked Fortuna mountain last weekend again and did four hours. That is about my limit at my fitness level but I’ll continue to try and work up to eventually climbing both peaks. My guess is that will be a five hour hike. On the weight loss front I dropped another couple of pounds.

Hang in there everyone. I hope your diet and exercise plan is going well and I’ll update next week.