Four Foods on Friday #145

I know, I know! Another FFFF meme! But they are so exciting and fun to do! I missed out on several weeks, due to flooding problems here and then a nice vacation. If you are interested, the previous FFFF meme had a fun question– reminiscing about hospital food, woohoo. Images of old ladies in starchy Marcus nursing uniforms rose up… thank God I haven’t experienced it in a long time!

But this week is about high school. That also seems like a million light years away. High school—- how well do you remember eating in the cafeteria? I was an odd student– I avoided eating in school as much as possible. I’d rather skip lunch and sit in my wooden locker (lockers were open in this school) and read or study. I don’t know why, I just never liked eating in public and I did not like the crazy atmosphere of the cafeteria. Once in a while I attempted eating there, but I always felt uncomfortable.

Name four things you ate in the high school cafeteria.

1. Pizza, if I could muster the courage to eat it in there. The pizza was rather bland, though. But it was one of the most popular menu items.

2. Chocolate milk. Well, I didn’t eat it. I drank it.

3. Hot dogs. The hot dog was one of the few foods that were not bland. Why is cafeteria food SO bland? What do they do (or not do) to make it so tasteless? Anyway, hot dogs were better.

4. Apple cobbler. It was canned apples, warmed and covered with a sugary cinnamon struesel topping. It wasn’t the best cobbler, but it was always the best thing on the menu when it was served.

So how about you? What things do you remember from high school? Me, I’d rather not remember school. I didn’t like it– GLORY BE the day I was free!

Four Foods on Friday #144

I’m back from a week’s vacation (my first one in 23 years!), so my head is a little dopey from all the driving we did. Next time, I hope I do a LOT less driving. Ugh, and all that traffic and construction! I am weary of detour and exit signs, you betcha. Until next year, of course.

Anyway, instead of laying in bed all day like I feel like doing, I decided to try and jump into my normal routine as much as possible. What better way to do it than with a meme?!

Name four things you’ve eaten in a hospital and share if they were tasty or not so good.

I like this question. I wish I could answer it! I have only stayed in hospitals when my children were born, and the last one was born well over a decade ago. And after childbirth, any kind of food looks amazing and anything you do is not remembered very well. So…. I’ll do my best with the very little I can remember…

1. Pudding. I think it was pudding. It was good. Can’t remember if it was chocolate or tapioca.

2. Jello. YUK. I hate Jello, and this stuff must have been scraped off someone’s shoes. It was rubbery, tasteless, and chewy. :-p

3. Breakfast. I usually don’t eat breakfast, but in the hospital I was always so hungry for it. The “porridge” was terrible, even with heaps of sugar added. The toast was cold. But the OJ was good.

4. Tea. I’m mostly a coffee drinker with an occasional cup of tea. Coffee affects babies, so I had to skip it and go with the tea. It was too strong.

The best part of the time spent in the hospital was when the husband brought in a McDonald’s hamburger and fries.

On My Bookshelf: The Seven Pillars of Health

The kids and I have started reading this book. It’s the Seven Pillars of Health, by Dr. Donald Colbert. The kids are reading it and doing workbooks based on it as part of their Health curriculum. It’s a really neat book!

We’ve only gotten through the first “Pillar,” water. The book is set up on a 50-day schedule, but we are taking it slower and will finish the course in about 25 weeks. The chapter on water is very interesting, I have always had an interest in such things all my life, so I like the additional studies and new developments that are presented in the book.

For example, did you know that many brands of bottled water are merely jugs of tap water from another source. Onec bottled water company even gets its water from the Detroit River! And the plastic jugs that water is stored in is the most toxic form of plastic? the plastic compounds slowly leach into the water, causing more harm than good!

Our bodies need alkaline water, but most of the water in our water supply is highly acidic. Acidic water (and foods) force our body to work very hard to detoxify the acids. People with highly acidic bodies have health problems such as arthritis, other inflammations, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. We don’t need more pharmaceutical drugs to help us! We need good water, good nutrition, and calcium supplements and stuff!

By the way, did you know that the water supply is filled with the traces of pharmaceuticals that people take? The water treatment plant chemicals are unable to filter these drugs out…. so you are drinking those traces of drugs when you drink municipal tap water, too.

It’s an eye-opening book. And it shows how EASY it is to change our habits for good health. I’ll post more about it as we continue the course. But from what I have seen so far, I can highly recommend it!

Learning About Healthy Eating

Since The Hubs has been working evenings recently, we haven’t been cooking as much as usual. The kids and i are happy to “scrounge” for dinners, and I prefer to eat light in the evenings anyway. Judging by the reactions of most women, it seems that the only reason we cook dinner is for the men. Most women I know or read about dislike cooking dinner. It’s the end of a very long day, and the cooking is another huge chore, and the cleanup is another. I also do not like eating so heavily. It seems that women, sans men, are very content to have a bowl of cereal or a sandwich, than cook a big meal in the evening. What do you do? If you didn’t have to cook dinner, would you do it anyway? Do you like to eat that late in the day?

I think people in other countries have it better organized– their biggest meal is in the afternoon, followed by a light repose. The evening is cheese, fruits, wine– food that is easily digestible and easy to assemble.

The LAST thing I want to dump in my gullet four hours before bed is pot roast and potatoes.

So while I’m not doing much cooking, I am learning about healthier eating. I’ll have more on that later I’ve mentioned the benefits of eating raw foods (or, at the very least, eating mainly vegetables). Raw foods reduce your body’s acidic level. Cooked food contains enzymes that your body must work very hard to remove. Raw foods have been heralded as a cure-all for many things, from improving joints and blood pressure to replacing acne treatments and glasses. I don’t know about all those. I DO know that it is marvelously healthy, and that I hear nothing but glowing reports from people who had once been sick and are now better.

While we have definitely increased the raw foods in our diet, we do still eat a lot of the traditional American diet: grains and red meat. Sheesh, no wonder Americans are fat and have health problems! That food pyramid is a joke.

Gluten-Free Diets and “Cereal Killers”

While hashing through my feed reader for the first time in AGES lately, I read with great interest a blurb about a book called Cereal Killers on Val’s cooking blog. (I also found some very cool ipod reviews, iPhone deals, and cell phone plans to research, but that’s for another story!).

Cereal Killers provides answers to many questions and concerns raised by new and long-time members of the gluten-free community. From associated illnesses to psychological issues, to the basics about the diet, this book provides useful information for everyone, especially to those who are not yet aware that they should also be following a gluten-free diet. This new book explores signs, symptoms, and appropriate testing, along with dietary compliance and factors that influence these important issues.

This patchwork quilt of information is a must-have for every home library where gluten induced illness is either present or suspected. Cereal Killers is also important reading for those who suffer from vague symptoms of ill health but do not yet have a diagnosis.

WOW!

This confirms many of my own suspicions about cereal and gluten in the diet. I do believe that gluten gluts the American diet. Gluten coupled with the excesses of high-fructose corn syrup in our foods makes us fat, sick, and lethargic.

Historically, people ate high-protein meals for breakfast, such as eggs and sausage, whole-wheat johnny cakes with molasses, or fruits. Sometime in the early 20th century (if I am getting my time correct), a man named William Kellogg (a Christian Scientist) wanted to promote the grain industry, and he believed that Americans needed more grain in their diets. He created Kellogg’s breakfast cereal. It’s been a long time since I have read up on this, so my facts may be a little sketchy… but cereal became a staple in Americans’ diets then.

There’s a movement underway in America to return to fresh fruits and vegetables as the staple in our diet. It’s like it’s some kind of revolution, the way the food industry is acting. It challenges us to take a good hard look at the foods we are given to eat, and ask WHY must we eat these things. I stopped one day and asked myself that question. On the grocery shelves, there’s Choice A and Choice B and Choice C and Choice D. But there is really very little difference between all the choices. WHY do I have to eat this stuff? WHY should I believe that it is healthy for me? WHY are vegetables– which are so easily grown and are not “manufactured” in factories– so much more expensive than Doritos and hot dogs and sausage– which is made in factories by many workers? How can this be?

Anyway, I think it’s GOOD that we are presenting these questions, and changing our diets. I think I may check out this book, Cereal Killers. If I can ever get the time to read!!!