meetups and thoughts

My two nutritarian friends came into town on Friday and we had quite the feast:

I made sweet potatoes topped with black beans and greens etc and a dollop of soy yogurt (a recipe from the Fuhrman site).  We made salad from Holly's lettuce and pear, my red pepper and a yummy salad dressing from the Fuhrman site.  Holly made delicious stuffed mushrooms.   Suz brought curried squash on brown rice.   I got full eating all this great food.   After our feast, we went on a walk at Olbrich community gardens, and then went, where else, to the co-op.  That was interesting as we shared many food tips about all our favorite foods, as well as the ones we have to avoid (the cowgirl cookies are sometimes a challenge for me).  I got a lot of new ideas from our discussions as we strolled through the store.

Some quotable quotes were "I'm an unethical vegan" and "I'm a vegan on weekdays."

Today I heard a great quote:  "The best way to bring someone over to your cause is to have more fun than them."   For me, the biggest difficulty about eating healthy is sometimes thinking that I'm missing out on what everyone else is eating.  It's all in how you look at it.  I just need to think of it as I'm the lucky one, having the most fun eating the best food.   Along those lines, last weekend I was out on a walk at a conservancy and a group was roasting marshmallows over a fire and making s'mores.  Well, you know how those nostalgic feelings can make you wish you were joining them.   Today I was meditating in front of my fireplace (wow, is that ever easy to meditate in front of a fire!) and I was thinking about our ancestors roasting winter squash in their fire.  Then I realized, our difficulties in eating healthy usually arise from nostalgia for eating the things we used to eat and drink with our family and friends.   Maybe we just need to go back further in time.  The last 50 years are a blip on the history of our people.  Go back further, and we are talking sweets only on very special occasions.   So just let your nostalgia go a little further back in time and you can imagine roasting squash instead of marshmallows, and relishing a good fruit instead of ice cream.

Last few days

It's been a busy few days so no time to post. Yesterday was my first nutritarian meetup. It was fun. However, I stupidly ate too much while preparing so I wasn't hungry during the meeting. I didn't even eat the ice cream, which I was looking forward too all week. oops! I made West African lentil okra stew (a Fuhrman recipe). It wasn't as good as I was expecting but maybe that's because I used boiled peanuts (ground in the blender) instead of peanut butter (which is roasted). So I'm curious to try it again. We get really good fresh-ground peanut butter at my co-op. Other people brought great salads and fruit. Dessert was banana walnut ice cream (with some date-cashew cream and vanilla for a little extra treat). Then we made another batch that had frozen bananas & cherries, cocoa and (raw) cacao powder, coconut, vanilla and date-cashew cream. Date-cashew cream is just cashews, dates, and water blended in the blender (which is one of the things I taste tested a bit too much of before the meeting). The ice cream was a big hit.

I also made a big batch of sweet potato/peanut dip but didn't like it so much. I put in too many peanuts. I didn't think you could ruin it by putting in too many peanuts, but you can. The boiled peanuts mixed with water are a bit on the bland side, so it's better as a minor component of the recipe. So I didn't bother to put out the dip and didn't bother to cut up the raw veggies I was going to include with the dip.

Anyway, the meetup was good. There were lots of questions about Dr. Fuhrman's program, and lots of sharing of experiences and advice.