Daily Food 5/16

Breakfast: So during the week I forget to take lunch pics and during the weekend it's breakfast. Arg. Oh well. I had leftovers from last night - fajitas, but Dave put some egg in it and scrambled it up.

Lunch: I had breakfast, basically. Bacon and eggs scrambled with cheese, caramelized onions, and mushrooms. mmm


Dinner: Dave made awesome turkey burgers, with mayo and pickles on a potato roll with Brussels sprouts, which we LOVE.

The Good: Overall, ok today. Not great, not terrible.

The Bad: this weird bacon craving I am having the past two days. And I haven't been able to lay off the lemon bars - they are getting eaten every time I walk through the kitchen.

Daily Food - 5/15

Brunch: I woke up this morning and I wanted BACON. Bacon and runny eggs. We didn't have any. So I insisted we do our shopping first thing so I could buy some, and by the time I got home, this was brunch instead of breakfast. Good thing because it was enough fat for more than two meals. Made a sandwich of bacon, overeasy eggs, cheese, and toast, with a side of potatoes. This was a true fat girl breakfast.

I also have to point out - look how orange that yolk is. This is what REAL eggs look like. I love my farmer's market eggs - these are like the ones my grandma's hens used to lay. mmm.



Dinner: Fajitas. Dave grilled the chicken and veggies outside, and then we tossed it all together in some sauce with tortillas. So yummy. Fajitas is actually the first food Dave ever cooked for me. I know, Awwwww.


Dessert: Delicious lemon bars - my Nana's recipe. These are dangerous for me. I can easily devour a whole pan of these without thinking twice.

Why it's hard to lay off the processed food

I think I figured it.

When something comes in package, you know EXACTLY what it is going to taste like. Some companies hire chemical ENGINEERS for quality control of your food. So when you open that Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie it is going to taste EXACTLY like you think it will, and like you remember it tasting when your mom used to put them in your lunch box.

That's why I like fast food, too. A Frisco Burger pretty much always tastes the same way. It's all processed and frozen that way so it's never going to taste overly different.

When I have a food craving, I want that exact flavor in my mouth. I don't want something like it - a substitute or reinvention. Dave and I go through this a lot, because he is not a recipe follower, and he likes to improve or change things every time he makes them. I appreciate his cooking skills and his creativity, but for me, I like my favorites - it's called comfort food for a reason. There is a comfort in knowing exactly what something will taste and feel like.

And there is no variety in the stuff that comes in the box. Thus the appeal.

Daily Food - 5/14

Breakfast: Snapped a picture of a muffin before I devoured it. Also had a Bolthouse Farms Mocha Cappuccino. Had to grab some stuff at the grocery store this morning.

Lunch: Yeah, again. I know. It was some bread and brie. It looked as delicious as it sounds. Sorry there is no picture.


Snack: Yeah, as predicted, I broke into the Little Debbie's at work. It started with a Moon Pie - YUCK. That went in the trash after one bite. How did I ever eat that crap when I was a kid? But the Starcrunch was much yummier. And then I also had an Apple Flip later.

Also had a Tropical Smoothie after school. Yummer!

Dinner: This is one of my favorites - Trader Joe's Red Thai Curry Sauce on chicken with rice and broccoli. I can't tell you how many times I ate this meal when I lived alone. I MISS Trader Joe's. There really needs to be one around here. This was my last bottle of this sauce - usually I buy it a half dozen at a time. If there is a TJ around you I highly recommend this (and can you ship me some?)

The Good: Smoothie is a decent snack. Dinner was good too. Actually bought some good already made products that are natural. Bolthouse Farms, Tropical Smoothie, Trader Joes - all good.

The Bad: Need to get rid of the spray butter I put on the broccoli. I am not buying any more of that stuff when it is gone. I really should have resisted the Little Debbies and muffin this morning.

Daily Food - 5/13

This is all I ate today.

Haha, just kidding. This was my cart in the store this evening. I told Dave it made me laugh looking at it because it is not what you would expect a woman who has a blog about clean eating to be buying. In my defense, none of that is for me. I am doing an activity tomorrow with my seniors, so that is what the snack cakes are for, and the noodle bowls are Dave's for his lunches. And also in my defense, I also bought apples for my students so they aren't totally getting junk. But, I wish there was something cheap enough that I could buy for 80 people that was au naturel. I am probably breaking a bunch of rules taking this in as it is (but that's probably because the school has a contract with Tasty-Kake, not because it's unhealthy).

Anyway, here is what I REALLY ate today.


Breakfast: Oatmeal keeps getting better. Too bad this was the last of it. Whatever will I do for breakfast tomorrow? Anyway, today I added some pecans and chopped up apricots with brown sugar. I think that is the magic combo. And a very small glass of juice because that was the last of it.

Lunch: No picture again. I know, I suck. In my defense, the nature of being teacher means 1. I have about 20 minutes to eat and 2. I inevitably have something to bitch about the second I walk into the lunch room, so it is hard to remember. Anyway, lunch was leftovers from last night - porkchop, rice, and zucchini.

Snack: So, I have pretty much discovered that the Oreo Cheesequake Blizzard is by far their best flavor. I've long been a fan of the Reese's Cup or Heath, or the banana cream pie, but this pretty much blows them all out of the water. (This DQ also actually has the red cherry dip cone that hardly anyone has any more. You know, that red shell that can only have more dye in it than anyone should ever eat in a life time.) Damn you DQ for being so close to me after work!




Dinner: We went out! This was kind of exciting because we were talking about how we were starting to eat out too much, but then I realized that this is the first time we have really gone out since I started this blog, so that's pretty good for us! Anyway, we went to The Pizza Grille, which is one of my new favorites since I moved up here. I LOVE their Fruit and Nut Chopped Salad (Why does chopping it make it so good?) It has dried cherries, candied walnuts, goat cheese, and I think a balsamic vinaigrette. Then I got a spicy shrimp pizza - shrimp, onions and cheese with a spicy marinara. Yummer. And I also got to trade a few slices, so I also have a slice of Margherita and a slice of smoked mozzarella with mushrooms.

Snack: This is all therapeutic right here. After being sick with allergies all week and finally feeling better, Mother Nature blessed me with a migraine this evening. Hence the raisinets. I SWEAR by chocolate to take the edge off a headache, especially with the added antioxidants of raisins. And then after I started to feel better from that, my throat started to itch again. ARGG. But some Earl Grey is helping there.

The Good: My breakfast this week were so yummy. I think I will be on the oatmeal kick for awhile. Lunch was fine.

The Bad: Probably didn't need to eat the whole pizza for dinner tonight, and I saw later that they have whole wheat crust. I wish I had seen that before. Oh, and the Blizzard. That after school slump really makes me struggle, especially considering if I have to go anywhere after school, I am always looking for what the snack will be.

Week 1+ Reflections

As an educator, the first thing you learn is that you can't evaluate kids without evaluating yourself first. So I think I am pretty good at reflecting on my own actions. But this week+ has been really eye opening.

When I started this, I had no illusions. I am not an expert. I am not a clean eater by any means. My dress size will tell you I probably can't even call myself a healthy eater. But we have been making steps. Converting almost all the time and dollars we spend at the grocery store to the farmer's market made me believe I was really making some changes. Even moving with Dave eliminated most of my torpid late-night calls to DP Dough or Cal Tort runs. So I was really beginning to wonder why I hadn't lost a pound since I moved out of my apartment aka the place where I could eat anything I wanted and not be accountable to anyone.

In just a week I guess this blog has given me most of my answers. My counselor talks about "telling stories" - the little tales you tell yourself to make yourself believe that you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. The story I was telling myself was that I have been eating great, all natural meals. That I had eliminated the majority of the crap from my diet because somehow shopping at the farmer's market meant I was suddenly a clean eater extraordinaire. I thought my new obsession with homegrown and homemade was, in addition to being healthy, chic and sophisticated, but truthfully the conviction that I have been eating healthy is somewhat jejune.

I don't want to totally beat myself up here. Since the beginning of the year I have almost totally given up soda. They do creep back in occasionally, but it is a big improvement from the 3-4+ a day I was having. I have also almost entirely eliminated "fake" substances, particularly sweeteners, from my beverages, and from most foods. I have significantly cut back on the fast food I eat, particularly what I was eating between meals.

But I started this to go further. I have truly TRULY come to believe that the obesity epidemic in this country can be blamed almost entirely on the dangerous side effects from the chemicals in our food, and the habit of eating food that doesn't nourish the body but rather just takes up space in the stomach. Every time I turn my head, someone new has a thyroid problem. In the past few months, I have had 2 people close to me calling for advice about their thyroid since they know I am also a victim. My doctor told me the increase of these types of problems is staggering, and there are not enough endocrinologists to keep up with the patients. I know that weight loss is about calories in versus calories out, and that we all have a choice of what we put in our mouths, but I also don't think that means it should be legal to sell a lot of the chemicals that are masking as food.

Even with my strong beliefs, I don't think I could sit here and honestly say that I will NEVER eat another hot dog, NEVER sip on another coke, NEVER order Chinese takeout again. But I would like to take steps to drastically reduce my intake. And even though in my head, I feel conscious of what I am eating, this blog proves, with photo evidence, that I have a long way to go.

This week alone, I ate:

• 6 hot dogs!
• 2 PBJ
• 1 Whoopie pie
• fried veg
• 1 meatball sub
• 2 cheeseburgers and a cheeseburger sub (one was a SNACK)
  
• 3 servings of apple crisp with ice cream
• Jarred cheese dip
• 3 bagels with cream cheese
• Oatmeal pie
• Ice cream sundae
• a BIG helping of Chinese food

This is a crazy list for a person who wants to be a clean eater. I don't intend to beat myself up like this every week, but I the "story" I was telling myself is that I was having something like this a few times a week. The truth is, it's 1-2 times a day!

I thought this blog was a good idea for me because I know I should be journaling what I eat (research shows it's the #1 factor in whether someone loses weight on a diet) and the proof is in the pudding, literally. So where do I go from here? I think I want to analyze my week this time and see if I can do better than that list above. I would also like to start one day at a time - literally. One day a week that is 100% natural AND within a respectable calorie count. That's the goal for week 2!

Why I don't (necessarily) buy organic

This is my first soapbox post. Part of starting this blog was to learn about and educate others about clean eating and other food issues.

I will start by saying that I am completely biased on this particular topic. My dad sells pesticides and insecticides for a living. If everyone went organic, he would be out of a job. On the other hand, I think growing up with him in this business, and being educated on the different pests that can plague a crop, I know enough to repudiate the notion of immediately reaching for "organic" fruits and vegetables. Here are my reasons.

1. Organic doesn't mean local. In fact, unless you live in California or Florida, it probably isn't. Most environments cannot sustain produce 365 days a year. In order to give you the variety of produce you want, and to give you the choicest looking produce, organic produce can only be grown in certain areas of the country, at least for part of the year, and is then trucked to you across the country. In addition to not supporting local farms, the trucking process isn't doing anything for the environment. Not to mention that if it is being shipped all over the country, it probably isn't being picked at its peak, but being picked underripe.

2. Organic methods of controlling pests are about as appetizing as eating chemicals. Dead fish, sulfur, oil, copper, clay, tobacco, soap, dead bug carcasses, onion, salt, garlic, and hot peppers are all acceptable treatments for produce labeled organic. While some, like salt, onion, peppers, etc., don't particularly gross me out, they can definitely affect the taste of the produce.

3. Many local farms use IPM systems. IPM means Integrated Pest Management systems. This just means that farmers are actually analyzing their pest problems before dumping on a bunch of chemicals. So this might mean analyzing the number of "bad" insects vs. "good" insects, or watching humidity trends to watch for possible fungal growth. If the lady bugs can't keep up with the aphids, for example, then a farmer might determine that a pesticide is necessary. A true IPM farmer would use the least harmful and least amount of pesticides for their purpose, including pheromones and biopesticides. Most farmers, particularly small farmers, are using IPM to some extent, just because chemicals are too expensive to just dump them on haphazardly, and they can damage the crop. Unfortunately, right now there is no standard for labeling produce IPM-grown, which means there is really no way to know. Some industries, especially those that are difficult to grow 100% organically like potatoes and strawberries, are trying to set standards for an IPM label, so keep an eye out for that. But for now the only thing you can do is know where the food is coming from. Go to your local orchards and farmer's markets, or join a CSA and ask about their pesticide management systems.

I love buying local because it protects my local farm land, my neighbors profit from the sales, and it is the freshest produce I can buy. But I know first hand that there are no ideal growing conditions, especially not in this area. Myriad factors relating to weather, moisture, pest patterns, etc., can affect what is grown here.

We had zucchini for dinner tonight. Would I rather eat a zucchini that is locally grown, picked at its peak, and may need to have a small, moderated amount of chemicals on it, or a zucchini that has been trucked across the country, benefits no one in my area, and tastes bad because it wasn't picked at it's peak and was grown in sulfur and dead fish? I pick choice number one.