Six Words on Monday

Its difficult to pretend to care.

Day 3

This was a weird day. I did have chicken. And a lot of plants, some nut and seeds, and brown rice. Good times. LOL.

I have to work on building my recipe collection. That would help a lot.

Six Words on Sleeping

Should not have watched Paranormal Activity.

Contradictions

There are a lot of contradicting ideologies on nutrition and food. So many that it actually made my head hurt. Pain. In my head. Because of the low carb / low fat debate. So now I am left confused and annoyed. There are somethings that is seems everyone can agree on:

1. White Flour is bad.
2. Sugar is bad.
3. If you can't pronounce it, it is probably bad.
4. You should eat real food. 
5. Plants are good.

The whole low carb / low fat thing seems wrong and honesty, a lot of the proponent of one or the other sound like religious zealots to me. It is food. It really shouldn't be that controversial. So I am going to assume that they are both right... and they are both wrong. Neither side has incontrovertible proof that it is right. What works for one person isn't going to work for another.

Also, I am hungry and I am not sure that giving up meat all together was the best plan. With that said. I am going to slightly amend my six-week plan. I am just not sure to what.

I do like Micheal Pollens 7 rules for eating (from this webMD article). Although number 7 is my achilles heel, especially with my job.

1. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says.
2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
4.  Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. "There are exceptions -- honey -- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food," Pollan says.
5. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. "Always leave the table a little hungry," Pollan says. "Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, 'Tie off the sack before it's full.'"
6. Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. "Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?" Pollan asks.
7. Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

Dinner

Today was such an adventure. So, here's the thing. I have never been to a Whole Foods and I have only been inside a Trader Joe's once, probably 10 years ago when I bought pancake mix as a gift. They always seemed kind of hippy-dippy over-priced hipster nonsense. Plus it is really far away! It took more than hour in travel time to get there. But I figured, at least for the next 40 days, it might be my best bet to find stuff to eat. Turns out there are whole categories of grocery shopping that I had never experienced. The Bulk Commodities section was new. I ignored the deli, butcher, seafood and juice bar. The produce section was fine, there was some stuff that you really can't find at Stop and Shop, but I am not sure it is stuff that I would ever really need. Like a giant Aloe Vera leaf. I am going to do what with this exactly? Although, peanut butter that is made while you hold the button and is only peanuts, dry roasted with nothing added? I dipped apple slices in it and it was the best part of my day.

So, dinner. I have to admit that I didn't have a plan, this is a surprise to nobody who has ever actually me me. I just started throwing stuff in a pan. Peppers, onion, garlic, mushrooms, vegetable broth (I confess here that this is the only item that is contraband because it has a little salt thrown in, but I was desperate), sprouts, and herbs and other stuff. I added a carton of crushed plain tomatoes and mixed the whole thing with whole wheat pasta. It was fine. I don't like cooked peppers. I try... but the texture ruins them. They are perfectly delicious raw. Morrighan was less than thrilled. But I am not starving and I have ton of fruit to eat later. Yay!

The annoying thing about Whole Foods is that I still have to go to S&S. There were somethings that are the exact same thing, brand and all, that were over priced at WF.

So to all of my healthy foodies out there which is better Trader Joes or Whole Foods?

ETA:
Morrighan has a counter-blog where she has set up shop to criticize the whole new food experience, aptly named Morrighan the Nightmare Queen. 

Timothy is a CHEATER PANTS!!!

Tim got home from his test and ATE AN EGGROLL!!!! CHEATER!

Day 2: 40 days to go!

Day 2 began at 12:30 with a handful of grapes. I stayed up all night reading the conclusion to the Wicked Lovely series and finally got to bed around 5 am. Tim is taking a civil service test, so I am waiting for him to come home so I can have the car to go shopping. I also stayed up all night because yesterday I got home from work with a major headache and took a nap at 4 PM. At 7:30 Morrighan comes in to tell me she is hungry and Daddy is also sleeping and she is afraid to wake him up. I asked her why she didn't just make herself breakfast. Then I asked her why it was so dark. Once we worked out that it was 7:30 PM and not 7:30 AM. I told her "I gave up food, so you probably don't want me to make you dinner." She was all WTF? What do you mean you gave up food? I "explained" (Still half asleep) that I was only eating plants and seeds and stuff. Her response was "I will go make myself waffles." LOL. Today her major concern was that I was going to take away her granola bars. Her GRANOLA BARS! Not ice cream, candy, or cookies... granola bars. She is a weird (but kind of awesome) kid.

Anyway, I did have a lot of plants, some nuts and some brown rice yesterday. I didn't cheat, although I was very tempted. I think today will be better once I get to the store. I sort of did this without being prepared.