What I am eating this week - February 9, 2009

We had a neighborhood party here at our house on Sunday. I made the drinks and everyone who came - about 45 people brought something to eat. Well, when we were all done and everyone had left, we had a table food of leftovers! Mostly cookies and chocolates. So keeping this in mind, here starts the food that I am eating this week.

Monday February 9.
Tea with milk when I woke up. Nino brought this for me in bed. I love my tea in bed.
Then when I got downstairs, another big cup of tea with milk.
For breakfast I had a few cookies, some chocolates and grapes.
Lunch came and went - I was busy recreating my financial records which were wiped out when my hard drive crashed last week. Nino fended for himself and made a nice lunch of salmon, and steamed veggies. I wasn't hungry because of all the goodies I had at tea time, so I skipped lunch.
Got a little peckish at 7 and had rooibos and chocolate.
Went upstairs at 8pm to watch Helen Mirren as detective Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect TV series.
So I can see that today was one of those days that I didn't focus on what I am eating - to put it lightly.

Tuesday February 10.
Tea in bed.
Tea when I got downstairs.
Soup with a tomato base, with black beans, kidney beans, sauted onion, a handful of corn, garlic, a few pieces of chicken for Nino. I ate one piece of chicken, but didn't really like the texture that much, so gave all the other little pieces of chicken to Nino.
Cup of tea after lunch with a chocolate kiss for dessert.
A cup of rooibos tea with milk.

Wednesday February 11
Tea in bed.
A huge breakfast with muesli, extra raisins, a banana, 2 strawberries, a handful of walnuts, a handful of almonds, almond milk and soy milk.
Tea at teatime.
Tea at lunchtime with a cookie.

Cecilia's Progress Report December 16, 2008

In the last month or so, I have been eating about 50% raw and 50% cooked vegetarian food. My waist has stayed the same, which is good. It will have stops and starts on the way to smaller numbers. I am grateful that the number is not getting bigger. So I am still at 40 inches around my waist.

In the last month I have read a lot about permaculture, and am really looking forward to putting it all into practice when the spring comes. I will however start making a sheet mulch bed or two so that I can start planting in the spring.

We will also start a permaculture blog to journal the process we are going through with that.

I am really satisfied with eating the way I am doing now - will just slowly more more towards raw. I do feel that when I don't eat good food that my system tells me so. So I focus on eating healthy things where I go.

I also got a good tip from, I think, dr. Oz - make the same food for 2 of the meals of the day. I like that. I don't want to create a whole palaver when just quickly want to eat something. So for breakfast I am still on my muesli and for lunch I make a smoothie with what I have in the kitchen. Works for me.

Then for supper I will cook something for us - vegetarian for me and I add salmon for my husband.

Latest from JP - dec 9

I've been continuing raw food since my last November 27 update, with an interruption last weekend when I visited a Japanese family and got to go to a Japanese elementary school (小学校) for a day. It was an overnight stay, so I had dinner and breakfast with the family. Dinner was a small salad, sashimi (raw fish, which tastes wonderful), cooked eggplant, beef, rice, and a few other Japanese-style foods. Was a very nice treat, and I slept well (although went to sleep a bit late at 11pm). Breakfast the next morning was toast with jam, sausages, and milk. I also helped myself to a banana and mikan (orange). Unfortunately I didn't sleep well the next night, and perhaps because of all the food I ate I was constantly feeling like eating something--a rather unsettling feeling. I also had a bit of a headache, and was very un-grounded today because of the poor night of sleep.

Other than that I have been having a banana-orange-blueberry smoothie in the morning, and one of my salads for lunch. They taste great, and I'm not getting tired of them yet. When I do, obviously I'll start making something different. Every now and then I have a canteloupe or some other treat I buy from the produce market. I recently ran out of oatmeal, and I am resorting to another salad or smoothie for dinner, plus treats like nuts/raisins/banana with honey. I think I would be better off finding another good recipe I can rely on for the evening.

I also watched Simply Raw - Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days on Google Video. I was surprised how much drama some people could bring into a simple dietary change. In the beginning, only three of the people in the video were very emotionally mature, but by the end everyone had improved in terms of the clarity with which they view themselves and the world. Also, everyone had lost weight, gotten off all their medications, and all but one was off insulin. It's not a thriller, but still might be interesting for those that want to see how a small selection of people have changed over 30 days on raw food. There are also some really nice recipes shown on the video, although it isn't the focus. If you glance over them you might get some good ideas!

Permaculture, Self Sustaining Gardening

One thing lead to another - first we wanted to eat healthier, then we decided to grow our own food, and John-Paul discovered permaculture. So we embraced that because it just makes so much sense.

It was developed by Bill Mollison from Tasmania, Australia in the 1970's. He was awarded a Nobel prize for his work.

The idea that we have is that we start on a small scale here at home, and build it up from there. My goal was to get the best book for our purposes, so I ordered a whole bunch of books from the library to see which I should buy. I have read a few and so far found that the following were really helpful. I will continue to add to this blog when I find others that I like.

Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway
The One Straw Revolution [link to PDF] by Masanobu Fukuoka
Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison

I have also watched a bunch of YouTube videos, and the following are really good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W15RRvKyJSk - Global Gardener Series, Dryland Permaculture, with Bill Mollison [Part Two] [Part Three]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptIttqU1H8Y - Masanobu Fukuoka Seed Balls

It is now winter, so I am going to identify a couple of places that we want to start developing. Then I want to start developing the healthy ground in those areas by building up compost areas in the local areas. Then when spring comes we are ready to start.

November Raw Food Spending for JP

There isn't a lot of information about how much people spend on raw food, and thus I hope you find my own spending benchmark useful. If you would like to share your own spending habits, or have any suggestions about how to spend food money wisely, please feel free to write us a comment.

Total Food Expenses: ~$270

Breakdown:

• $140 - Costco Supplies (about 70% of these have been used). This includes oatmeal, frozen fruit, soy milk, dried fruit/raisins, sesame seed powder, and pecans/walnuts. Of these supplies, only the oatmeal was essential. I could eliminate the soy milk and use the nuts more wisely. This section could be reduced to $50 per month, and I should see how I can reduce spending in this area.
  
• $80 - A small organic produce store where I get my lettuce, carrots, apples, bananas, oranges, parsley, peppers, sprouts, etc. Anything that comes from the ground or a tree. This $80 is all used, and combined with $20 from produce bought from other stores, $100 is enough for all the fruits and vegetables, it would seem.
  
• $45 - some other supplies, including $20 produce. Also things like olive oil, vinegar, tofu, nori, etc.

$270 is acceptable to me, and as far as monthly expenses I am spending my money very efficiently. It is an improvement the previous month's $470 for food, not including eating out.

Hope that was useful for you.
Cheers,
JP

Balcony Garden Photos

In my last post I mentioned that I had planted a small new garden on my balcony. I uploaded my first photographs of the patio garden to picasaweb, picasaweb.google.com/jp.simonis/FukuokaPatioGarden.

And as an unexpected update, the clouds here in Fukuoka are grumbling and rumbling very loudly, and a recent flash of lightning switched off the internet . . . and that just came back 10 seconds ago.

In any case, enjoy the photos. The garden smells good. I hope the basil pulls through.

Latest from JP - nov 27

In this issue, we have a failed homemade soy milk attempt, a new garden, some new information and ideas, and some interesting bodily sensations.

Soymilk
Well, I had some soy beans lying around that I had bought weeks before, and I tried to make some soy milk per this recipe on youtube. Tried. I soaked some huge soy beans overnight, then tossed them in the blender with some water and put them into a pot. I boiled the stuff just like that, and then tried to strain it in a towel (erm.. cheesecloth alternative?). Much to my surprise, the soy milk didn't even so much as make the towel wet, let alone leak through it as I had hoped. My bathroom was now full of bean stains in the sink, on the toilet, in the bathtub. Luckily I had a large strain that is usually used to wash vegetables, and the holes in that were almost the right size. After straining the chunky, gritty soy bean mixture a few times I boiled it for a few more minutes in the kitchen. I added some flavor, then tasted it. Yum! Only problem is that as soon as it got cold, it started to taste like . . . how do I put words to this . . . cold porridge with brussel sprout flavoring? Anyway, the soy milk is now in the sewer system, I'm afraid to say.

New Garden
Yesterday I got up and decided that I wanted to make a garden for myself on my 4x12 foot patio. I am on the first floor of a dormitory complex in Fukuoka, Japan, and my room faces east to meet the rising sun. Instead of waiting to get nice wooden gardening boxes, I took some large cardboard boxes that were sitting around my room and made do with what I had. I went across the street to the Aeon mall, and bought four 10-liter bags of soil, a packet of lettuce seeds, a small lavender, a bean plant, six small green-purple lettuce plants, some small flowers, a flower creeper, parsley, and a few other varieties. On average, each little plant was 2-3 inches wide and 2-3 inches tall. I added the dirt into the boxes, tucked in the plants, and gave them a little something to drink. I'll edit this post tomorrow and post some pictures--it really is a cute little garden, and I'm quite excited to see it become more beautiful and more tasty.. much munch.

New Ideas
My investigations into permaculture have dredged up some other topics. Particularly the idea of Peak Oil [Wikipedia], which is the point in time at which oil extraction has peaked. The global demand for oil is, of course, still increasing rapidly. The estimate for the arrival of this event is anywhere from 2007 (already passed) to 2020 and beyond. I'm not sure exactly how important/monumentous it will be, but unless we can hire some saints to pull oil out of thin air, oil is eventually going to fade from our lives, along with everything it brings with it. Plastic bags, emissions pollution, energy-inefficient housing, commutes, global economy, cheap computers, clothes driers, to name a few. Here's an excellent video about the artificial peak oil in Cuba, when the country was cut off from their oil supply after the end of the Cold War: The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil [Google Video]. Quite inspirational and interesting, and makes you think about how fragile a society is that relies so completely on the cheap availability of oil. Then again, maybe it's a load of BS ;)

New Sensations
Yesterday and today I have felt just a little more antsy than usual. I wondered why, and came up with a few answers. (1) It's a new moon, and according to my handy lunar informer, "Everything is in decline now - life energy, emotions and physiological activity. For this reason, any projects which require significant effort are not advisable now. This is an inauspicious time for people with low blood pressure". (2) Maybe there is some emotional detox occurring. Not sure why, but it's a possibility.

Whatever the reasons, I have found that eating heavier food removes the symptoms. It seems that the faster the digestion, the faster both physical and energetic toxins are unearthed and removed from the system. So I ate some curry with rice this afternoon, which put a chunk of lead in my stomach and made my stomach think it was full, and also took the edge off the emotional detox.