What I Eat - Day Fifty Three

Welcome to another week of 'What I Eat!'

Breakfast - Mushroom Toast 

This breakfast was made with organic mushrooms and celery, sliced and fried in my ceramic frying pan with avocado oil.  I added about a teaspoon of turmeric when the veggies were almost done.  Then, I dumped the mixture on top of some toast which had been drizzled with olive oil, and topped it with fresh ground black pepper. 

Lunch - Soup, Baby Bok Choy, Boiled Eggs and a Smoothie

My good friend Lisa made this delicious lunch for me.   She used Pacific Foods Spicy Black Bean Soup (please note, I'm not sure if the website is reflecting what is available in North Bay because I'm 99% sure the tetra pak she used said the soup was gluten-free).  She served the soup with hard-boiled eggs and steamed baby bok choy.  

Lisa also served me a smoothie which she called her "Kitchen Sink Smoothie' (as in, 'everything but the kitchen sink,' pictured below), and it was delicious! She made the smoothie in a Nutribullet blender, which she purchased to help care for an elderly relative who was having trouble eating.  The Nutribullet is a fantastic and extremely affordable version of high-powered blenders like the Vitamix and the Blendtec.   The Nutribullet offers the same ability to pulverize whole food, making it easier to digest, at a much more affordable price.  It does not, however, come with the same kind of warranties or quality of equipment (the fancier versions were warrantied for at least 7 years the last time I checked).  Also, it may not pulverize food quite as thoroughly as the fancier blenders, though it does a very good job.  I'll be getting more into high-powered blenders in future posts, so stay tuned!  The ingredients of the smoothie are listed below:

Banana
Avocado
Pineapple juice
Honeydew melon
Sunflower seeds
Vanilla
Cinnamon
Fig
Spinach
Blueberries

Dinner - Tom Kha Gai (Thai Coconut Soup)

This is one of my favourite dishes to make for company.   I followed this recipe, except for the fact that I made my own chicken broth, used regular cremini mushrooms, and added zucchini.    You can find fish sauce easily in North Bay (fair warning, it smells awful in the jar!).   Lemon grass isn't too hard to find fresh in the produce section, I usually buy a few stalks and freeze what I don't use right away.   Lime leaves (fresh or dried) are a bit harder to find, but you can make the dish without them, and add lime juice at the end.   I served the soup over brown rice.  

I made the broth from the bones of a previously cooked chicken that came from a farm outside of Powassan.  The pieces of chicken in the soup came from a company called Blue Goose, available at Sobey's and Independent.   This meat is a step in the right direction, guaranteeing that the animals are raised 'organic,' 'without the use of animal by-products,' with 'low population densities,' and 'access to the outdoors.'   Their meat definitely tastes better than regular factory-farmed meat.   

The ideal is to eat as little meat as possible AND to purchase it from local farms where animals eat naturally (grass, bugs, etc.) and are treated well.  Meat is difficult to digest, acidifying, and carries with it all the accumulated toxins (heavy metals, chemicals, hormones, etc.) an animal has been exposed to in the course of it's life.  However, it also provides valuable nutrition to those of us who struggle to properly absorb nutrients, particularly iron.  I have made the personal choice not to subject my readers to any images or details of the horrifying conditions factory-farmed animals are subjected to, but I would venture a guess most of you would find it disturbing.   There are so many reasons to give up factory-farmed meat -   taste, compassion, or health, whatever works for you!   Most people can replace some of their meat dishes with beans and lentils, and end up healthier and wealthier.

Last but not least, I recently acquired a new (to me) freezer and I'm excited to switch over to eating local, grass-fed meat, ideally from farms I've been able to visit.  I'll post the details as I go, and perhaps I'll even get to share some pictures!