Lunch

I have been quite lazy about making smoothies this week. Part of the issue is I can't seem to get a banana to ripen fast enough or to stay in that middle ground before it gets spotty and brown. The bananas I bought this week went from green to BROWN in the matter of 2 days. I still eat them, but they are not smoothie material. I like some body to the banana and not more mush than substance. Does anyone else know what I mean?

Tuesday I woke up to no electricity and rather than stumble around the house with a candle I laid in bed for a while. I needed it. My allergies have been kicking my butt since Saturday and they are exhausting little buggers.  I eventually called the power company and found that low and behold they were aware of the outage and gave an ETA of 5:30am. I am supposed to be at work at 5am. Oh well I work in an office where these things are allowed. You are allowed to occasionally sleep late, miss your alarm, or have other mishaps and it is not a big deal. You usually make it up within the week staying late anyway. If I ever wonder why I stay...that is why. Because I can be human. Being able to be human in a work place is HUGE to me.

Anywho I did end up showering by candle light. That was an experience. Shaving your legs by candle light is even more of an adventure and I will be happy to say I did not miss many hairs! The power came back on and I was able to get ready, use a hair dryer, and get my lunch together. I took my time getting it together this morning. I was already going to be late, it is not going to make a difference if I am there at 6:30 vs 6:40 so why rush?

So what did I spend an extra ten minutes on? FOOD! Glorious food. I sliced up cucumbers, red pepper, carrots, packed a few Romaine lettuce leaves, an avocado, put some hummus in a jar, a little feta in a baggie and a multi grain piece of flat bread. I also put some watermelon and strawberries in a container and poured myself some mint green tea . I was excited about wrapping it all up and eating it. And while there is some animal product in there, it is minimal.  However I left the flat bread on the counter and didn't realize it until I was sitting down to lunch.

I am glad I forgot it! I just wrapped it up in the lettuce and grazed the vegetables that did not fit in the lettuce leaves. It was the best damn lunch I have had in at least a week. I wish I had taken a picture. There was a lot of  food and funny enough I was not able to eat all of it. I do love this lifestyle change. I love being aware that my body is more fit to consume veggies and fruits than meat.

I also had some Raw Chocolate Bark it was delicious! The stevia was left out due to the aftertaste and Mango was added. It was so tasty!

Juicer

Juicers are expensive. They are not as expensive as a Blendtec or Vitamix blender, but they do take a chunk of change. I was lucky enough to once again find a family member who had one, was not using it, and was happy to get rid of the thing. They take up a lot of space! More than I was aware of and in my tiny kitchen it will be boxed up and put away until I need it. Which will not be tonight. Tonight I will make a lovely Banana, Strawberry, Mango, Kiwi smoothie and be pleased with that. However I have spinach and apples waiting for later this week.

My allergies have kicked in and I have to say this year is so much worse then the last two combined. I haven't had to take allergy meds in several years and in the past was able to control how my allergies hit me with local honey. It does not appear to be working this year so I buckled and picked up some Claritin D. I am not happy about taking it, but if it keeps me from feeling like I was hit by a truck it is worth it.

The Garden

The garden photos have been updated. *points up the Garden tab* We went out today to do a little weeding, to relocate the chard, plant some lettuce seeds, and find a spot for the leeks. I am happy to say that it looked lovely and we have some bumble bees floating around back there already. Thank god. I was thinking of planting some Nasturtium with the cucumbers to see if the flowers would draw them in, but the Blackberry bush and Orange trees are drawing them in just fine.The apple tree has mini apples growing and I am so excited to get them come June.

But one issue we do have is the Fig tree.  It is HUGE, it takes up at least a 20 foot radius, and each year figs come out, we watch them grow and then the birds get them. We have never gotten a single fig that is ripe and ready to be eaten. Sure we have pulled off figs that looked half way to a ripe fig, but they are not nearly the size they should be. And we have been told if you pick them too soon they are poisonous when you eat them. Is that a myth? Can someone help with this?

The tree itself is a Brown Turkey. That is all I know. I'd say its about 7-10 years old.

Fruit less!

Earlier this week the weather here was horrible; cold, wet, and even some substance fell from the sky that was half way between snow and hail. It was in pellet form like hail, but slushy. I just cannot drink a smoothie when it is 40 some odd degrees outside. Even a smoothie when we are in the 60's is trying. So while I tried to drink smoothies this week, it did not work out so well. On the up side by the end of the week I have been having serious cravings for fruit and NOT junk food.

I also ran out of Mangoes! I know it does not sound that important, but Mangoes are quickly becoming as important to me as bananas are. I am truly in love with the Mango. I also have not had much luck with fresh mangoes and the frozen variety appears to be the perfect choice. Problem is the only place I can find frozen Mango is Trader Joe's. And of course they are not within a 5 mile radius of my home so it is more of an ordeal to go out there and pick some up.Who wants to go to three grocery stores?!

Needless to say I did not make it out to TJ's and settled on some fresh Mangoes. MEH. one of the three was good, the others, while I thought they looked great on the outside were a nightmare on the inside. I didn't even taste them as they looked diseased. I then bought a "tropical smoothie mix" of frozen Strawberries, Mangoes, and Pineapple. Eek! It was mostly pineapple and made my smoothies way too tart. There was an awful lot of lip smacking going on.That's one product I will not buy again.

I have decided I need to bite the bullet and buy a juicer. I have held back from green smoothies as I have a cheap blender and no juicer. Blending spinach or any other green, in my cheap $20 blender, sounds repulsive. I am a texture eater and I can't get past certain things: raspberry seeds, blackberry seeds, stringy stuff, chalky,gritty, or powdery substances are all wretch worthy. I recently learned from a friend ( my one and only friend who is a raw foodist) that she juices her spinach. She brought me some and I have to say it was really good and perfectly smooth.

So I hope to find a juicer that can do greens and is not as expensive as a Blendtec or Vita-Mix blender.

I did go to TJ's today and am happy to say that I have about 2 weeks worth of Mangoes now...

Bananas!

This week my cache of bananas did not want to ripen for love nor money. They stayed green until the end of the week and went all brown and speckled in 24 hrs. I sure can't eat 6 bananas in 2 days. I like my bananas as close to ripe as I can get them, more yellow then green without brown speckles. The banana itself needs to be firm with a little bit of give. Bananas are the cream base for my smoothies and without them I find my smoothies to be lacking. They need to be just ripe, but sadly those suckers stayed green for way too long.

With this experience I have had to find out how to pick the perfect bunch of bananas and I found that this quest also came with some good information.

First off, Bananas contain many nutrients such as Vitamins A,B1, B2, B3,B5, B6,B9, B12, C, E,K, Choline, Calcium, Manganese, Potassium, Phosphorous, and Zinc. They are Cholesterol free,have both Omega 3 and Omega 6. 1 medium banana is about 105 calories and 27g of carbohydrates. They also contain roughly 88 grams of water.They are a complex carbohydrate until they ripen and get speckled and brown, at this point the starch is more sugar.  Trying to find out whether a banana was a complex carb or a simple carb was a little bit of a task, but boils down to what stage of ripeness the banana is in!

Green or Tinged green = complex carb because it has more starch then sugars.
Brown and Speckled = more simple carb because the starch has been/is being converted to sugars.

Banana distributors have control over their bananas! Apparently they have large air tight ripening vaults that allow them to have the beautiful bright yellow skin that signals to us lay people they are ripe or near ripe. They can also slow down the ripening of their bananas so the green bananas can sit in the store a little longer.


I did learn that you should buy bananas from several bunches, some ripe or near ripe so you can have them in the next couple of days and a few others in varying stages of not so ripe so they can last through out the week.

References:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/482491-fructose-and-glucose-in-bananas/
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2
http://brokensecrets.com/2010/02/03/how-to-accelerate-and-slow-banana-ripening/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/419955-the-carbohydrates-in-bananas-and-oranges/

Lessons in Gardening

When I was a kid my parents had a garden and a huge peach tree. I do not remember the vegetables, but I do remember the massive amount of peaches that we had year after year. I never grew tired of peaches. never. Since I moved out of my parents home I have struggled to have homegrown vegetables, but since I was an apartment dweller, a student, and now a townhouse owner I do not have space of my own to plant a garden.

We have tried container gardening....with horrible results. Usually the plants were fried by the time growing season really started or they produced 4 tomatoes. We tried new or different soil, bigger pots, bringing the plants in every evening when the sunshine was too strong, watering after the sun went down, watering in the early early morning; planting under a full moon in the buff was the only thing we did not try. It did not take long to abandon the project and keep buying my fruits and veggies from the store or farmers market.

I was lucky enough to have a family member who had a garden plot they had dug, filled with organic soil, and grew in for a few seasons, then covered it in tarps and let it go. I suspect it became too much. The plot itself is of a good size, it fits approximately 22 plants and 2 trellis for vertical growing. There are also sun shades and a sprinkler system AND irrigation that in the summer months runs twice a month. Last fall, we took it over. This is now our second growing season since we have started using it. Last fall we didn't get anything. The weather was not normal, way too wet and cold from October-December. So this summer I am optimistic that it will be different.  We have 18 tomato plants (gotta have your priorites!), 3 Zucchini, a bunch of green beans, 2 cucmber plants. 1 dill, 4 peppers, and 1 swiss chard.

The Garden Tab *points up* shows our work in pictures. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Bandwagon?

Several years ago my mother used to juice her breakfasts, but somewhere along the way she stopped and got rid of her juicer. It was a sad day when I found this out, let me tell you. Juicers are expensive and it would have been nice to get one for free or close to free. She now wants to try out these smoothies I have been raving about. Good for her! I hope she finds the benefits as nice as I do.

My husband is a very easy going sort. He will eat most things I set in front of him and doesn't mind a simple sandwich for dinner. He usually doesn't turn his nose up to much either! When I started this experiment I asked if he wanted to try as well. He needs to eat on a much more regular basis then I do or he gets raging migraines so he said he'd try a smoothie or two, but he'd stick with regular food for the work week. Well lo and behold he is interested in trying smoothies for breakfast during the work week. He was especially interested in the green smoothies that I am incorporating into this experiment of mine this week.

I even have a coworker that is curious and a couple of friends on Facebook who want me to keep them up to date on how it goes!

A handful of people do not qualify as a bandwagon in this wide world of ours, but it is surprising to me that they'd be this interested in trying it for themselves. It's great support to me too! The kind of support every one needs when they make changes in their lives.

This weeks Menu:

Bananas

*Strawberries

*Mango

*Pineapple

Spinach

Meyer Lemon

Apple

Orange

Avacado

*Peaches

Shredded Dehydrated Unsweetened coconut

Kiwi

Greek Yogurt

Vanilla Almond Milk

Water

* denotes frozen

Curiosity

In February my office got a new intern, an older woman of about 50, who had changed her lifestyle to Raw foods. She would bring in these quart sized mason jars filled with delicious looking concoctions and when I got to smell them they really did smell divine. Mint and bananas and mangos, and lemons. One even had Arugula in it! I was so curious she brought me a couple of recipe books. I looked through them and rather than wasting time debating it I thought that I’d give it a shot. What was the worst thing that could happen? It’s a smoothie not heroin.

I decided to start with fruits, yogurt; in short, things that I understood. Nothing wild and bitter like dandelion greens or Arugala. I had worked at a juice and smoothie shop once I knew the basics. Now I just needed a shopping list, a blender/food processor, and to figure out how I would work it with my schedule.

The last few days of February came and I was exhausted. I was physically at work, but mentally I was dying to go home and crawl in bed.. I have a hard job in the best of times, but some weeks are harder than others last week was not one of those weeks. By the end of the week I was done with feeling like garbage. I made a list of the fruits I enjoyed, spent $60 extra on that fruit, bought some coconut milk , greek yogurt, a food processor, and Chia seeds. I came home and read some recipes and decided to wing it. Peanut butter and banana would be my all time favorite flavor combination, so I went for it. I wanted to experiment with the chia seeds and found that Holy CRAP they….became gelatinous.  I knew this would happen but was intrigued with them. I was so freaking full after this smoothie I skipped dinner and my husband ended up with hot dogs.

It’s now been nearly six days of smoothies and it has been a great six days!

The shifts have and have not been dramatic.

This weeks menu consisted of

Bananas

frozen Strawberries

frozen Peaches

frozen Blackberries

frozen Blueberries

So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Milk

shredded dehydrated unsweetened coconut

Chia Seeds

Chobani Yogurt

peanut butter (1x)

Cinnamon

The changes I saw and felt were pretty cool.

1)      When my cycle is upon me I am usually lethargic, cranky, have a low tolerance for stress, am famished and snacking all day, craving everything I should not be eating, and am generally a moody pain in the rear. Not this time,I was cheerful, wide awake, looked at food on different terms and have been very patient.

2)      It takes all of 5 minutes to put together a smoothie, 20 if you have chia as they need to soak for 15 minutes to sprout the gel around them.

3)      I make my smoothies at night, put them in 32oz Mason jars, and in the fridge so in the morning I can grab and go. This works best for me as I cannot work even the simplest gadgets at 4am.

4)      My energy level is constant throughout the day. There is no dip in energy come 2pm! I have energy when I get home at night and that is saying something! Even when my cycle is not part of the equation I am exhausted come Wednesday.

5)      I get up when the alarm goes off at 3, rather than hit snooze for the next 20 minutes.

6)      My concentration and thought processes have improved. All week I did not battle with the situational ADD/ADHD that my work environment induces on a moment by moment basis.

7)      I found that my choices about the food I did eat were different; I have to say I do not want to look at this as a DIET. I hate that word and am against them, but I was looking at food with more scrutiny.The biggest shift, thus far, has been is it good for me or is it junk food? And can my stomach tolerate that? That sounds dreary, but I haven’t had true junk food in a week and the thought of it kind of turned my stomach.

8)      I cannot eat what I used to. I have no need for it. I grabbed a granola bar to take into a meeting and was STUFFED after half of it. Uncomfortably stuffed because I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that I don’t need that much food any more. Or solid food anyway.

9)      I still have to have my oatmeal and flax seed in the morning.

10)   I need more snacks during the day! When I get home from work at 4 I am starving and must feed in the very near future.

After thoughts:

I need to take it easy on this and not rush it. I am excited about it, but for lasting change I need to allow myself to have a little junk food and to be gentle on myself. I do not want to make this into a diet, as so many other people I have talked to about it think it is. I also don't look at them as 32oz snacks. The funniest response so far has been from my boss, she gave my 32oz lunch the look of complete disdain and started talking about the fried chicken she had for breakfast.  It’s more about eating more of what is right for your body and less of what’s bad. I have read blogs about folks who lost weight and that would be a nice bonus but I don’t want to do this for that.