Lunch-to-Go

For those of us without much time during the day to sit and dine in the OR, Satchmo's serves up a pretty good lunch with their OR to-go. With the swipe of your meal plan (or, 8 bucks), you can have a hot meal to eat on the run. However, this option can be extremely inconsistent when it comes to following Pollan's rules, or any health rules for that matter. If you are unconcerned with what you put in your body, then this option is perfect.

The meal includes a meat, usually chicken, rice, a vegetable, a dessert, and drink. It is usually satisfying and incredibly substantial. However, for health-and-environmentally-conscious-meat-and-dessert-avoiders, the meal quickly slims. I opt out of the chicken and am offered a double helping of rice-not the best choice (it's always white or yellow rice). Then, I pass on the dessert. Sometimes, I can persuade them to substitute it with a whole fruit, but the fruit is not always available. When it comes to the drink, the options are soft drinks in a recyclable aluminum can or bottled water. I have been avoiding the poison sodas, so that's a no. And, I already have a re-usable water bottle on me, so no drink and no substitutions. I give the company the same amount of money, but receive a less amount of food in return.

However, I have had good luck there in the past. Once, the server offered to substitute the meat for a delicious tomato/humus/lettuce sandwich that she was making. And once, she offered a double helping of carrots instead of rice. And once, I enjoyed a banana in place of the chocolate cake. Such flexibility seems to depend on who is working which day. Most of the time when I say "no chicken please," I get a stare like I'm crazy.

Eating healthily, or consciously, on campus is difficult. Eating "on-the-go" is even harder.

Campus eating...

So I live in an apartment, which is great to cook and control my food intake. However, since sorority recruitment and starting work right afterward, I've had to get food on the go. I won't get out of work until pretty late and during the day and running from one event to the next reading assignment to yet another meeting. So what to do?

"Food Rules" certainly hasn't been ruling my life as of the last week, but I want to try to find better fast food- that doesn't come out of my window. Usually I buy the yummy Special K bars, but that has at least 5 ingredients that I can't pronounce let alone a 5th grader. With that in mind, the C-Store has every trans-fat you could possibly get, so don't get me started on Flambeauxs size portions. Eating healthy as a working-college student getting ready for grad school is certainly a challenge.

All in all, that is my next challenge to myself. I did a pretty good job when things were quieter, but following "Food Rules" needs to applicable to all levels of craziness that my come our way. It needs to be easy to find food (or at least prepare food) that can keep up with different lifestyles.

Tune in next time...

Plan to break the Rules

Last week I was the most successful yet at sticking to Food Rules. On Sunday I made a big trip to Winn Dixie.... whole wheat pasta, vodka sauce with real ingredients and no preservatives, tons and tons of veggies, brown rice, salads, olive oil, vinegar... These are things that I ate the whole week. Veggies on a bed of brown rice with teriyaki sauce is my staple dinner now. Its so filling and I get a huge surge of energy after. My only slip up last week, and I'm not even sure if this is a slip up, was getting a coffee at CC's. I wonder if coffee is breaking the rules?? And MILK... milk is a big question of mine..... In the diet book Skinny Bitch the authors have a whole chapter devoted to how disgusting milk is and how it should not be included in a healthy diet. I have always bought skim milk, and in Food Rules it says do not by anything that is 'low fat' or 'fat free'.... and that is exactly what skim milk is.

Anyway, I only ate meat once in five days, which is a huge change for me. I have discovered a useful trick to help me stick to food rules: PLAN when you are going to break the rules. On Sunday, when I made my pilgrimage to Winn Dixie, I told myself that if I was perfect all week and did not eat meat once, I would go to Raising Canes on friday and get a huge, delicious, greasy meal. All week I looked forward to this and stuck to the rules just so that meal on Friday would taste even better. And let me tell you..... it was SO good. So, so good. So now I'm back to a new week to try again, hopefully to be just as successful.

the Blog becomes Big Brother

It has taken me a while to confront my procrastination to start ruling my foods. I read, enjoyed and even felt that my habits were already generally in line with Pollan’s quirky take on eating, but somehow I resisted complying whole-heartedly to the regimen. Perhaps precisely because I perceive it to be regimen that my automatic instinct says “REVOLT!!” Strangely enough, I have found myself breaking the rules (rules that I would maybe even would naturally follow) more often since I’ve had the book in the back of my mind. Now I don’t typically consider myself one to defy for the sake of defiance, so I tried to dig a little deeper and explore why it is that I would sabotage my success in doing something I want to do anyway. I realized that this was in a way a parallel pattern to a lot of habits that I have wished to break, and have not yet had the discipline to do so. I have often and periodically told myself: “I will exercise, I will eat right and less, I will meditate, I will write letters to people I have met elsewhere and love, I will wake up early and stretch, I will set time apart for reflection and creation, I will smoke less, I will not procrastinate, etc.” The tune has become trite, has not changed, and only sometimes plays more loudly than others in my inner ear. It is not that over the years since this mantra first surfaced that I have been an unconscious slob, to a degree I do indeed do all these things, I just still lack the stability and regularity that I desire. I want my will and sense of wellness for myself to be stronger than any external temptations at any given moment, and in this I still waver. It seems counter-instinctual that an individual can struggle so much in self-nourishment and health, that these are things we choose to put off (see aborted New Year’s resolutions as example), but I suppose there are greater psychological forces at play (such the hedonistic draw to immediate gratification rather than the delayed gratification of a longer life, victimization by the advertising machine, socio-economic limitations, etc.) that endanger the chance of long-term survival. So I will bear all this in mind as I attempt to slowly mold myself some shape of discipline. Good news is that if I can begin to rule my foods, it may become easier to extend this exercise to other areas of my life. Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing.

Dough Crisis

Last night I was watching my nieces, both 10 and 7, while my sister and her husband went out to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary. Before they came over to stay the night, I had realized that I didn't have anything stocked in the kitchen for them to eat. After scooping them up, our first destination was the grocery store. As we scanned each of the aisles along the perimeter of the store, I bought my typical healthly stock of items like almond butter, plain yogurt,fruits and veggies. I then entered into the forbidden middle section of the store and allowed the kids to choose their own goodies, as they did not have to comply with the rigid demands of the Food Rules Challenge. Instead of carrots or whole wheat cereal, they opted for Frosted Flakes and Chips Ahoy Soft Batch Cookies; which they later kindly polished off most of the bag while in my presence, I was so envious.

We had quickly made our way through most of the store without delay until reaching the bread aisle. There, I had encountered a problem which I did not typically expect to find when choosing a whole grain bread which violated the two rules where you're supposed to select products which have five ingredients or less, and eat only those things which a small child can pronounce. It appeared that all of the breads, including the labels listed with extra fiber, no fructose corn syrup or other additives, stone ground, or reduced sugar or sodium, still contained a ton of ingredients which would defy the book's best advice. Eventually we did end up locating one bread on the very top shelf which seemed to adhere to its claim of being human and environmentally friendly. I was elated to make this bread discovery as the kids were squandering around, bored looking at the numerous package labels, but it reminded me of just how difficult the process is when visiting most large grocery chains to find healthy choices.

I think all stores should offer larger selections of organic food, not just specialty stores where individuals won't have to make special trips to get basic items such as bread. Are the stores discriminating against customers by assuming that the only people that consume healthy foods are those who live in large urban areas with money? Are working class people who are living in the suburbs with larger families shopping more cost conscious then health conscious? I guess this is what the numbers reflect, so it is unfortunately demand which drives these chains to stock minimal amounts of the healthy stuff for most stores. At least for now it looks as if food makers themselves are making somewhat of an effort to make products which are less processed and offer better quality ingredients.

Pollan's book seems so easy to read, I just wished the same applied to finding food items sufficient enough to meet the book's criteria.

I am going...

Farmer's Market "Hopping" tomorrow! Ooo I can't wait!!

Food and Waste

I'm kind of having an issue with #61 - Leave something on your plate. Last night, I was cleaning some stuff out of my refrigerator and it really is true that we don't eat 20-30% of food we buy! I don't know the exact statistics, but it's something like that or worse. I threw out some withered veggies, bad yogurt, and some food that has been in there for a week! It just reminded me to not buy or cook too much food that I won't get around to eating. Back to rule 61 though. He says to always leave something on your plate, but without the afterthought of putting it in a container for later. I think he even goes to say feed the garbage can! I feel like you don't have to finish your plate if you save it for later, or just get smaller portions and come back for more later if you really wanted to. I understand his explanation of how as children we were always taught to finish our plate and that has followed us through the years. I still encourage to finish your plate, but only fill it with 2/3 of what you would normally eat so you won't have as much to clean off and you can eat more later.

I actually love rule #52 - buy smaller plates and glasses! I actually heard this on the radio and they said to try it. I usually like eating with a big spoon because I can eat more and go faster, but in theory it makes sense to eat with smaller bowls and spoons. I've been eating with a smaller spoon and bowl and it really has made a difference. You take so many scoops and then before you know it, you don't want anymore! So that helps you not go for seconds and you won't want to get as much either. To also reduce the amount of food I'm wasting, I tend to only cook enough for that day and eat what I have.

I won't lie though, the other day I totally binged on 5 beignets and then had chocolate wafer sticks, and I ate half a bag of croutons! Last night, I had ice cream right before bed too! It was horrible, haha. But I guess we're allowed to break the rules once in awhile. I'm so up for eating half a cake right now = D