Hello Again!

Wow! A huge thanks to everyone for continuing to peek at the blog, even when I haven’t been keeping it up properly!

First off, let me explain what happened:

It started when I began giving myself a cheat day, which I am not too ashamed to admit turned into a cheat month (or two or six). It started at a food fair, with ice cream, and chocolate, and free samples.. those things get me every time!!

Things got a little out of hand for awhile.. dinners consisting of bags of chips, no dinners at all, or (shhh don’t tell anyone) the golden arches… that kind of thing, and I felt guilty about writing a healthy food blog whilst gorging on Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.. so, I simply didn’t write. It was a little bit of a load off, but I did miss it. Then things went too long, and like a friend that you haven’t spoken to in awhile, it got too awkward to write. What would I say to you, Blog? How would I regain connection? What would you think of the things I had done? Soo.. I left it. I let it creep farther and farther from the front of my brain until I would only remember about you when I had gotten a new comment on an old post.. I’m sorry. Please think of this as that hanging my head in shame awkward phone call, hoping to jump-start and old friendship

While I was MIA I eventually got back on the food wagon (no, not the yummy ones parked on the side of the road near the Vancouver Art Gallery.. though there were a few of those too). I have moved out to Mission BC and in with my man T, started working in a great little soup and sandwich kind of place called The Sweet Spot Cafe (please, if you are coming through check it out.. good healthy food made as much from scratch as we can do, and a gorgeous little back garden to boot), and gotten my butt back on track, with some help from T.

While we were already eating almost everything from scratch, we have started 2014 with trying to do most of it organically as well.. this has been a little tougher. Because it is all from scratch, our grocery bills usually aren’t too astronomical, but I have definitely noticed the bump up in prices. Even tougher than that though is the options. Here in Mission we don’t exactly have a Whole Foods or a more organically inclined grocery option. We have a produce market (with almost no organic, at least in the winter months), a Safeway (please insert wild laughter here if you have tried shopping organic produce at the Mission Safeway..) a Superstore, a Walmart (even more laughter) and a Save On Foods. While Save On is pretty much our standard, you wont find more than a tiny little isle, a few baskets and some salad mixes for produce. They also seem to have more options for healthy and organic treats, beans, tomatoes etc, but again, you’re looking at about 4 isles.  There is also a great little health food place on 1st Ave called The Pantry (conveniently located right next to The Sweet Spot), but I can only afford to walk in there once in a blue moon. We discovered Thrifty’s a few weeks ago, but it is about a 20 minute drive away, and not a lot cheaper, though does seem to have more options for fruit and veg..  Oy! any Organic shoppers out there, please help! Or sympathize..

We do luckily have garden space at home. Last summer we unsuccessfully attempted peppers, pumpkins, strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, tomatoes and peas last year, and had better luck with carrots, zucchini, lettuce and herbs. This year I am hoping for some more luck.. I never really have had a green thumb, but will try none the less! I will keep you updated!

Other exciting events in our life include:

The adoption of a cat named Dood (who, yes, eats very well and mostly only “good ingredient” food – sometimes he gets tempted by a Temptation). He’s 6, he won’t eat any people food except (organic, stove-top popped) popcorn, he’s HUGE in a healthy way, and he looks like a lion.

I have a nephew! This has nothing to do with food, though I guess that cat doesn’t either, but I am very excited about it. He will be one year old in March, and is about the cutest hipster baby ever.

I stopped eating shellfish.. actually, I watched this documentary by Walter Veith. Whether you believe in the Bible or not, the science behind it is pretty sound.. and I’m sorry if watching it ruins your appetite for a few different meats.. but really, who wants to eat poop bacteria? Ughhh..

Again,  I will try and be on here more often.. and huge thank you to all of those who have continued to check in, or have just wandered by for a peek. I have to say I was blown away by the number of people passing by! If you have any ideas, suggestions, anything you would like me to look into please leave a comment. I’ve got to admit I’m a little lost on what to write about at the moment, so all ideas are welcome!

Thanks again!!

Lunch

Yes. I am aware that it has been a long time.. possibly even forever and a day. I haven’t forgotten about all of you out there, but to be honest, I feel like it’s been so long that I need to come back with something big. The longer I put it off, the more pressure I feel. Then I go and start reading something like  NeverSeconds, written by a young girl from Scotland. It’s photos and descriptions of her school lunches, and photos of school lunches around the world that others send in.  Take a boo, it’s good!

It also makes me think back to the day where we all used to gather in the cafeteria with our trays, anxiously waiting to see if it was fishsticks that day or… wait…. sorry, my mistake! (Insert cranky old lady voice here) Back in my day there wasn’t a school lunch program, or if there was we didn’t know about it.  We brought our lunches from home! Suuure, we had “hot lunch” days, usually a hot dog or a piece of pizza, followed by a “Texas Donut” – a donut shaped pastry as big as your head, but that was a treat!

(fade back into “Sarah slowly speaking out loud to herself as she types” voice)

I remember in Grade five when our class started a Pizza Hut program where you could buy an individual pan pizza off of us. We save all of the money we made and went away for a few days at the end of the year. I ate pizza every week that year I think.

Grade six was around the time where my mom was on her sixth (and thankfully final) year of peanut butter and jam sandwiches (there was a bologna streak in elementary, but who knows what happened to that).  I, being the super picky eater I am now, even back then, refused to eat the simple peanut butter and jelly day in and day out, and would leave the sandwiches to fester in either my locker or my backpack. Instead, I would spend whatever allowance money I had on a pizza pocket. The magnificent pizza pocket was supplied in the school cafeterium for the low price of a buck or a buck fifty. Again.. lots of pizza.

In highschool the cafeteria favourite was the seasoned curly french fries. People would send their friends to run out of class as soon as the bell went and jump in the line, which was always waaay too long and the poor sap at the end always ended up spending fifteen minutes in line for nothing. There were other choices,  the chocolate malt for example, and I seem to remember that there were main course types of things, but I can’t remember what they were.  Often, we would eat out. The church would offer cheap meals (instant noodles for 25 or 50 cents, or you could pay five bucks and get a real meal of chicken fingers and salad or something), but the burrito place (name unknown to me now) was the best.  Breadsticks were a close second, and would run you three fifty for a bag.  They even opened a McDonalds in my town when I was in Grade 10. That was a good year.

If you look back on it all, you might notice a little bit of a trend. The food was not great.  Really tasty, but not great in a healthy way.  There was no salad bar at my school (and I doubt there are many around now actually). Most of it had been previously frozen. Or from a vending machine. I remember going through something like three slurpees and a can of pringles a day in my grade 11 year. There was some info on eating right available, but even my in home ec. class they tought us to make stuff like cakes and cookies. I do remember a fruit salad once, but it was flavoured with half a can of Sprite.

This, Kids, was the end of the golden years. I mean, the golden deep fried years, or just the plain brown food years. We used to eat hot dogs at birthday parties. Or Kraft dinner. Sometimes you’d mix the two (KD with fried weiners, all drizzled with a giant spiral of ketchup was still one of my favourite foods right up until December 31st last year!), drink up some of that McDonalds Orange Drink (do they still make that stuff?) or Tang, slurp up some Jello, Dairy Queen icecream cake (or the cheap white cake from Safeway) and call it a day. If it was a high end party, you’d have it right in the McDonalds and get a tour of the kitchen, or pizza would be delivered to the bowling alley. I wonder what would happen now if a parent served gluten filled processed hot dogs at a birthday party? Anyone out there with kids want to do an experiment?

Anyway… reading this girl’s blog has done a few things for me. It has reinspired me a little (thanks kid!), it has brought back some fond memories of some really trashy food, and it has opened my eyes to the fact that even though lunches are aparently provided at school now, they still don’t look all that great all of the time. For example.. the fact that her dad had to print off an email from the council so the kid could get some fruit? Scary.

Anyway.. bon apetit. Let me know what you ate as a kid.. favourites? The thing you dreaded most? What was worth the most lunch currency in your school? Fruit by the foot was worth..ohh… about 2 mini chocolate bars and an apple in mine. Also, Momma: I’m sorry about the peanut butter and jam thing.. but I still can’t eat them. At least not unless they’re toasted.

Happy eating, and thanks for sticking around!

 

And We’re Off!

Well Folks, it’s January 1st: Day 1.

No more “Last chance for _______!”, no more not-knowing, no more junk. This begins today.

So far, so good.

This morning I was served a buffet of yummy ingredient happy food for breakfast : fruit salad, zuccini, carrots, toast (all recongnizable and good ingredients!), tomato, eggs, chicken sausage and a yummy (and with a cough still acting up: very welcome) hot cup of lemony tea. Basically, I was spoiled.

This afternoon I munched on some pomegranite, and had a latte. I will admit that the milk in the latte was most likely of the vitamin A palmitate and D3 added variety, but at least I can list that.. so I’m not adding it to a cheat list (in fact, because so far everything is on track, I haven’t even needed to start up a cheat list!).

I also cooked beans tonight. I have made canned beans before, but these are the type that you have to soak overnight. Now the problem was trying to figure out what to do with them. Hrmm.. I was going to throw them over a spinach salad, but I kind of wanted something warm. My next thought was a bean and rice burrito, but then I’d have to make up some tortillas, and the hour was getting late. Then I saw the jar of roasted red peper sauce that I had picked up at Whole Foods the other night. Mix together eans, said pasta sauce, some broccoli, carrots, spinach, and garlic and serve over some brown rice pasta, and dinner is served!

‘Twas sometime before New Years, and all through my place
Lurked unknown ingredients no one could trace.
My cupboards were full of things I couldn’t say,
Let alone recognize if I saw them today.

 

Frozen chicken fingers, sausages, french fries galore,
All snug in  my freezer, but wait there is more…
In my fridge there were sauces, salsas, juices and jams,
Beef pepperoni and peaches stored in their cans

 

The pantry was worse, taco shells and their spice

Crackers, white flour and short-grain white rice

Tomatoes in tin, beans in EDTA

“Get rid of it all!” I said, “Give it away!”

 

I’ve decided to change up the way that I eat

Because corn syrup and “colour” don’t seem that neat

Monosodium chlorides and “natural flavour”

Don’t sound like the food any humans should savour

 

I read a few books, watched some videos too
And had an idea, something not very new
“Eating food should be easy” I thought to myself
“Simple and yummy” so I cleared off my shelf

 

“Now Veggies! now, Fruit! now, Whole grains and Organic!
Where will I shop now?!” (I started to panic).Farmers markets and butchers all came into sight

And I realized, with effort, it would all be all right.

 

It will take some control to learn how to say “no”
But think of the things I’ll learn as I go:
Like how to cook lentils, and eat food while I’m out,
Where vitamins come from, and what’s good about trout.

 

I’ll learn to try new things, and read every label,

How to make lunches, and eat at the table,

Some things will be gross, and some things will be yummy.

At least I’ll know all things that go into my tummy.

 

I’ll be sure to keep posting, and keep you appraised
About how all the meat you eat must have been raised.
Some things will be scary, some things just plain new,
Some you won’t like, but what can you do?

 

Here’s the some good food, some good times and more!

Here’s the the new things I’m going to explore!

I hope you keep reading, and enjoy what you find,
And that this blogs help a little to open your mind…

 

(written and read aloud as she typed by Sarah Pearson)

A Brief Hiccup

Things are not off to a thrilling start. I have been having problems recently posting to the blog. I had taken a load of photos to add to the “This Little Piggy Went to Market” post, which would not load (that’s why there are no photos), and things have gone downhill from there.
Now when I go to add a post, the screen will not let me see what I am typing, or register a word count at all. I have found a QuickPress option on my admin dashboard, so that’s where I am typing this, but the whole thing is frustrating. What a way to start a project!
I am in contact with the wonderful people at WordPress, who are trying to help me sort all of this out, so hopefully it won’t be ling before I can see more than 2 lines of what I am typing and be able to add photos again…hopefully.
In the meantime, please bear with me. There is no spell check option, and no way to categorize my posts, and I am not even quite sure yet if this will work.

Fingers crossed and growling at my computer,

Sarah