Dietary Thoughts

Alton Brown's Good Eats episode about his change in diet over a 9 month period to lose 50 lbs was repeated today, and it re-inspired me. Its never going to work for me to just cut out chocolate in the evening, especially if I get cravings pushed on by hunger -- I just have to crowd it out with nutrient-dense calories during the day to get a handle.

He said he had a smoothie EVERYDAY for breakfast, but that seems a bit extreme (and boring) to me -- twice a week is as much as I can handle. However, I can up my smoothie game. I think I may add more different fruits (frozen blackberries and pineapple come to mind) and replace organic dead milk with acai juice...

Another addition is more nuts, especially almonds. Gonna roast some, add some flavors. Also, to a batch of slivered-almond and cashew granola, gonna make some granola bars, with almond butter as one of the binders.

Maybe I should start re-color coding my entries, too?

Thought about finishing the brisket for dinner, making beef four days in a row, but instead I cubed it and put it in the freezer for future knish use.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Health Salad: The standard, to have around to increase my veg intake. 1 head o' cabbage, shredded. 1 carrot, thin sliced rounds. Tossed with 3/4 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp salt, 1/2 tsp white ground pepper.


Grenadine Syrup: 2 cups pomegranate juice, 2 cups tart cherry juice, 4 cups cane sugar, and for the first time, 1 tablespoon "sour salt" aka citric acid. Brought to a simmer, left to cool then put in the fridge. The acid is to give it a certain cleansing bite, part of what makes a commercial soda refreshing after a big meal, despite it being so laden with crap. Hopefully a digestive shot of soda will reduce cravings for sugar later in the evening.

According to Brown's schedule, soda is a never. I don't think he meant HOMEMADE soda -- he'd probably restrict it, though...

Granola: 4 cups rolled oats, 1 cup raw cashews, 1 cup pepitas, 1 cup unsweetened coconut, 1/2 cup slivered almonds, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup dark maple syrup, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp cardamom. Mixed, roasted at 300 for 45 minutes, tossing every 10 minutes for even browning. Added 1/2 cup minced dried cherries after the fact.


Granola Bars: In a pan, heated 4 tbsp butter with about 8 oz of almond butter and 2oz maple syrup. Mixed in a palmful of spirulina and palmful of ground flax, a heavy dash of vanilla extract, and 3 beaten eggs. Held aside 2 cups of granola (for the HVS), the rest got mixed in with the green slime and pressed into a square pan. Baked for 25 minutes at 300.


AM SNACK: 8:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10:45am, hardcore oatmeal, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Left over from yesterday. Zapped in the micro, very tasty. Next time gonna double the batch now that I have the hang of it.


LUNCH: 1pm, breaded shrimp, health salad, handful of dark chocolate covered espresso beans, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, spinach empanada, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Well, this was healthy. Last time had a rather greezy chorizo empanada. This one was full of spinach, onion and tofu, and the crust was very whole wheaty and dry.

DINNER: 6:15pm, momma salad, wholewheat penne with gravy, spinach and broc, 8oz glass of grenadine soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Didn't want the brisket gravy made from the braising liquid to go to waste, so I threw it over some pasta and tossed in some quickly sauteed spinach, as well as 2.5 bites of leftover broccoli that Betsy didn't deem worthy of finishing. It was good, but strangely unsatisfying.

I only added one tablespoon of sour salt to essentially a half gallon of syrup, but wow, what a difference it made, and maybe the next batch I'll halve the sour salt. The taste popped, it felt a little scouring in my mouth (in a good way), and while 2 table spoons of syrup for 8oz of seltzer made for light colored mildly sweet soda, the acid was very notable. Made it bubble up kinda foamy like a commercial soda, too.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, mini bagelwrapped hotdogs, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
After all that, still ended the day on an unhealthy note. The stress/relief of stress after getting the toddler and the baby to sleep with out a second pair of hands wasn't overwhelming, but big enough to cause me to indulge a craving.