Blog #10 – Becoming Foodies

I want to share with you some of the foods we enjoyed during the first week of our return to food since the juice cleanse. We have started what feels like a strict schedule on how and what we eat each day of the week. But again, the goal is to start actively taking control of our bad habits until our brains are retrained and all these things become second nature to us.

First of all, we still juice for breakfast and sometimes for lunch. It gives us great nutrients and much needed energy, but also helps us to continue to lose weight which we are still working on. But during the week our new food regime consists of a combination of paleo and plant-based. The paleo diet, if you’ve never heard of it, is basically to eat like a caveman, eating things that occur in nature and don’t have to be cooked in order to be consumed. This is not the same as raw eating where you don’t cook your food. Paleo people cook their food but they don’t eat anything that HAS to be cooked like rice, corn, grains, beans and most dairy. The main criticism of the paleo diet is that most of its meals involve meat and people that eat paleo are generally big proponents of the benefits of meat protein (I said generally so calm down vegetarian paleo people, all five of you!). But for all intents and purposes the paleo diet is geared toward eating whole foods and nothing that is processed, which fits well with our food goals. The plant-based diet on the other hand says you can eat anything that comes from a plant, whether or not you have to cook it. Obviously, meat and dairy don’t come from plants. But wheat/grains, corn, soy and rice do. The plant-based diet is also about eating whole foods and cutting out processed foods. So the combination we have during the week is that we eat mainly paleo, but without the meat. What does that mean? Basically we eat fruits and vegetables and nuts during the week. Sounds very limiting right? Well thank goodness for cookbooks! Of course all these diets have a zillion cookbooks associated with them but since we aren’t following any one of them to the T, we have to adjust a bit. You would be amazed at the combinations of filling and extremely tasty meals that can be made using only fruits, vegetables and nuts. We don’t use a lot of nuts either because they are pretty fattening. But ground up or shaved or lightly sprinkled, they add a lot of flavor to a meal and also make it very filling.

On Fridays for dinner we make a small adjustment to our food plan which is that we can add a starch to our diet in limited quantities (potatoes, rice, corn, pasta, gluten-free pasta, or beans). We still generally stay away from straight-up bread unless it’s paleo bread which is made from coconut or almond and we try to limit our wheat-based consumption. If we eat something that comes from wheat or rice our rule is to eat it in as whole a form as possible. That means long-grain or wild rice like basmati, whole grains and wheat alternatives such amaranth, buckwheat or quinoa. Note that wheat-free does not equal gluten-free. This also includes meat alternatives including our favorite, Beyond Meat (http://www.beyondmeat.com/). We generally try to avoid anything that comes completely from soy like soy milk, tofu or a host of “meatless” products. But we will eat foods that contain soy such as

Beyond Meat. The other tricky thing with meat alternatives in general is that they tend to be very over-processed and full of sodium. Processed foods are not on the list so even though we may bend a little with things like pasta (sorry but I ain’t making my own pasta), we do not eat most of the veggie burgers and similar products you find in the frozen food section. The key here is to READ LABELS. If you don’t recognize the ingredients, don’t buy it! Check out these links for examples of good starches and alternatives to wheat.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/206574-starchy-foods-list/

http://www.wheat-free.org/wheat-free-flour.html

Saturday we add meat and alcohol to our diet also in limited quantities. On the documentary Forks Over Knives (see Blog #7) they discuss American consumption of meat and how it has increased exponentially over the years at the same time as our meat has become more and more toxic. You can also get complete proteins (the same you get from meat) through a multitude of other products so it’s not like you really need meat for any nutritional reason (http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/proteins/incomplete-vs-complete-proteins.html and check out the section on combining incomplete proteins to create complete proteins). One of the subjects in the documentary is a Chinese man who moved to the U.S. as an adult and immediately fell victim to our large portions and the way we eat meat. I think he had like 5 bypass surgeries before switching to the plant-based diet approach (yes he is an extreme case). But he noted that even though they eat meat in China, they use meat as a flavor enhancer or filler, usually slicing it over the main dish. Meat is an additive. In the U.S. meat is the main ingredient and everything else is just a garnish. In the documentary they link the countries with significantly higher meat consumption with those that have significantly higher rates of cancer. This is a very touchy subject for a lot of people so I won’t argue it one way or the other. Whether or not you believe meat is killing you, we collectively eat too much of it. Also, in our house we do agree with the documentary that people don’t really need meat. Again, Beyond Meat is a company that is aiming to replace meat protein with vegetable protein and their products are complete proteins, so they contain the amino acids and the same balance of proteins found in meat and dairy products. So now you ask, why if we believe all this do we still eat meat on Saturday (and sometimes on Sunday)? Why? Because we like it! And we feel that if we eat it in moderation it is not bad for us. Also we allow ourselves to eat a little more on Saturday anyway because that’s the day we get up early and do our long runs.

Sunday is the same as Saturday except no alcohol, we can eat dairy and we occasionally skip the juice in favor of eggs and pancakes (buckwheat or gluten-free). We save our alcohol consumption for days when we don’t have to get up and be functional the next day. And again, we do not throw down the way we used to. We drink in moderation. But even so, when you don’t drink very much, you notice the impact it has on your body and getting up to run 10 miles the next day or get your son who is not a morning person up and ready for school is not a good look. Also Saturday nights tend to be more relaxed and if we are going to have some grown-up time and get a sitter it generally happens on Saturday. So we try to cut ourselves some slack. But back on the horse again the next day!

What did you not see on this list? Chips (my personal favorite), soda, most store-bought juices, fast food or really any eating out at all. Nothing that comes in a box or a bag. Nothing that we can’t cook in our own kitchen. The key has been planning our meals and going shopping with a grocery list containing only the things we are planning to cook. Also we have to feed our son. Surprisingly, his diet consists mainly of the things we cook for ourselves. We have never fed him crap though and even at school their menu is organic, real foods. He’s never had a piece of candy or soda in his life and he gets very limited quantities of sweets or juices. Any cookies are usually sweetened with honey or raw, unprocessed sugar and we either make them ourselves or we find the closest alternative (surprisingly the ones in the baked goods section at the grocery store are better for you than the ones you buy off the shelf – read the ingredients). His juice (http://www.lakewoodjuices.com/products) is mixed with vegetables and we give him about 1/3 juice and 2/3 water. So he is used to the taste of food. Sometimes he refuses our little piles of vegetables though so we keep things on hand for the inevitably picky 3 year old palette. But those things are not processed either. He eats the paleo bread or we might throw some cheese on top of something or add a starch or some chicken or Beyond Meat to something. But we don’t pull out the frozen pizza bagels and toss them in the microwave. Another question we get asked a lot is what we cook with since we don’t use vegetable or olive oil. 

We use coconut oil (oddly enough from Costco - http://www.carringtonfarms.com/organic-extra-virgin-coconut-oil-12-oz-tub-54-oz-bottle/) and occasionally we use ghee (clarified butter - http://www.purityfarms.com/). We don’t eat diet food, nothing labeled sugar free or low sodium. Why? Because things with those labels usually have something in there that completely negate whatever benefits you get from reduced sugar or salt. We eat real food. Real butter is better than butter alternatives. Even real meat is better than a lot of meat alternatives (I’m talking about Morningstar Farms here). Even real Coke is better than diet Coke (which we don’t drink in any form).

Again, read labels people. The old adage “if you can’t pronounce it you shouldn’t eat it” applies.