July 29 food and psychology

Yesterday I ate like a pig but it was mostly healthy.  I've been eating too much for several days now but I seem to just poop it away.  I think it's better to eat less and poop less though.  The psychology of my eating too much is that I'm in all these social settings and I don't want to feel deprived so I am well-prepared with my own food, and it's turning out that I'm being provided with lots of healthy vegan food in addition.  So I'm eating it all and getting very stuffed.  Part of my not wanting to feel deprived is I worry I'll be bad and eat unhealthy (vegan) stuff.  I think this is a good plan.  I guess I just have to not eat all the stuff I'm bringing myself.   That's what I'm doing today, so far I haven't eaten my own stuff yet.

Now, a positive thing that has happened is that it's become well-known that I'm a vegan.  And most people are very accommodating of this.  The person preparing snacks for the meeting is a friend of mine and is supplying us with lots of fruit:  strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, cantaloupe.   The bagels and cream cheese and donuts don't look appealing to me (I lost my taste for donuts even before I became vegan because they were too rich and made me feel yucky).  For the dinner party, which was catered, they told the caterer there's a vegan in the bunch, so she didn't put butter on anything, allowing me to eat the corn and green beans and bean salad, and she made a vegan potato salad for me.  It had oil in it but no fake mayonnaise, and it was really good--I think it was a lot better than the non-vegan one, though I didn't taste that one.  It had peas and some sort of onion like things  and some other sort of peas, and of course potatoes.  There was a very good bean salad too.  It was an excellent meal and I ate tons.  The sweet corn was great.  And I finished it with watermelon.  I was so full though.  But I ate a pre-meal before going there, a salad.  It wasn't a big pre-meal.  See the hosts know me and have seen me go hungry before, once at an expensive restaurant where the waiter was not at all helpful and just offered me their greek salad without half the ingredients, charging me the full price of course.  I get insulted when expensive restaurants can't offer you something not on the menu like steamed vegetables even.  Anyway, there was salt on various things I ate last night but overall it was a delicious meal and it was worth the indulgences in salt and oil.  I'm willing to eat that stuff in small quantities on special occasions.   It was interesting when I was helping clear up the dishes, I was rinsing the plates to put in the dish washer and there was so much butter and grease on them, wow.  My hands smelled like butter for a few hours after that, and I washed them twice.  It reminds me that I do eat differently than most Americans.  But now, that stuff looks yucky to me, all that grease.

One of my lessons learned is that it's good to stick to your guns and if you are vegan, don't be willing to eat non-vegan food.  Because if you give in once you will always be expected to give in.  If you don't give in, and stick to your guns, your friends and hosts adjust over time.  Most of them seem happy to accommodate, and even if they are faking it, I'm just going to take it at face value.  If they are true friends, they are happy to accommodate.  I do things for my friends, so what's wrong with getting some nice treatment in return?

Okay, here's what I (over)ate yesterday. 

Breakfast:  delicious peach, delicious nectarine.  wow!  

snack:  watermelon

lunch:  green smoothie and breakfast smoothie! (yikes)  a beer (oops)

snack:  watermelon, lots

pre-dinner dinner:  medium salad and blueberry dressing

dinner:   a beer (oops), green beans, potato salad (two helpings), 3 ears of corn (yum!), bean salad (2 helpings), watermelon

uFAQs

Here's a list of questions you probably wouldn't think to ask (un-frequently asked questions).  I never knew most of these things until recently.

What's wrong with cereal for breakfast?  According to Dr. Fuhrman (Eat to Live, p. 37), "Many whole-grain cereals are so processed that they...have lost most of their nutritional value."  Here's another surprise:  "..ingesting processed foods can subtract nutrients and actually create nutritional deficiencies, as the body utilizes nutrients to digest and assimilate food."  He recommends whole-grain hot cereals which are less processed.   Some recommended ones are Roman Meal, Steel cut oats, Wheatena, Ralson High Fiber, and Quaker Multigrain.  Or you can just have berries or fruit salad or a smoothie.  That's more appealing to me.  

Should I use a therapeutic light?   Yes.  I never knew this is not just for depressed people.  Plus how many of us really are a bit depressed and just don't want to admit it?   It has many other benefits too, such as improving your sleep patterns and hormone levels.  It's discussed on this site where Dr. Fuhrman is selling one.  I'm not saying you should buy from him, though I did out of convenience since I trust his recommendation.  But I'm just linking to it so you can see some of his reasons for why it's good for you.  It's also discussed in his March 2006 newsletter, but you have to be a member to see it.  

July 28 food

Today was the start of a long week of all-day meetings.   I didn't want to miss exercise so I went to the 6:30 am class today!  wow, I had to pack all my food, clothes and computer on my bike.  It was like going on an expedition.  I only forgot one thing which was my towel.  Oh well, tomorrow I should be set.  I got everything ready last night, which is good because I overslept, but managed to make it to my class on time.  so here is the food I ate.

Snack:  apple, then strawberries, blueberries at the meeting

late breakfast: smoothie

Lunch:  green smoothie, carrot, beer (we went to the terrace and there was great sentiment for beer).

snack at meeting:  grapes, strawberries, blueberries

snack before dinner (I was hungry!):  the best nectarine I've ever had.  two days of ripening made it perfect.  

Dinner:  Curried mustard greens.  also fabulous. 

I snack too much.   Well, at least I didn't eat oat shit bars all day. 

Now I have to go fix tomorrow's food and go to bed!  What a day.  Today I left home at 6 am and returned at 7:30 pm.  Tomorrow will be worse as I have a dinner party.

Blueberry dressing

Ingredients:

1/4 cup cashews

1 bag frozen blueberries

2 dates, pitted

1/4 cup water? 

1 Tbsp mild vinegar (optional, e.g., Dr. Fuhrmans wild blueberry)

Blend the dates, cashews and water for a few minutes.  add the blueberries.  add more water if you need it.  keep it a bit thick since it's dressing.   this is good and hard not to just drink. 

July 27 food

Today I was, well, not too bad, but not perfect. 

Breakfast:  apple on my way out the door (wasn't hungry yet).

Lunch:  half a small watermelon.   This was an ingenious plan.   I went to the grocery store after church and by this time I was very hungry and just bought the watermelon and ate it, and then went grocery shopping.  This way I didn't have to carry a watermelon home on my bike!  then when I got home I made a little fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries, ground flax seeds and juice from an orange.

snack:   cherries

Dinner:  As I said yesterday, I had a friend bring over some beer (wheat peach, not too bad) and I was wondering what we could snack on that would be healthy.  well, the obvious snack came to mind:  edamame and pesto.  It was perfect with beer.  And I just had one beer.

Dessert:  well, this wasn't intended but I ate some more of those chocolate chip oat cookies--4 of them (they are small but still).  They were better a day later.  But the chocolate chips don't count as healthy, and since I can't control myself, I'm not going to make them anymore.   I'll buy the sort-of healthy granola bars for UR and hopefully they will taste okay to her.  They really aren't that healthy, but it's better than cookies and chips.

Before the beer, I made a couple of batches of pesto since the basil plants in the needed harvesting.  I had a little basil leftover and no more almonds so made a really small batch with cashews instead.  It was really good.  My friend suggested trying the pesto without nutritional yeast so I'll do that next time, it will be fun.

I also made a whole bunch of smoothies and blueberry salad dressing (which I froze for later) because this week I'm in meetings all day and need to supply myself with lunch and breakfast, and maybe even dinner a few times.   More on that tomorrow.  Oh, but I did taste test all the smoothies and dressings.  

mojito iced tea

I had my first mojito when I was visiting my cousin in Tucson.  It was good!  It had rum, club soda, lime juice, (ginger?) and mint leaves, and sweetener.  I think that was all the ingredients.  So I decided to make a non-alcoholic version for a summer drink, I mean, for during the day when you are quenching your thirst, not drinking alcohol.  Then I got to thinking that club soda isn't so good for the environment.  I mean, it's okay in a mojito since that's rare, but maybe not so good for quenching your thirst on a regular basis.  So I made it with water.  I looked up some mojito recipes on the web and came up with this:

Ingredients:

minced ginger (1-2 Tbsp)

few sprigs of mint leaves

juice of 1 lime (or half lemon but lime is better)

few Tbsps maple syrup (okay, probably not the healthiest thing in the world...)

Instructions:

boil a few cups of water.  Put the minced ginger in a, ummm, one of those metal containers with holes in it for loose tea, and put it in a teapot. Add the boiling water.  Let it sit for a while.  Then take it out when you think it flavored the water enough.  Add the maple syrup, lime, several ice cubes and the mint leaves.  Let it sit a little longer so the mint leaves flavor the water.  Add water or ice cubes to taste.  refrigerate, and drink it for a few days.  I think it tastes great.   

Chocolate berry smoothie

Ingredients:

1 bag of frozen berries (cherries are good, so are raspberries or blueberries or strawberries)

1 banana (fresh or frozen)

2 dates

1 Tbsp cocoa powder

0-2 oz spinach (optional)

1/4 raw cashews (optional)

1 cup water

Blend the dates and cashews and some of the water in a high-powered blender until smooth.  Then add the other ingredients and blend some more.  Makes three 8 oz servings

This is my replacement for this chocolate shake for housemate to take into work.   She doesn't like spinach so I don't secretly put it in, but I recommend it for the rest of you.  It hardly changes the flavor and adds a lot of good nutrients.