No Organic for Me, Thank You!

I'm all for organic, don't get me wrong from the title of tonight's blog! I'm just not for organic bugs. Or organic mealy vegetables. That is not my idea of tasty organic delights!

Where I live, there is a lovely big farm that supplies food to the cafeteria, and since the farm manager just left, we got a memo saying that everyone was welcome to pick what they liked for 50 cents a pound. Now my mom and I can never pass up a deal, especially when you can get organic vegetables for 50 cents a pound! So about thirty minutes before sundown, we began to tromp our way down the rows, trying to decide what to harvest.

There was only one problem. We had no idea what we were looking at! We could recognize the tomatoes (which was one of the few items that were not available to everyone), the corn and the squash, but everything else looked rather foreign. The most experience I ever had with a garden was helping my Opa with his little plot and picking berries from my aunt's tiny patch. And that was years ago!

We finally decided that a particular bunch of red leafy tops were beet greens. We busied ourselves trying to dig down to the beet, but the one that was on the end of the largest beet top was about the size of a marble. A very small marble. Unsuccessful in locating the beets, we harvested the beet tops and carried on. I pulled up some red lettuce and carefully placed it in a plastic bag.

A little further on, we came across a trellis with vines all over it. Really long beans grew all along, none of them smaller than 12 inches and most of them quite a bit longer. After we picked about 10, we decided we had the equivalent of 60 regular beans, and moved on to the next patch of green. We found row after row of squash, our least favourite vegetable, but finally, in the fast fading light, we came across a real treasure trove. Parsley, spring onions, and bell peppers clustered together, standing green and fresh in the rich dirt. We picked to our hearts' content and ended up grabbing three large leaves of kale. After weighing the two plastic bags and depositing our dollar and twenty-five cents in the money box, we headed home with our treasures.

Then the real adventure began. As a naive city girl, I happily swished the kale leaves about under the running sink and then placed them on the cutting board, ready to chop it into pieces to add to the already-steaming green beans on the stove. Thankfully I took a closer look. On the large vivid green leaf, I saw fat little bodies of a translucent colour sitting in clumps and hiding on the edges. Peering even closer, I realized that these were not drops of water that had yet to be shaken off, as these bodies all had teeny hairy legs! They were most definitely bodies of the aphid nature!

I hurriedly stuck the leaves in a huge bowl of water, added salt, and waited. About 15 minutes later, I was able to use two of the three leaves, after carefully inspecting for all live creatures and finding only one or two that I was able to remove. I added the final vegetables to the pot and put the lid back on.

Minutes later, the vegetables started to burn. After hastily transferring them to a second pot and adding fresh water, I tasted the green beans. They were very mealy and floury and extremely unappetizing. I ended up spending at least 10 minutes picking out all the green beans, along with the potato cubes I'd thrown in earlier from the raw potato we'd put in a very salty carrot soup at lunch to absorb the extra salt. (Note: it really does work, even with a raw potato, and those potato cubes became extremely salty. Also, if the recipe calls for 20 oz of broth, it's probably best not to use 30+ oz of broth and SALT TO TASTE on top!!!)

Suffice to say, at the end of about 2 hours of effort, I found myself with a small plastic box that contained a rather sorry looking mess of steamed parsley, spring onions, beet greens, and kale. I'm not sure it was worth all that time and energy! I'm also very grateful for grocery stores that carry already-washed produce!

Next time, we'll try the farmer's market. It may be pricier, but I'm hoping there's less bugs!

A Bit of a Sweet Tooth

Today I enjoyed a very nice, very large, piece of homemade cherry pie with whipped soy cream on top. It was about 500 calories, in addition to my lunch, but I am not feeling guilty about it! (or maybe I am, since I feel the need to blog about it) I am learning, however, that I don't need to be legalistic about eating sweets. So while I shall continue to make it a habit not to eat sweets during the week, if I should go out to eat, or it's a special occasion, I shall enjoy my dessert.

I Choose

Okay, the weight is not dropping off me like I had hoped it would. Even though I'm walking an hour or so every morning! While being slightly frustrated (very frustrated), I am trying to be grateful that at least I'm not putting on weight. And that I don't have to lose over a hundred pounds like many who are trying to lose weight have to. And that I can see a difference in pictures I took several months ago. And that I am eating healthier and being more aware of my body.

Today I decided that I am not going to stock my cupboards with salty snacks, either. I have cut out desserts, except on Sabbath and birthdays. I have cut out sweet snacks, but now I need to work on the salty snacks. Having a snack isn't the problem, what is my problem is that I create a meal out of snacks, and it's usually my supper meal. Of course that is the worst meal of the day to be eating 700 calories worth of salty snacks like crackers, Indian Bombay trail mix, and potato chips. I have a bit of a sweet tooth, but my salty tooth is about as strong!

The exciting part is that I am not craving sweets anymore. I have been experimenting with different fruits (this week I bought grapes, cantaloupe, bananas, and bartlett pears) and I try to be sure I eat at least one serving of fruit a day. It is easier to be satisfied with a single serving or two of dessert, now that my body doesn't crave it like it used to. I'm hoping the same thing will hapen with the salty foods.

I am still working on finding a quick, easy, and cheap alternative salty spread for my sandwiches. Babaganoush is my spread of choice right now (just bought two eggplants that I plan to bake and prepare this weekend) but again, it is time consuming!

I was looking at different foods in the grocery stores today, and realized as I picked up the various brightly coloured packages that I really am becoming more discriminating in what I choose to put into my body. I am choosing to keep my dairy and egg consumption to a minimum, eating vegan at home for the majority (I did buy some organic, free-ranging, cage-free, 100% vegetarian diet, eggs today!). I am choosing not to buy foods that have an ingredient list longer than my shopping list and that includes unpronounceable names. I am choosing to stay away from the preservatives, the colourings, and the artificial flavourings as much as I can.

My personal philosophy towards food is being created as I go along, but it includes some of the following:

• I choose to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables each day
• I choose to eat till I am full and not till I'm stuffed
• I choose to make healthy selections when I'm food-shopping
• I choose to reach for the whole grains as much as possible (still working on this one!)
• I choose to stock my shelves and refrigerators with foods that are good for me

A Mile or Two

Losing weight is really hard! Really!

Okay, I admit it, I had joined the ranks of those who resolutely pressed on, making firm decisions in their minds that they were going to lose weight, giving up dessert once a month, walking from their car to work and the grocery store and feeling pleased that they had exercised that day, reading up articles on how to eat right and exercise right and be positive about losing weight. I was all psyched up, for at least 3 years.

Then I went through a phase where I began to make slow changes. I alternated between exercising for a couple of weeks at a time, then eating better for the next couple of weeks, hoping I could find that magic key that would unlock the secret for me to lose weight effortlessly. I would then be able to write a bestseller that every woman would buy. No such luck, though.

Then one day I woke up and decided that today, I was going to make a change. It was my 30th birthday and I was tired of being overweight, of watching the scales and my BMI creep up towards the 200 pound mark (thankfully I never made it that high!). I was tired of trying to find something in my closet that still fit, a skirt that I could button if I held my breath, and an XL blouse that could hide my stomach. I was tired of being out of breath when I walked up a hill or when I bent over to try to tie my shoes. I was tired of looking in the mirror and knowing that the real me, the person I knew deep inside, was not the person I saw reflected there.

The next morning, I began to walk. My patient mother and I woke up every week morning and hit the cement to walk 2 miles. At first, it wasn't easy. While she had a few pounds she wanted to lose, I needed to lose at least 30 pounds to return to a healthy weight and there was a monster hill we had to tackle on our route. My mother effortlessly sailed to the top at a brisk rate while I panted and struggled behind, grumbling and feeling rather irritated that I was so out of shape. Yet we carried on.

Every morning, Monday through Friday, we went walking. It took us about 40 minutes to do the 2 miles at first, but we soon worked up to about 35 minutes a day. I was feeling really good about myself until I went to see my doctor for a routine check up. She asked me the usual questions about my lifestyle and then said, "Do you exercise?" "Yes," I replied, "35 minutes a day five times a week." She affirmed my choice to exercise regularly, then said, "You do know, don't you, that they recommend 60 to 90 minutes a day for weight loss? I'm sure you'll work up to that eventually." I groaned inwardly, not happy about the thought of waking up earlier than I was already. But she got me thinking.

The next week, we set our alarms for 15 minutes early and set out to walk 3 miles a morning. It is the end of our second week now and I'm pleased to report that we are now averaging 16-minute miles and I have started walking 3.5 miles each morning when I'm able to so I can exercise about an hour. My goal is to work up to 15-minute miles so I can be walking 4 miles each morning and I'm confident that we will reach that goal. And that tricky hill? I'm still out of breath when I reach the top, but I'm sailing up it as fast as my mother now!