Victoria, the problema is that I am having some sort of addictive, triggery response to the rice cakes and I end up eating more of them than I had planned.  I think the writing might be on the wall vis-a-vis rice cakes being yet another grain item that is verboten to me, personally, but I'm not willing to face that just yet.  I mean, here I just discovered something so versatile, that can sub for chips, sandwich outers, even popcorn...and I can't handle 'em?  Where is the justice?  I mean, how much of a flippin' non-secretor am I, anyway?  Even RICE CAKES not only trigger an addictive response but put WEIGHT ON ME?  The dern things are so light that gravity doesn't even hold them down!  Yet I'm gaining weight?

If only I could secrete.

"If you don't secrete, you cannot eat."  - Johnny Cochran -  ( no, not really him, really yours truly just came up with that one)

P.S.  Ever since giving up potato chips, I've been GAINING WEIGHT.  A lesser person would go running back to her chips with open arms.  But, no, dang it, I don't want the lectin, the nightshade factor, the pro-arthritic jazz inherent to both of the previously mentioned thaangs, the dangerous toxins produced by the deep-frying process, etc.  No, can't go back *sniff, sniff*.  What I really need to do is take out a home equity line, re-do my entire kitchen, complete with WORKING STOVE, and cook me up some kind of yummy veggies to STORE in Gladware so that I can bring them EVERY DAY for lunch and have them ready to go at a moment's notice for dinners, etc., anywhere I would otherwise have rice cakes, chips, rye/rice bread, whole rice or ANY GRAIN.  Get a clue here, peppermint *sigh*.  And even if the whole home equity line prospect is daunting, I do have an OVEN.  So there is no excuse why I don't PLAN AHEAD and PREPARE and STORE some sort of delish veggies and GIVE....UP....THE....GRAINS.

But for right now, having jettisoned chips and everything, I just seem to NOT be willing to let go of the rice cakes and back slowly away.

I need intensive in-patient treatment, that's the only thing for it.  I need to be in a high-security, grain-free facility for about six months, with electrified fences, barking German Shepherds, moats teeming with alligators, guard towers, the whole nine yards.

*Down on myself right now, OUT*

P.S.!  OR, if not inpatient lock-down treatment, I need:

A WHOLE FOODS TO MOVE IN TO MY CITY!

(I'm calm, I'm calm...but I'm just SAYING.  I could run in there, grab some rosemary-encrusted lamb medallions with some asparagus spears and be on my merry, GRAIN-FREE way, five minutes, tops.  I'm just SAYING.)

I need to join you in the in-patient facility.  I've been awful lately and I feel rotten as a result.  Not that I'm eating a lot of avoids, just that when I get home at night, stressed, etc.  I dig into the nuts, a few Pamela's (last night was the oatmeal raisin - not alot...they are small and I ate 3) and a few chocolate chips.  I twisted my back or something over the weekend.  I don't think I did it skiing.  I think I did it hauling my bag and groceries and laptop all at once up the 20+ stairs to the condo.  I must have twisted and lifted at the same time.  I'm achy all through my lower half.  My legs and knees ache (that could be from the skiing - snow was pretty springy, i.e. "mashed potatoes").  My lower back on the left side is sore and I feel bloated.  I need to exercise but I hurt!  Even walking is an effort.  I took some bromelain and it didn't work.
Jane

Quoted from Edna

Victoria, the problema is that I am having some sort of addictive, triggery response to the rice cakes and I end up eating more of them than I had planned.

Oh gosh darn!  Those addictions are constantly kickin' us around.  I wish I had a quick and final answer for you, but the truth is, I still struggle with mine.  Mine are a bit different than yours, but there's enough similiarity with all addictions that we can empathize.  I want to believe that you can find a way to have some rice cakes without them turning on you.  Only you know for sure.

Quoted from Edna

If only I could secrete.

I do love this one, and I may borrow it sometime!

Edna,
Obviously you can't afford a full kitchen remodel yet, but have you considered saving up a little and buying a couple of small appliances that would give you more options in your food prep?  The ones I have in mind for you are
An Electric Skillet
An Electric Vegetable Steamer/Rice Cooker

These would allow you to saute or stir fry if you want to, and steam large amounts of vegetables without the great cost of firing up that expensive oven.

Maybe I would also add:
A Large Size Toaster Oven

Getting a toaster oven has saved me So much money on my electric bill.  I haven't used my big oven in two years.

Quoted from Jane

I need to join you in the in-patient facility.  I've been awful lately and I feel rotten as a result.  Not that I'm eating a lot of avoids, just that when I get home at night, stressed, etc.  I dig into the nuts, a few Pamela's (last night was the oatmeal raisin - not alot...they are small and I ate 3) and a few chocolate chips.

I am so good at being bad while technically staying compliant, avoid-wise, but pushing the envelope and then placing it, in its entirety, into the shredder, portion/servings-per-week wise.  I mean, a few rice cakes per week would be fine for a nonnie, if only this particular nonnie were capable of doing that.  But apparently I "can't eat just one", as the old Lay's jingle accurately sneared.  It isn't the rice cake by itself.  That would be styrofoam and thus easily resisted.  But, somehow, when you make my holy trinity of refined carbs, FAT and salt, then "you can't eat just one".  Or two.  Or, it seems, half the package!


For inpatient treatment, do you drive yourself to the facility, or do they come and "BTD Act" you into a padded van?  Do you get one phone call once at the facility?  What about television privileges, as I can't miss LOST, that would be a dealbreaker.

Quoted from Jane

I twisted my back or something over the weekend.  I don't think I did it skiing.  I think I did it hauling my bag and groceries and laptop all at once up the 20+ stairs to the condo.

Man, I didn't tell youzz about what happened a few weeks ago.  I had the worst, like, muscle spasm that was located kinda between my shoulder blades but more to the left.  Anyway, I went to Dr. Rod (chiro from heaven) for my regular monthly 4-point alignment and tune up, and I couldn't figure out what I did to cause it or whatever, but after he said a few things, suddenly a lightbulb went off and I was like, OH:  maybe--just maybe--it was due to the 25 or so 40-lb bags of topsoil I lugged around from Lowe's to my yard a while back.

Gee, do ya think?  Nothing gets by me, man.  Anyway, he fixed me.  I love the man.  I go in there like the Tin Man needing the oil can, and I go out dancing down the Yellow Brick Road!

Jane, get a thin faux ice pack on that back (10 - 20 minutes on, 10 - 20 minutes off).  Continue your Bromelain, too.  If it doesn't improve in a day or so, you know what I'm gonna say:  chiropractor!

I wish I could clone mine and send you the copy.

Last night I finished off the rice cakes I opened a week ago. Just thought I ought to use them before they went stale, not a craving. They were okay-ish. Got down to the last two and could not decide between saving them for another day or tossing them out.

Compromised by just eating them. Putting them back in the pantry would effectively be the same as tossing 'em and would have taken up shelf space in the meantime. Was sorry I ate them, my sore throat came back a bit. Strangely enough it started after the first part of the package. Probably coincidence, although I do seem to react differently to rice cakes than cooked rice.

Will get around to opening the Lundberg's sometime in the next X number of days and see if I react differently (other than the taste! )

You know, I'd recently been wishing there was a place I could gor for a week where "they" control what I eat, and ensure it's all compliant... it would be SO cool to have a BTD Detox centre... Maybe if North Americans ever grow brains and reject the food pyramid etc., and finally embrace BTD, I'll start a detox centre...

But you'd have to drop yourself off there- I'm not paying peoples airfare to come to my lovely detox centre...

What a cool idea, Serena!    Only don't call it a Detox Center, call it a Spa -- it'll sound like more fun, so more people will come.  You'll need eight separate dining rooms, though -- otherwise, the O's and A's will be snitching bread and steak off each other's plates.

Poor Isa -- she'll be all alone in her AB nonnie dining room.  (One might say she'll be Isa-lated.)  

There was this place in Canada that sounded like heaven and they did cook right for your type.  PT, do you remember the name?  I just remember looking at the pictures and it looked like heaven on earth.  
My back is still stiff.  Yesterday it felt a little better and then this morning, it was bad again.  I haven't been to the Chiro in so long that I forgot his name.  I was looking for his card.  There are these 2 young chiros, newlyweds I think, that moved in across the street.  I'm tempted to make an appt. with one of them.  The other guy was so reasonable though.  He didn't take insurance and it was only $35/session.  Weird little guy.  Always wears Hawaiian shirts, even in the middle of a New England winter.  Good though.  I'm achy all over.  I think I'm fighting off something too.  I'll just take my bromelain and Proberry and hang in there.  I don't think it's anything major.  I've done that enough times to know what that feels like.
Jane

Try a nice Epsom Salts soak in your bathtub, Jane.  If it doesn't cure you, at least it will feel good!

I've been wondering how many rice cakes it takes to equal how much rice, and finally looked up the figures for each.

One Lundberg brown rice cake has 70 calories and 16 grams of carbohydrates.

One cup of cooked brown rice has 232 calories and 50 grams of carbohydrates.

So it would take slightly more than 3 rice cakes to equal one cup of cooked rice.

According to Rodale's Basic Natural Foods Cookbook, to make one cup of cooked brown rice, you would start with 1/3 cup of raw brown rice.

So 3 Lundberg brown rice cakes are equivalent to 1/3 cup of raw brown rice.

That's very helpful to know, Carol!  
Wow, if one serving according to Dr. D is 1 c. uncooked rice, that's a lot of rice cakes!

Victoria -- The serving-size question has been batted around on several threads, with no resolution.  I just posted a new thread on the Info Desk forum, asking for Dr. D's comments.

Okay. I finally opened the package of Lundberg's. Yes, I know it's been 5 weeks. I talk about grain a lot more often than I eat it.  

Carol asked for a 'Field Test Report', I'm afraid I'm going to only give a rating.

9 on a scale of 10.

No comments other than that they were as I recalled. My memory is not always this good!    The rating could have been plus or minus a half point depending on weight of various factors. Lundberg's are clearly the best I've tried.

Thanks, Lloyd -- you're now a member in good standing of the Lundberg Fan Club!

Welcome to the Lundberg Fan Club Lloyd.  

I eat some every day, plain or with toppings.  

Two a day, for me!  Lightly toasted, topped with "stuff".  

I'm eating WAY too many of these every day.  Is there a nonnie in-patient facility that I can voluntarily check myself into?

At least I'm off potato chips.  That's something.  Something great.  But meanwhile I've been steadily gaining weight since July.  Not sure if the rice cakes, which I've only rediscovered in the past few months, are accelerating that process, but they sure aren't helping, except they are helping me stay off chips and they are refreshingly versatile, allowing me to enjoy "sandwiches" again, and "popcorn", among other creative ways I'm fixin' 'em.  I don't have the "popcorn" alone, btw, but always with protein.

Anyway, I'm fat.  

I do need to check in to some sort of moat-surrounded facility.  Either that, or a WHOLE FOODS needs to move into my city so that I could have access to very CONVENIENT, already prepared, fabulous veggie side dishes, etc., because apparently, I'm too lazy to consistently cook what I should have, and between not having a stove and having a freezer that doesn't freeze, well, I need Whole Foods, it is that simple.  Or the aforementioned moat-surrounded facility.

Anyway:  the Lundberg are far and away the best rice cakes.  I have settled on the "Mochi" as my variety of choice.  I like the "Wild Rice", too, but they are 10 cents more, so forget that.  10 cents!  Wu HUUUU!  I try not to spend it all in one place.