Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Breakfast

Now I have heard for years that breakfast is the most important meal...because it kick-starts your day and breaks the fast that you did while sleeping. I have had a brother and a daughter who couldn't eat first thing in the morning or else they got sick. A couple solutions for that~#1 I get up a couple hours earlier then I need to, so I always have time to eat a little something and seeing as I don't have to rush and cram food down, I don't get bloated or feel like I ate a bowling ball.

Now I work in 2 different cafeterias throughout the year and 1 item they have is called "American breakfast"~it's scrambled eggs, a choice of 2 sausages or 4 strips of bacon, deep-fried potato cubes and bread (toast, biscuit or english muffin). Course some guests want to order poached or fried eggs, but everyone is stuck with scrambled. Right now at Maswik, the smell of eggs are enough to make you gag. So I wouldn't eat them if you paid me. I stopped eating bacon years ago. The potatoes & toast are both sometimes hard, cold or overdone. So I guess no "American breakfast" for me. But I wonder, how did those items become the standard food for us to eat in the mornings. Yes I realize that years ago alot of people had farms so a few people might of had enough eggs to feed the neighborhood every morning.

As for me...well some co-workers say I have boring food for breakfast because I was getting yogurt, fruit and sometimes a bagel with peanut butter on it. 1 of my managers also got me eating something that is now 1 of my favorite breakfasts...2 packages of instant oatmeal, big teaspoon (I don't really measure it out) of peanut butter, and 3/4 scoop of choclate whey powder.
I also love putting fruit in my blender to make different drinks (if I have the day off and the time to sit around until its gone.) Now that its getting late in the year my favorite fresh fruits are not available.

Not sure how people who travel around and stay in different hotels can handle having the "Continential breakfast" a pot of coffee and a tray of fattening pastries. Sure I can drink all the coffee you got but I'll skip the gooey/fattening, carb-loaded pastry. And do they really expect those pastries to give them energy & hold them over until lunch?
well as usual, I am running late...I need to get ready for the airport. Oh boy, airport food coming up next....LOL

Sunday, November 23, 2008

LARABARS

I found larabars in the general store last year and fell in love with them. They have absolutely no man-made chemicals in them..no preservatives or artificial colorings. But now the general store doesn't sell them anymore so I have order them online. I get the gingersnap flavored ones automatically delivered every month now. I also had 2 boxes (cashew cookie & ginersnaps) delivered to Kevin in NH and he liked them also.
Ingredients: Cashews, Dates
Cashew Cookie — two ingredients, one incredible flavor! The unprocessed, creamy cashews are rich in iron, zinc and B Vitamins. The chewy dates have more potassium than bananas. Together they form a bar rich in fiber with 2 grams of heart-healthy Omega-6 fatty acids and 15 essential vitamins and minerals. So much sustaining nourishment in such a simple recipe.
Are cashews and cocoa truly raw?
Heat steaming is often used to extract cashews from the fruit of the tree, leaving behind a toxic residue that can make the nut unsafe to eat. It's unknown whether or not the nut is actually heated during the process, which is at the center of the raw food debate. Regardless, we feel that cashews are healthful and fit into a raw food diet.
The same goes for cocoa powder, which is ground from a roasted bean. Chocolate Coconut LäraBar uses cocoa powder mainly as a spice. But in our opinion, the health benefits, including high antioxidant content, far outweigh the fact that cocoa has been heated.
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Now I used to eat Luna bars & Clif bars, which are both good but have man-made stuff added to them. So even though Larabars might be higher in sugar (think cashew cookie flavor has the least amount of sugar)...larabars are 100% natural and I like that. There's still a few flavors I ain't tried yet....but I will.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

My eating style

Food has always been a sorta interesting topic.

While I was young, Dad was always saying "you are what you eat~if you eat junk then you become junk" And now he can prove it, as he has a little lazy-susan tray full of medicine bottles that he has to take everyday. Different members of my family have different medical problems...high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, strokes, cancer, kidney failure....which can all be controlled and/or prevented by what they eat. A cousin that was just 1 month older then me died either last yr or the year before...and it sure brought back all my dad's food advice back & made them hit home more then any dumb TV commercial.


While growing up my parents (mostly Dad) loved gardening & had to order every strange new veggie seed packet that he could find just to try it out and be more different then all the other gardens in the neighborhood. For the first 17 yrs of my life, we were only allowed candy for holidays~valentines day, easter,halloween & christmas and just 1 day during Summer vacation (probably 4th of July.) The only soda pop, my parents ever bought was orange sunkist & ginger ale. Other kids at school thought it was "terrible" that my parents didn't buy junk food more often, but then I could remind them that I had no cavities at the time (got my very first cavity when I was 16 1/2~now I have a mouthful)....I didn't get addicted to coke cola until after I got married to a sugar-holic. During that first year of marriage I got to pig-out on every junk food imaginable, some I still eat today.

as a youngster....usually healthy mixed with prolonged bouts of fasting, got interested in vegetarianism in Jr. High School
during marriage....found junk food! candy, processed crap, & pre-mixed stuff...food mixed with every unknown chemical disguised in pretty cans & boxes.
Then when back to vegetarianism for 1 1/2-2 yrs straight just before getting pregnant with 6th kid(was not a good thing for the sugar-holics/junkers...people addicted to junk) in the house.

As for now~Well some co-workers and I will joke about me being the most picky person in the cafeteria. I know what I like and if I don't like it then I won't eat it...but sometimes a cook (Grumpy Grandpa) will make a special and I will taste it just to tell him my opinion of it.

I also live alone in a 1-room dorm...which means no real kitchen. I used to tell people that I was on a "no-cook" diet, which usually meant that only I didn't cook it, but if a restaurant cooked it then it was ok. Well, now my food is mostly raw...good thing I love salads & fruit.