We Talked About Food

I met with a young woman at Church on Sunday. She sat with her six-year-old and her twin babies of just three months. Slowly, she gave up the story of her also young husband that has contracted a near-fatal heart condition causing him to quit work and go on disability. His illness is so severe that he cannot pick up his newborn sons.

The wife now has three children and a extremely sick husband to care for full-time. Her concern? What to fix for supper. The husband is limited to red meat twice per month, fish and chicken once a week, no packaged or processed foods, with the elimination of fats, eggs, and sugars. We talked about food.

Our angel-of-a-Parish Assistant organized volunteers to bring vegetarian meals to their home. She looked for someone to help do a few chores.

I promised to bring recipes. I dug out my copies of Dr. Timothy Brantly’s book The Cure and Ann Wigmore’s The Hippocrates Diet to give to the young family. Wigmore’s book covers the basics of eating healthy, the curative powers of juicing, and provides some recipes, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen also made it into the box. Though not wholly vegetarian, the cookbook offers excellent food choices and a wide variety of flavors. The couple stated they liked all types of food.

I decided to give them a starter pack of things I found valuable in my diet. From the health food store I included—powdered wheatgrass juice, mung beans for sprouting, and organic veggies. From Trader Joes—Daily Bread brand sprouted wheat-bread, organic peanut butter, soy butter, almond milk, raw milk cheese, Pure Maple Syrup, Agave Syrup, and Brewers’ Yeast. She said she had sea-salt at home otherwise I would have included it.

The items get dropped off tomorrow. Please pray for the family.

Oh and I lost a pound this week.

Fasting Wednesday

It’s the first of September and I’m starting my fasting Wednesdays. The fast is not as easy as I remembered it. The mind plays cruel tricks sometimes. I did okay until eleven o’clock, when I tried to convince myself that a banana smoothie somehow fit a fasting Wednesday. Keeping occupied has helped move my thoughts away from food.

I now know how my skinny co-workers had so many new clothes. They spent money on themselves and not on food. Image if you didn’t eat once a week what that could do for your budget. What if your husband or housemate didn’t eat one day either? Could you afford a new blouse this month? Kids and pets don’t fast so drop that fantasy.

The cost of food for this diet has been for items I never had in the house – powdered wheatgrass, brewer’s yeast, seeds for sprouting, and containers for sprouting. The almond milk, kale, and coconut just replace other less nutritious items in the weekly shopping. What I normal spend on food for myself has dropped by at least half. In the long term, decreasing costs will probably continue.

For example, I ran out of lettuce a few days back. Rather than drive to the store, I used some sprouted sunflower seeds as a base and made my salad. The next day I used the sprouted lentils with a different mix of vegetables. I sprouted mung beans overnight for a wonderful new luncheon faire. I love the change in flavors and textures. The sprouted seeds cost pennies where the organic lettuce cost dollars.

Oh, I made my own pickles. Yes. Using a mandolin slicer, I trimmed up some cucumber, stuffed them into a clean used pickle jar – appropriate – added garlic cloves, pickling spices, and organic vinegar. Left it in the refrigerator for three days. Now I have raw organic pickles. Yum!

How did I get on food? So eight more hours till bedtime then sleep then breakfast. I think I’ll have that banana smoothie.

Wheatgrass

  One Pound Off This Week! August melted eleven pounds for a total of thirty-two lost since I started the diet.
  This week I added wheatgrass powder to strawberry-banana smoothies. If I have not covered wheatgrass, let me do that now. Wheatgrass supplies the body calcium, chlorine, iron, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, sulfur, cobalt, zinc, dripping in chlorophyll that can reduce symptoms in people with obesity, hypertension, pancreatitis, and may inhibit cancer cells. Every raw-diet book, without exception, extols the virtues of wheatgrass. It is the Holy Grail of the plant kingdom.
  Simple to grow, wheat berries – wheatgrass seeds – can be soaked overnight in a jar then drained to sprout within six hours. Cover the sprouts with dirt in a pot six inches or more deep and presto! You have wheatgrass. It takes about three days to have seven inches of harvestable wheatgrass.
  Now here’s the part I didn’t like. Cut and wash the grass then grind it in a device similar to a meat grinder to squeeze out one ounce of wheatgrass juice. OR Go to Jamba Juice and have them do it for you at $1.95 per shot. OR Head down to your local health food store for powdered wheatgrass at $1.50 per ounce. The wheatgrass juice powder only loses ten percent of its potency in powdered form. I did the last two options.
  Oh, I also grew the wheatgrass for my dog, Poindexter. He wanders outside, passes the planter and snips off a few blades munching down the healthy goodness. Dex does not need a meat grinder. He has excellent canines. Cats like it too.