Recipes - Space Invaders

I find it essential to have go-to foods in times of cravings. It's not possible to just give up sweets, and no matter what any diet book says, when you want candy, fruit won't cut it. The first recipe I found and embraced for a "healthy" sweet is a variation on Christina Pirello's Asteroids recipe from her awesome website christinacooks.com. I have found a lot of variations on this recipe and have adapted it to my tastes. If the general idea of the recipe appeals to you, I suggest you do the same.

Jen's Space Invaders

1/2 cup nut butter (I usually use almond with a little bit of natural peanut)
1 T agave nectar plus brown rice syrup to make 1/2 cup
pinch of salt
dash of vanilla
small handful of grain-sweetened chocolate chips

small handful of chopped nuts (optional)
scant 2 cups crispy brown rice cereal (I like Nature's Path)

Combine first 5 ingredients in saucepan over med-low heat. Stir until chocolate chips melt. Remove from heat and mix in nuts and brown rice cereal. Spoon onto Saran Wrap, roll into a log and refrigerate until firm. Slice and eat to satisfy sweet cravings and minor hunger pains.

:)

Oh, to the French fry

I love French fries. Crispy and greasy on the outside, soft and moist in the middle, a good French fry is one of my all time favorite foods (second only to pasta). I'm a connoisseur of the fry - once I dreamed of having a French fry website, where I would list the best fries to be had (alas, I may have been too busy eating the fries to write about them.) I love fries dipped in ranch, tartar, thousand island, gravy. I love the soggy, fresh potato fries at Dick's Drive In and the garlic-y, overpriced fries at Safeco Field. Red Robin has excellent French fries, as did Wendy's (they've since changed their recipe and I've not tried them.) A good fry is a work of art.

I'm pretty much a fan of fried potatoes. Fries are my favorite, but I like potato chips, too. Kettle chips are the best - crunchy (but not too thick-cut) and greasy and just salty enough. Crispy hashbrowns and home fries are pretty amazing, too. Yeah, you get the point.

So, when I decided to cut simple carbs from my diet, I chose to eliminate the potato as well. I don't think potatoes are necessarily bad for you. They aren't refined sugar, by any means. But my fondness for them, especially in fried form, was not a good thing. There was more to my decision to stop eating potatoes, but essentially it boiled down to the fact that I couldn't see that they did me any good, so they had to go.

A funny thing happened within the first month of being white-carb-free. I was eating some roasted brussel sprouts, which were quickly becoming one of my favorite foods, and it occurred to me that what I really loved was greasy, salty and crunchy - not necessarily potato-y. Brussel sprouts (or carrots or asparagus) tossed with olive oil and salt and roasted in the oven until soft in the middle and crispy and caramelized on the outside fit the bill perfectly. Kale chips are pretty good when I want the crispness of a chip. And when I really want to dip a fry, I'll splurge and have sweet potato fries. In the last seven months, I've had a total of five French fries. I've had hundreds of brussel sprouts. And while I miss the fried potatoes from time to time, and occasionally even indulge (hence the five fries), it's not as much of a sacrifice when I find some filler in healthier snacks. Yummy.

In the beginning

As much as I rail against Diets, I do think that they are sometimes quite useful, like when you do an elimination diet to determine allergies or a cleanse to clear the toxins out of your system. When I started to change my dietary lifestyle, I began by following stage one of the South Beach Diet. This is the two-week radical, no-carb, low-fat diet that is usually followed by the next stage of SBD, which adds some healthier carbs (like beans, some fruits and starchier veggies) back into the fold. I didn't plan to continue on the SBD (being told what to do just makes me grumpy and resentful), but I liked the idea of giving my body a break from the junk I had been feeding it and the idea of starting relatively fresh after a two week "cleanse".

Two weeks without any carbs was a pain. I was grumpy. I was hungry. But I did start to learn some interesting things about myself. And I found that after two weeks with no carbs at all, the healthy ones I started adding back into my diet made me so happy. Brown rice noodles would have never had the same impact on me prior to the "Diet". Once again, the importance of perspective was driven home.

Let's get healthy? A little background.

In the late summer of last year (2010) I realized that I wasn't happy with how I felt. I was overweight, in near-constant pain and trying to adjust (and embrace) the changes that come with aging. I decided that I wanted to be healthier. I have always been pretty stubborn about eating what I want. I don't believe in diets, as they are destined to fail and make you miserable in the process. I didn't want that. What I wanted was to figure out what would work for me.

I did two weeks of dairy free. I half-heartedly tried to cut out some of the fat from my diet. I asked my doctor (who, surprisingly, never once suggested I make lifestyle changes to get healthier) what she suggested if I wanted to get healthy. She suggested the South Beach Diet. So I checked out the book. And I read.

And I read about blood sugar and gi levels. And I read about whole foods. Over the next few months, I read a lot. And I changed my thinking about food, health and what eating meant to me. I continue to adapt my sense of health and self every day. I do not follow South Beach. I don't follow any "diet" because my feelings towards diets haven't changed. "Diets" don't work. Changing self perception and definitions has worked (and continues to work) for me. In seven months I've discovered a lot about who I am, who I can be and in the process, I've lost 43 lbs.

With this blog, I hope to share some of the things I've learned about myself and food in general that I hope can be useful to others trying to live healthier lives.