The carrots onion tomatoes and jalapenos above turned into the salad below:
Boy do I love tomatoes in the summer.
First CSA Box Meal
Category: nutrition
This Week’s Food
For $12.99 I bought the tomatoes in the box below:
For $29.99 I bought a CSA box of organic vegetables as follows:
Jalapeno Peppers
Orange Carrots
Red Beets
Roma Tomatoes
Russian Banana Fingerling Potatoes
Sweet Onions
Baby Green Bok Choy
Italian Eggplant
I used the CSA box food plus bought heads of Boston lettuce to make a salad for dinner to start off the week.
The Bok choy I’ll have for lunch on Tuesday.
Photos are to follow of the meals I created with the food.
2020 SNAP Challenge
In 2018 and 2019 the Beyond Hunger organization hosted SNAP challenges.
A person who was well-off was challenged to use the customary SNAP benefit to buy food for one week.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is commonly called by its former name: food stamps.
The most recent challenge allocated participants to use $31.22 per person per week for 7 days total.
That comes out to about $4.46 per person per day.
Some rules apply:
The food cannot be bought at big box retailer like Costco or Sam’s Club.
You can use your own condiments and spices.
In most regards other than these two rules you must make do on $31.22 as one person for 7 days.
I’m not going to be able to meet this standard for a number of reasons:
First I have groceries ordered from FreshDirect which doesn’t accept SNAP benefits for payment.
Second the standard is impossible to live up to when you want to eat healthful food.
As it is for my lunch at my job I spend about $5.00 per day on food from a deli counter at a market.
This food is often a half-pound of beet salad or a Sicilian tomato-and-0nion salad or a container of soup.
The point is that people in America are going hungry.
I order 2 $5 donations–$10 total–with my groceries order so that the NY Common Pantry can give 4 pantry meals each to two people.
I have been “buying” this donation with my groceries since the start of June.
FreshDirect employees package the food and help deliver the boxes to people in need in New York City.
This as a humanitarian response to the food insecurity individuals started to face during the COVID-19 outbreak.
As a modified version of the SNAP challenge I’m going to photograph and document in the blog how I spent $29.99–$30 dollars in effect–on food this week.
The fact is–regardless of anyone’s political persuasion–we cannot continue to rob Americans living in poverty of their right to have enough money to buy food.
That people go hungry is a crime.
Again–giving every American a Universal Basic Income of $1,000 per month–would go a long way in terms of food justice.
Andrew Yang–who dropped out of the Democratic race for president–was my choice because his policy platform included a Universal Basic Income.
August Salad Days
My goal is to return to having a salad for lunch at least three days and ideally four days a week.
In the heat a salad can’t be beat as a great no-cook choice for lunch or dinner.
The key to liking your leafy greens is to toss in a ton of extras for texture.
A salad chock full of crunch tastes better too.
I buy Boston lettuce.
Salad toppings:
diced onions
diced carrots
blueberries or raspberries
chickpeas
olives
cashews (you can use walnuts or almonds)
Other extras:
peppers
avocado
feta cheese
hard-boiled egg slices
mushrooms
corn
My preferred dressing is olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
When it’s hot you should turn on the air conditioner if you have one.
It can be hard to get the motivation to cook or to compose a salad when you’re living indoors.
It can be hard to exercise or to do a lot of things when your joy has tanked.
My take is that it might help to use the “if/then” technique.
Link an activity to the time of day you’re going to do it as in:
If it’s 2:00 on a Sunday I’ll exercise. If it’s noon on a day I’m off I’ll make a salad.
Years ago I used to show up to the gym regular like clockwork between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. every Sunday without fail.
Of course this might be harder to accomplish when you have no energy.
Anxiety and depression have been on the rise in the time of the pandemic.
This is no joke. That’s why cutting yourself a break is warranted.
This is why making a salad when you can’t cook is perfectly fine.
I find that holding myself accountable to my readers enables me to practice what I preach.
The choir keeps me going.
Living Lively
Haile Thomas is the 19-year old author and motivational speaker of this book.
Per her Amazon sales page:
At 16 she was the youngest to graduate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition as a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach.
Her empowering guide offers 80 recipes plus exercise pages you can write in to activate your power.
She talks about 7 Points of Power:
Wellness
World perspective
Media and societal influences
Thoughts and mindset
Education
Relationships
Creativity and community
In keeping with the 8 Dimensions of Wellness on the homepage of this blog Haile Thomas breaks down Wellness into:
Spiritual wellness
Emotional / mental wellness
Physical wellness
Intellectual wellness
Environmental wellness
Social wellness
Financial wellness
I’m a 55-year old Generation X woman who is not in the target market for this Generation Z author’s book.
Yet I’ve bought this book which was just released this week in the market.
I’m keen to see whether the recipes feature healthful snacks that can replace chips and pretzels.
In my own life the only snack I’ve been having lately is a jar of Petit Pot chocolate pudding twice a week.
I’ve fallen down on eating fruit though I’ve been having a banana. And I have organic cherries that are in season right now.
When I make a salad I mix in blueberries or raspberries with olives chick peas carrots and cashews.
I’m not a big fan of fruit.
Yet I try my best to have 2 servings of fruit every day. An organic navel orange for breakfast. And a different serving of fruit for a snack in the afternoon.
I’m excited to start reading Living Lively. My take is that reading it could benefit individuals of all ages and stages of life.
Summering in Place
The COVID-19 outbreak is still in effect.
New York State has gone from having the highest number of cases to having the lowest number of infections as of today.
Where I live in Brooklyn people walk outdoors with open faces not covered with a mask or bandanna.
I walk far far away from these yahoos to get where I’m going.
It’s going on four months that everything shut down around here. We are now in Stage 3 of our reopening.
In this time I have achieved my goal using the Changeology 90-day action plan. My new goal is to cook my own dinners 5x per week.
I would like to talk in the next blog entry about imposing a structure on daily activity and automating a weekly routine.
Has anyone else found like I did that during the pandemic when you’re indoors you have whole chunks of time with nothing to do?
I would like to talk in the next blog entry too about what I’ve learned living through this pandemic.
More Ways to Get Energy
Today more than ever it’s imperative that we take care of ourselves.
Engaging in protest could drain us of energy. We don’t have time to wait to see progress. Today everyone’s tired of being told to wait. It takes a lot of physical stamina to march in the streets.
On the radio this week the disc jockey told listeners to take care of ourselves.
Each of us is possessed with a power bigger than our pain.
Yet sometimes the pain we feel–whether about injustice or our own illness or other things–can be overwhelming.
What do I think about how to take care of ourselves?
It comes down to conserving our energy for the tasks that are essential. Letting everything else slide.
I wrote in here recently about how to get energy. A Real Simple issue titled Find Your Balance has an article on The New Rules of Eating for Energy:
Eat protein for breakfast.
People who have a high-protein meal of about 30 grams first thing in the morning with low glycemic load food had the highest energy level.
Drink plenty of water.
I wrote about this in my last blog entry on getting energy.
Fatigue sets in when you get dehydrated.
Have a healthful snack during the day that has fiber protein and healthy fat.
This could be a handful of almonds or cashews or walnuts.
Eat more calories earlier in the day.
You have a food circadian rhythm. Having a moderate-sized meal for breakfast and lunch and a small meal for dinner could be the way to go.
Nix sugar as a source of energy.
After the initial blood-sugar spike you’ll be left drained.
Dine with friends.
As per the Real Simple energy article:
Social interaction has been shown to help people manage stress pain and sadness all of which are drains on energy.
There is a cookbook titled Protest Kitchen.
If I remember it caters to vegan recipes. You might be able to check it out of the library where you live. It’s available from the library system in Brooklyn NY.
Changing Habits
My epiphany with food and exercise occurred when I moved into a new apartment nine years ago.
In the 1q90s my weekly menu consisted of Velveeta mac-and-cheese (marginally OK when I added broccoli to it), hot dogs, hamburgers, frozen TV dinners and other cheap crap.
Not surprisingly I was 20 pounds overweight. That was my typical diet for too long. I kid you not I used to eat unhealthful food every week for years and years.
This hungry woman used to “treat” herself to Hungry Man TV dinners all the time.
So I can tell you that my story is living proof that it’s possible to change your exercise and eating habits at any point in your life.
I was 46 when I first started to lift weights and eat organic food.
I’m 55 now and feel better than ever.
I tell you this story to give readers hope.
I’ll end here with this:
Our lives are going to be too long not too short to put off doing what gives us joy and makes us feel good.
We should not have to live one minute longer in pain than we absolutely need to.
As a therapist once said: “Suffering for the sake of suffering is bullshit.”
The point is not that you have to be skinny or have six-pack abs.
The exclamation point is that feeling good feels so much better than being out of shape.
Good food as said can put you in a good mood.
I’m going to talk in the next blog entry about slowing down and focusing on the present moment.
A new documentary about Michael Jordan–the Last Dance–talks about 3 tactics he employed to win championships.
I’ll talk about them here because they can assist us in real life.
The Real Deal About Pasta
Once I told an M.D. that I wanted to lose weight.
“Lay off the pasta.” He laughed.
As an Italian person I should not be against eating pasta.
However most white food like rice pasta and potatoes is not healthful.
I’ve decided to have pasta at most once or twice a month.
The health coach I hired told me whole-wheat pasta isn’t a heck of a lot better than regular pasta.
The solution to maintaining your weight is to understand that having a “treat” like pasta every so often–as opposed to every week–could be fine.
Thinking in terms of having a “cheat day” when you’re “on a diet” is a mistake.
Thinking in terms of food being “good” or “bad” sets you up to fail.
In this blog years ago I touted my own strategy: the 80 percent rule: to eat healthful food 80 percent of the time.
Which for me hovers at 90 percent right now.
I’m the odd girl out because I love vegetables.
And I’m odd because I’m Italian and I rarely eat pasta.
My contention is that food that’s good for you can taste good.
How do I feel after eating pasta? Sluggish.
In a coming blog entry I’ll talk about ways to get more energy.
Weekly Menu
I thought I’d share with you my food menu for one week.
In the hope of corroborating the research on how eating healthful food can improve a person’s mood.
This was the menu I recorded for last week.
The items on this week’s menu were different on most days except for the snacks. Breakfast is the same every day.
My experience having eggs for breakfast every day shows that eggs are OK to have every week as an alternative to a box of cereal
I don’t think you’re going to harm your health by having eggs. Step away from the Skinny Bitch diet book that tells you not to have eggs.
The alternative–chocolate Special K with artificial flavors–I beg you please no.
Breakfast:
Two or three organic eggs with diced tri-color peppers and mushroom slices.
Monday:
Lunch:
Amy’s Organic butternut squash soup.
Snack:
PetitPot organic chocolate pudding.
Dinner:
Shrimp ring with cocktail sauce and salad.
Tuesday:
Lunch:
Organic lettuce chock full of raspberries, chickpeas, olives, carrots, and cashews.
Dinner:
Salmon filet with cauliflower.
Wednesday:
Lunch:
Again a salad like the one on Tuesday.
Dinner:
Maple-glazed turnips-and-carrots recipe.
Thursday:
Lunch:
Ditto for the salad.
Dinner:
Scallops with roasted root vegetables.
Friday:
Lunch:
Roasted butternut squash.
Dinner:
Again a salad chock full of goodies.
Saturday:
Lunch:
Amy’s Organic Chunky tomato soup.
Dinner:
Chicken cutlet with green beans.
Sunday:
Lunch:
Salad.
Dinner:
Tofu and broccoli in sesame oil.
Daily Snacks:
Organic raspberries or blackberries.
Organic Fair Trade bananas.
Organic Fuji apples.
Other fruit when in season.
After a workout:
Fage plain Greek yogurt full-fat kind with organic blueberries and a drizzle of raw honey.
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I don’t believe the beef industry hype that red meat or any kind of meat is good for you.
The most I eat is chicken and turkey and fish and seafood.
I don’t like that Driscoll’s seems to be the only option in town for berries. As I’m aware that Driscoll’s might not treat their farm workers fairly or justly.
I’m in favor of giving so-called “migrant” farm workers U.S. citizenship and a livable wage.
In the coming blog entry I’ll give the Maple-glazed turnips-and-carrots recipe.
I was surprised to find turnips for sale in a food market. So they might be available where you are too.
Full and Robust Life Hacks 