ASK Musings

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Monthly Archive: October 2012

Tuesday

30

October 2012

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Real Food Week Seven and OH MY GOD NYC WHAT THE HELL

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So, first, the easy stuff. Last week was our 100% whole grains only week and it was interesting. Really challenging, but something we’re going to try to keep up. I failed on Saturday with a ginger cookie from Whole Foods; Austin had mac and cheese at a restaurant Friday night. It’s frustratingly hard to find anything 100% whole grain if you aren’t enjoying some fresh corn tortillas or popcorn. I did make the whole spelt pumpkin muffins again so I could have a yummy breakfast treat this week, and bought a ginormous package of 100% whole wheat flour to use in all my baking this fall. Sure, there will be sugar, but there will be fiber.

This week we’re to stop eating before we feel full to give our brains some time to catch up. That is definitely a challenge for me and the flip side, only eating when actually hungry. I snack mindlessly ALL THE TIME so this should be a good, challenging week. Especially with Halloween on Wednesday. Can I avoid eating multiple pieces of candy? We shall see …

But my real focus today, most all day, has been on NYC. I miss my friends there. We’re supposed to fly out there on Thursday night, but with each shocking picture of water pouring into some new construction site or subway station, it seems less and less likely. I’m happy I no longer work the 15-hour shifts of an OEM activation (although I’ve never experienced anything like they’re working right now), but I’m still finding it hard to close the twitter window and not flip between the 49ers game and the updates on MSNBC. It seems like a pretty crazy night so I just want to say I’m thinking of you all and I hope that by mid-day Tuesday, when the second high tide has crested and fallen, the damage is worse than we imagine.

Wednesday

17

October 2012

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Week 6 Wrap-Up … and a break

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This food challenge is getting tough. We did keep up with the last week – nothing light or low fat – and we’re going to keep it up. But we’re both a bit pooped, and we are taking this week off. The next challenge is 100% whole grain, and with us travelling through Monday, Austin sick and wanting to eat Ramen and such, I just don’t want to half-ass it. I’d like us to actually make that shift for real (not just a week), and right now we are just not ready. So tonight we had whole grain pasta … and some yummy sourdough made with white flour.

Baby steps.

Hopefully we’ll be back next week and continuing on, because  for the most part, we’ve actually managed to keep up with the other changes. I’ve gotten to a point where I get really annoyed with myself when I don’t have my two fruits/veggies at each meal, and I’m much more conscious of my meat choices (and we were pretty tuned to that even before this challenge). I’m slipping up a bit with the beverages: there were A LOT of hot chocolates last week. But still no soda (diet or otherwise), and that was a habit I thought would be much harder to break.

Back next week with a plan for the challenge, I hope.

Monday

8

October 2012

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Real Food Week 5 Wrap Up and Week 6 Challenge

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Last week we were challenged with trying two new whole foods. Austin and I discovered that while there were foods I had not tried, and foods he had not tried, there wasn’t a lot of overlap. However, we were successful with kiwi berries, which are sold in half-pint containers in the same manner as raspberries, and navy beans. It’s possible I’ve had a dish with navy beans in them, but I don’t recall. Austin prepared this amazing vegetarian chili (oh Cooks Illustrated, you never let us down) using the beans, and we’ve got leftovers for days.

This week’s challenge might strike some of you as counter-intuitive, if the goal of this is to get healthier. This week? No lowfat, light, or non-fat food products. Say what?

The author’s goal is to point out that a lot of what is marketed as healthier because it is low fat or non fat often increase fillers, sugars and other non-whole-food ingredients. The point isn’t that every food we eat needs to be full of fat, it’s that if there is a regular version and a reduced fat or light version, we go with the regular version. 

Now, I don’t straight up drink milk much at all anymore, and I think that would probably be the toughest change for me. I’ve been drinking non-fat milk since I can remember, and whole milk just sounds so … fatty. But it’s not just about products that try to reduce calories – the thinking is that many of these reduced-fat products also strip out the nutrients. Of course, this will require actual portion control, something that the low-fat food trend seems to have damaged a bit. Why, I can eat 20 of these fat-free thingies instead of 10 of the regular fat thingies. Hoorah! Instead, this week I’m going to try to actually enjoy the 10 thingies and hopefully reap the benefits of the additional nutrition and fewer weird filler ingredients.

Monday

1

October 2012

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Week 4 Real Food Wrap Up and Week 5 Task

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A busy week full of MOSTLY successful real food choices. Week 4’s task was to avoid fast food and deep fried food. We both really had no problem avoiding fast food, but the fried food was a challenge, and one that we both accepted we would not fully meet this week. While we managed to stay away from the chips when going out for Mexican food, the mini tostada amuse bouche we were greeted with Saturday during the day was consumed (and yummy). We also partook of the plantain chips at Marjorie, a fantastic restaurant in south Capitol Hill. It’s their specialty, and frankly the kind of thing I’m not about to pass up (moderation and all). But it was a really good challenge in trying to either find substitutions for fried options at restaurants or just avoiding them.

In addition to each new challenge have also continued with the increase in fresh fruits and vegetables, limited beverages, and not making meat the big center of the meal. Local meat is hard but organic and naturally raised is the goal for us. I’m especially not entirely sorry about not always choosing ‘local’, after some interesting discussion of it in Singer’s Ethics of What We Eat.

So, this week is sort of a break. The goal is to try two new whole foods. We’ve already got one in the fridge: kiwi berries. A new fruit? SCORE! But as for the other – I’m thinking eggplant for me. I’ve complained about not liking it but I can’t actually remember ever eating it. We’ll probably need to find another one so Austin has a new choice too.