Bread, Canning, etc

With the exception of about as many things as I can count on one hand, my food pantry is officially clean! A few weeks ago, I pulled out what I thought was most of the "un-clean" products from my pantry and donated it to the church who was taking it to a local food shelter. However, I realized there was still alot of stuff I missed. So Wednesday night, I pulled the rest of the garbage out and boxed it up. When my family was here on Thursday, I told them to go through it and take whatever they wanted, because the rest would be going to the pantry. Between all of our family members, it all got taken, which makes me happy.

I'm really beginning to enjoy this whole bread baking thing. I haven't quite got the hang of it just yet because whole wheat dough isn't fluffy like white bread, or bread made with white flour. Even when they fortify it, or enrich it, the good nutrients have been sucked out of it, and it makes your body process it as sugar. The bread I've made so far has been pretty dense. It's good, but it really makes you realize how much crap is in "regular bread" that we're used to buying at the supermarket. Even fresh bread from the bakery has sugar or salt, or regular flour instead of only whole grains. I'm choosing to only eat breads made of whole grains now, and as a result, it looks like I'll be baking my own bread from now on. Tonight I'm going to make a loaf of sandwich bread using the recipe in the healthy bread book I just bought. I really hope that it turns out okay.

I think my weight is doing pretty good, even after turkey day. I am crossing my fingers that I will have a successful visit at the doc on Monday.

Some people think I've gone too extreme with this lifestyle change. Here's the thing though: I HAVE to be extreme. I don't feel that it's an option otherwise. Sugar is an addiction. It's the legal cocaine. Our bodies have grown accustomed to it, and "need" it to survive. While, yes, I can "cheat" every so often, I am choosing not to when at all possible. Sometimes I won't be able to help it. If I'm eating out, my options are very limited now. Yesterday for Black Friday, I chose to go to Atlanta Bread Company, a deli place, similar to Panera for those of you who have never heard of it. I got a bowl of butternut squash soup. Short of getting a salad, which I wasn't in the mood for, I felt that this was one of the best options for me to choose from as a quick decision. I will be downloading their nutrition guide, and educating myself on what other menu items may be safe for me to choose from in the future.

This takes ALOT of planning. It's hard because I have to think about it. But the payoff will be worth it. It's worth it to me to bake/cook without sugar. If I need salt, I can use sea salt. There are lots of websites that I've been referring to for menu ideas, and I'm learning to how to make some of my favorite menu items clean by substituting certain ingredients. Some people may so "Oh, I could never do that..." well, bullsh*t, yes you could. If you received the ultimatum that I did, that basically, I was going to become a diabetic, and my health would continuously deteriorate if I didn't stop eating garbage, and oh yeah, my body isn't healthy enough to have a baby right now, you would find it impossible to NOT make the changes I've made. I have needed this for years. I KNEW that I needed to make changes, but I didn't know how, and it wasn't ever severe enough for me to be forced to make the changes. Now it is, and I want to be successful at this.

My dad is a big guy. All the women on his side of the family were big women. I was becoming one of them. I told him on Thursday as I was explaining what changes I'm making and why that I didn't want to be like the other ladies in the family. He said he didn't blame me, and he encouraged me.


Just for giggles, here's what I've had to eat today:

Breakfast: Cream of Wheat with unsalted sweet cream butter (real stuff - not margarine spread) and honey for flavor.

Mid-morning snack:Garlic bread made with whole wheat bread dough, olive oil, left over roasted garlic (i roasted garlic bulbs on Thursday and mashed these up to put on the bread today) and mozzarella cheese.

Lunch: oatmeal protein smoothie (oatmeal, salt and sugar free Peanut butter, honey, protein powder, cinnamon, skim milk, ice cubes, flax seeds and sunflower seeds). This smoothie has become my breakfast staple during the week. I usually have this rather than coffee in the mornings now. I wasn't really in the mood for a full lunch so I made this smoothie instead.

left over pieces of ham as a mid afternoon snack. Not exactly clean due to fat content, but I tried to watch the pieces I ate to stay away from obvious fat pieces. At some point in the afternoon, I also had a small sliver of chocolate pecan pie - which I cleaned up the ingredients on. Definitely not something you want to eat every day, but it was a clean version of a fun treat.

Dinner: Turkey Broccoli Quiche. I found this recipe online by googling left over turkey recipes, and it was delicious. I used skim milk rather than half and half, and I did not add salt. This recipe won over the hubby seal of approval.


One last thing I wanted to mention - I'm learning to can. I bought a pressure canner yesterday and canned turkey stock left over from the bones. There's nothing like homemade stock which you know isn't loaded with salt like the stuff you'll buy at the grocery store. Stock is GREAT for cooking whole wheat pasta. I'm also looking forward to canning my own tomato sauce for pizza and pastas, homemade sloppy joes made with ground turkey meat, chili, etc. If I can just learn what I'm doing, I think I will be canning ALOT more often. I'm so excited about what new things this new lifestyle is forcing me to try - baking my own bread, canning pantry staples, etc... It's actually quite fun.