Day 57 - Juice Fast and still organic

Gosh! Has it been really almost 3 weeks that I haven't written a post?!
Well, Tom watched the movie "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" and introduced the idea to me to start a juice fast. I was not too excited about it, because I know how I feel when I am hungry. It's sort of the resemblance of Jackyl & Hyde. I get shaky, irritated, weak, and lightheaded when I don't eat and thinking about fasting for 10 days sounded horrible to me. But I am not a person to generally say no, so we started our Juice Fast last Tuesday. It went well for 2 days and at the end of the second day I came home, shaky, super irritated, hungry and with a horrible headache. The headaches started from the first day and continued until we introduced some solid food.




A juice fast consists of juices from all kinds of vegetables and fruits. I like the fruit juices but am a little hesitant when it comes to vegetable juices. It's not that I don't like vegetables, quite the contrary. We eat vegetables every day. Well, since we are eating only organic food, naturally we only buy organic vegetables and fruits. We now adjusted our juice fast after that second day to the following:

Breakfast - fruit juice at 9 a.m.
Lunch - slice of organic bread with some hummus
Afternoon snack - vegetable or fruit juice
Dinner - huge salad (organic)
For cravings - juices

This system seems to work really well and I am able to continue with this until our 10 days are over. Luckily this Friday we are officially done with our fast. I know that the essential fast juice, according the movie that inspired Tom does not allow any solid foods, but since we are not really trying to detox but lose weight we think that this works best for us.

Around dinner time it is the hardest! This week taught me a lot about my still unhealthy diet patterns. Here is an interesting aspect I learned about myself.

The weekends to me are relaxing, fun-filled and merely make up for the entire work week. We start our Saturday morning with our famous chocolate chip raspberry pancakes or a egg/bacon breakfast. On the weekends we just really let ourselves go. I think I have to admit but I am a emotional over-eater. I love to spend the weekends eating crap! Compared to a lot other people, crap is not fast food or greasy unhealthy things, but "soul food". Last weekend was a real struggle. We woke up and had to change our routine of gathering around the breakfast table to devour our pancakes. Instead we made a juice and that was it! How fulfilling...NOT!!

I also noticed when we had our first dinner, while I walked with my plate to the living room I chomped down 3 tortellinis. But my intentions were to enjoy my dinner and eat it consciously and enjoy every single bite. After I caught myself, I started to cut my tortellinis in three pieces and eating them very slowly. I think I am an over-eater!! Also, on some days when I just felt down or discouraged, I craved really unhealthy things..things that I haven't eaten for years. 

Despite all this I lost 4 lbs and I feel great! In the beginning I was too weak to do anything! I couldn't even work out! After the second day I started working out at the gym again and I feel that I am getting more toned. I even fit into my old dresses! Yay! I hope by Friday I will lose some more weight.

The reason I was not writing more post on here, was mainly that we got so used to eating organic and it is not a challenge for us anymore. We really enjoy eating organic and have made it our regular diet. Yes, there are the occasional non-organic foods like bbq we attend or some dining-out but generally we make health-conscious decisions. I think this part helped us to get by with this juice fast as far as we did or still doing. I am not craving sweets and have not put any sugar in my body for the past week (besides fruit sugar).

We talked about doing a juice fast every month for one week. We both don't like the pure juice diet but it surely is beneficial and healthy. Well, this is just a short update and I will try to post more often, but I think I am going to minimize my posts.


After all a healthy adult should be eating 70-90% of fruits & vegetables a day! Crazy? Yes. Doable? Absolutely!

Day 38 - How to shop for organic produce

About a week ago when I was standing in line at the self-check at Fred Meyer, a middle-aged lady in line behind me asked me "Wow, where did you find those tomatoes?" "Just over there (I pointed in direction)..and added "..in the organic produce section." 

The lady took an unconscious tiny step away from me and said to me with a tone and manner that conveyed that buying organic tomatoes was above her needs. I quickly added "They are really affordable only $1.39 a pound!" She seemed intrigued but not convinced and brushed it off and said "Oh, well...I am already in line." I offered her to take the spot in front of me in line since she only had one tomato in her hand. When I was loading up my organic vegetables and fruits on the counter and scanned them over the scanner, I realized that I must be a minority at Fred Meyer and buying organic is still a very foreign concept to many people. The lady gave me an impression that she would not be able to afford the organic prices, but yet here I am with a below the average income loading up on organic produce. And I had it all - strawberries, oranges, zucchini, lettuce, cucumbers, apples, blackberries...you name it. Yes, I did spend about $20 but that included other things as well, not only organic produce. And let me tell you, they looked so delicious and good that I couldn't wait to get home to wash the apple and share it with our daughter. 

Going to the grocery store with a 2 year-old is always a battle and a stressful experience. Therefore I started to bring Amelie's plastic toy shopping cart to the grocery store with us. This way I can involve her in the shopping process. We pick the fruits together, she learns this way the name of fruits and vegetables. She is excited to put all the groceries in her tiny shopping cart - at times when I stand in front of the shelves and make tiny remarks about prices and ingredients with a certain body language, I look down at Amelie and see that she is watching every detail and copying what I am doing. I am using this to my advantage and set a good example on how to shop and what to buy. She is not getting it, but she can now differentiate which vegetables look good and which we rather pass on.

The experience in the check-out line inspired me to write a post about the "how to shop for organic produce and still save money". I feel that a lot friends understand the importance of organic food and would like to buy it too, but I also hear a lot of valid concerns about their finances. One thing I can guarantee you, we consider ourselves at times pretty "poor" - most of my friends don't have children, and the ones that have children generally make a little more than our family. Of course we are not poor but we can't afford many luxurious things. Yet we decided that our diet consists mainly of organic food. And so far the past two months were def. doable. 

We buy organic produce at two stores only. One is the Coop the other is Fred Meyer. Coop is most of the time pretty overpriced but you can find great deals and at times you can find produce that is cheaper than Fred Meyer. Bananas at Walmart generally cost $.33/lb (we used to buy 5-6 bananas and half of them we threw away). Now we are buying bananas (most of the time red tag = some brown spots but generally no difference inside) at Coop for $.60/lb, which is twice as much as the Walmart bananas. Well, we just buy 3 bananas and spend the same amount. Apples either at Fred Meyer or Coop cost somewhere between $1.39 and $1.59 per pound - I don't even know what the average price of apples are at regular stores but we buy 4-5 apples and the prices don't kill us. 

We buy organic bulk spinach for $3.69/lb - spinach doesn't way much so a half pound is a huge bag full of spinach and costs about $1.80. We like to make salads, use it for Greek feta/spinach pastries, on sandwiches, on burgers, on the side. If you don't like spinach, organic lettuce is the same price as it is in the regular store. A small head of lettuce is only $1.99 and Fred Meyer and Coop have the same prices. Tomatoes are an exception, tomatoes can be pretty pricey. I think we buy the cheapest organic variety of tomatoes at Coop (again same prices at Fred Meyer) they run about $3.69/$3.99 a pound. Therefore we only buy 2-3, which is not a bad idea because in the past we bought about 5-6 and again we threw about 2-3 out because they get moldy after a while. 

I love to buy organic oranges, juicy, fresh and super tasty. In the past I hated buying oranges, because I generally ended up getting old, dry oranges that tasted so bad that I didn't even finished a quarter of it. I even tried buying really expensive ones (non-organic) and it was always a 50/50 chance to get a juicy one. Now that we are buying only organic oranges I know that each time I peel an orange I know it will be juicy. I can't remember the orange prices but again we don't buy many of them. The rule is that fruits and vegetables have to be bought every 3 days.

Zucchini, super great deals! Zucchini generally cost about $1.00/lb - they can be fried with garlic in a pan, zucchini can be added to any dish, even the famous zucchini bread is yummy. Peaches...peaches..peaches...let me tell you about peaches. Have you eaten a peach lately without a broken pit? I do..all the time now. In the past I ate gross, dry, flavorless peaches with a broken pit. What is it about the broken pit? The organic peaches are so juicy that the juice even runs down all the way to my elbow. Hahaha..I absolutely recommend organic peaches - they cost about $1.39/lb - you can get 2-3 peaches for few bucks. I recommend to weight all your fruits and vegetables and choose the smaller and not so heavy ones, to save some money. 

Bell peppers are really expensive, therefore this rule of weight applies particularly to bell peppers. In the past we used to buy bell peppers all the time, which I have to say that the red and orange peppers even the non-organic peppers are already pretty overpriced. Result of that - we don't buy organic bell peppers very often.

Fred Meyer has great strawberries. I honestly don't know the prices of non-organic strawberries but I don't feel that I am paying a lot more buying them organic. A regular plastic box of organic strawberries costs $3.00 or two for $5.00. They are so good. I don't know if I am officially allergic to strawberries, but each time I eat non-organic strawberries my throat starts to itch. It goes away after 30 - 60 min. (it feels like getting a cold). We have purchased about 3 boxes in the past 2 months and I am always waiting for the itch in the throat, but didn't get that with organic strawberries yet. I don't know if it is just a coincidence or if it has anything to do with the pesticides or other things. Still testing.

To sum it up - organic produce is def. a little bit more than non-organic but try to buy half of what you used to buy (unless you need a large quantity for a certain recipe) and you will end up not throwing so much out and will essentially spend the same amount of money. Look what is seasonal and always know your prices - the prices change frequently. The other tip on saving money is try to buy smaller sizes. If you buy broccoli get the ones with the smallest stem (they weigh a lot). Grow your own garden if you have the space, even if it is a small space or in pots. If you can't buy certain produce organic, that's o.k. too. But know your "dirty dozen".

List is ranked in order of the amount of pesticide used:

1. Apples – 98 percent of conventional apples had pesticides
2. Celery – tested positive for 57 different pesticides
3. Strawberries – some had as many as 13 different pesticides
4. Peaches
5. Spinach
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes (imported)
8. Sweet bell peppers
9. Potatoes
10. Blueberries (domestic)
11. Lettuce
12. Kale/collard greens

Another recommendation is to focus on items from the “Clean 15” list – those with the least pesticide residue.

1. Onions – less than 1 percent had any pesticides
2. Sweet corn – 98 percent of all frozen and sweet corn samples had no detectable pesticide residue (I PERSONALLY DON'T EAT ANY NON-ORGANIC CORN DUE TO GMO - BUT THAT'S MY PERSONAL CHOICE - AS YOU MIGHT HAVE READ I AM ABSOLUTELY AGAINST GMO)
3. Pineapples – only 6 different pesticides were found
4. Avocado
5. Asparagus
6. Sweet peas
7. Mangoes
8. Eggplant
9. Cantaloupe (domestic)
10. Kiwi
11. Cabbage
12. Watermelon
13. Sweet potatoes
14. Grapefruit 

15. Mushrooms 

I hope that gives you a better view on how to shop for organic produce, where to buy it and what the average prices are. I feel much better knowing I am not taking any risk, but an important aspect to us is that I have been very satisfied with the quality of organic produce. I prefer organic produce over non-organic due to that fact!

If you have any questions, feedback, ideas, suggestions - please let me know. You live and learn!

WISDOM OF THE DAY 

A four-year, $25 million European Union funded study found that with regards to organic food compared to "regular" food:  

There are 40% more antioxidants in organic food 

Milk that is taken from organic herds contains 90% more antioxidants 

There are higher levels of beneficial minerals like zinc (something almost everyone is deficient in) and iron in the organic produce. 

Day 37 - Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I don't know if you heard about Jamie Oliver, you might have heard about his various cookbooks. Today I learned through a friend that he does actually more than that. Jamie Oliver is promoting awareness and a good diet. He uncovers all the myths and states the ugly facts that we struggle with here in the U.S. He is a good speaker, I watched his speech on youtube. Therefore I would like to share a video with you.The video is about 20 min. long so watch it if you get some spare time and are interested - watch this video. 

He is pretty serious about what he promotes. The facts make me sad and angry at the same time. Schools in the US provide continuously unhealthy food to our children and it is a real challenge to change these bad habits in our schools. I am getting anxiety when I think about that Amelie will going to school one day and eat all the crap they provide at lunch time.

SAD..SAD..SAD!! At the same time you don't want to send your child with lunch to school to ostracize them to become the focus of bullies. Growing up in Germany, we always had quality food and hot dogs, french fries, pizza, hamburgers WERE CONSIDERED FAST FOOD! Do I need to say it again?? FAST FOOD - no real cooking required. I think the U.S.  is far from being ready to change this, but Jamie Oliver makes a huge effort to change that.  Good for him! I googled him and found his FOOD REVOLUTION website. I am going to get involved and I will do anything possible to get involved. Please get involved, if you are not interested about your own health, maybe you should think about your young children. 

There is a US map on his website and IDAHO has only 3000 supporters...maybe we should all get involved. My blog focuses mainly on organic food, and if I am not mistaken Jamie battles unhealthy nutrition - I feel that organic food and a healthy diet go hand in hand. 

WISDOM OF THE DAY

Childhood Obesity Facts and Statistics   (these are facts collected in 2011)          

 
One out of every seven low income children in America is obese.
More than 70% of the obese youth are at higher risk of heart diseases.
The hospital costs for children were 35 million in the 1980s and these have increased to 127 million today.
Type 2 diabetes has reached to the levels of 8-9 %; a two-fold increase from the early 1980s.
Obese children are at a higher risk of developing liver diseases, asthma and Sleep Apnea (problems in breathing while sleeping).
Children with obesity have a low self-esteem and the chances of developing psychological problems like depression and anxiety are higher.
Obese children have lesser concentration levels and get tired easily, which can pose challenges in their education and their participation in other extra-curricular activities.
Obese children are subject to a lot of social discrimination and this may cause them to stay away from exercises and social interactions.
Most of the people who complain of arthritis are middle-aged, but obese children are at the risk of developing this disease early on in their lives.
Obesity also takes a toll on the financial health of a family as estimates suggest that a family with an obese child spends 30% more in health costs and 77% more in medication costs.

Day 36 - Another home-made soup

The holidays are over and we are both back to regular routine, which includes a better diet. I made an organic vegetable lentil soup I found in the book I blogged about few weeks ago.

The Veggie Kids book is not only for kids, we can benefit from this, too.

I am planning on making every single recipe from this book. With all the healthy cooking I am learning so many new things. For example, I have never heard about red lentils. We purchased some from the bulk section at Co-op - very inexpensive. The recipe asked for a 1/2 cup of red lentils. So, naturally everything in the book can be replaced with as many organic vegetables/fruits as possible. I am excited that we get Amelie to eat so many vegetables without even knowing she is eating them. She struggled with this one a little bit more than the orange-carrot soup, but ended up eating most of her soup. The soup recipes books I have ordered from the library finally came in but were a little disappointing - too hard, too many exotic ingredients and nothing really that I am seeing myself getting excited about.

This soup includes:

• Carrots
• Onions
• Parsley
• Coriander
• Vegetable stock
• Salt & pepper
• Red lentils

If you want the recipe email me, get the book from the library or simply buy it on Amazon. It's less than $4 with shipping.

WISDOM OF THE DAY 

red lentil    Notes:   The most common type of red lentil is the Red Chief.  It's a lovely salmon pink in its dried form, but it turns golden when cooked.  These lentils cook faster than others.  They're best in purées or soups.

Day 35 - Happy 4th!!

We are spending the holiday in Twin Falls with Tom's parents. I wanted to make some organic breakfast and lunch today for them. Since we still had tons of raspberries left, I made my famous chocolate chip raspberry pancakes. It was rich and filling.

Amelie waiving at the parade

Since I have never been at a 4th of July parade, we drove to a nearby town called Buhl and watched the small-town parade. Amelie scored a spot in the front and was even offered a seat in kid chair from some lady at the parade. A parade includes a lot of candy and sweet things. Amelie ate a Popsicle and grandpa collected all the candies thrown at her - and we saved them for her after a nap. Anything before that would have ended up in a disaster, you don't mess with kids when they are tired, nor do you fuel their "sugar" energy with candies..hahaha

Buhl parade

We used to buy the Cloverleaf milk from the Boise Co-op. It's the glass bottle with deposit. The dairy farm is located in Buhl and I heard they had a little store where they sell their ice-cream in Buhl so we stopped by there after the parade. Since the pancakes were so rich & chocolaty I didn't have an urge to eat any more sugar, but Tom purchased a scoop and shared  it with Amelie. I was surprised to see that their milk was $1 less than it costs in Boise. They also had local frozen trout, eggs and local honey. The honey was a little overpriced but everything else was very reasonable. 

 For lunch I made garden burgers and a salad from our homegrown lettuce. The last time I made the garden burgers they turned out a little bit to dry therefore I added onions and zucchini which I purchased at the Berry Ranch. Their zucchini was only $1/lb. I love the yellow zucchini they are a little sweeter and juicier in taste. Looks like everyone enjoyed the burgers, because all of the burgers were eaten. We topped the garden burger patties with cheese to add a little extra taste.

For the 4th of July BBQ Tom's parents prepared salmon, salad, yellow and a fruit salad. With filled bellies we walked to a nearby park to watch the firework. We also had Chicken-Feta-Spinach sausages for Amelie, but we never utilized them. One thinks that a typical holiday BBQ has to entail hot dogs but who says that this is the only way? It was very nice to enjoy a healthy 4th BBQ. 

Our BBQ dinner

Amelie eating salmon,potatoes & jello

I really liked the Twin Falls fireworks! We sat in the park on our lawn chairs and enjoyed the weather and fireworks, while Amelie kept trying to get everyone's attention.

 

Tom, Amelie and me at the park waiting for the fireworks

HAPPY FOURTH!!

Day 34 - Lazy family Sunday...so relaxing!!

Grandpa & Amelie on our family walk

Today was an uneventful day, mainly because we were on the road for about 2 hours to visit Tom's parents. It's always nice to spend time with them and this year we decided to spent 4th of July with them. Since Tom's parents are aware that we are trying to maintain an organic diet they really tried to accommodate us and provided a lot of healthy dinner options. Thanks guys!

As a lot of people might believe, we are not ONLY organic. Particularly not when we are visiting or attending other people's dinner or BBQs. We try our best to eat an organic diet, but are not going to sweat it if we don't eat organic outside the house. We surely can tell the difference, because the diet changes are messing with our bodies...if you know what I mean. I don't need to get into detail here, but you can figure it out...hint hint...

View from the Twin Falls Canyon Rim

Tom's parents have a vegetable garden and we had a delicious lettuce from a home grown garden. Tom's mom makes a really great organic fudge with organic coconut oil. It is to die for. I really appreciate the effort and support! The evening was spent taking a great walk after dinner around the Twin Falls Canyon rim.

WISDOM OF THE DAY 

Coconut oil is very useful in reducing weight. It contains short and medium-chain fatty acids that help in taking off excessive weight. It is also easy to digest and it helps in healthy functioning of the thyroid and enzymes systems. Further, it increases the body metabolism by removing stress on pancreases, thereby burning out more energy and helping obese and overweight people reduce their weight. Hence, people living in tropical coastal areas, who eat coconut oil daily as their primary cooking oil, are normally not fat, obese or overweight.

Immunity:

Coconut oil is also good for the immune system. It strengthens the immune system as it contains antimicrobial lipids, lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid which have antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral properties. The human body converts lauric acid into monolaurin which is claimed to help in dealing with viruses and bacteria causing diseases such as herpes, influenza, cytomegalovirus, and even HIV. It helps in fighting harmful bacteria such as listeria monocytogenes and heliobacter pylori, and harmful protozoa such as giardia lamblia.

Day 33 - Berry Ranch & Raspberry muffins

Today my friend Franzi, her husband, her kids, Amelie and I went to our local Berry Ranch. The Farm sells meat, veggies, eggs and has few animals like chickens, cows and sheep. The Berry Farm lets you pick your own berries during the summer time. In fall you can pick your own pumpkins. I never inquired about their use of pesticides but will give them a call next week. We picked raspberries fresh from the bushes. One in the basket, one for the mouth. After eating bunch of raspberries, I felt like I sucked on chalk. Either it was dirt or pesticides. I felt a little sick towards the evening but can't really tell what the source of my upset stomach was, followed by a loose bowel movement. 

You have to pay a flat fee of $5.77 for one adult, kids under 3 are free. A pound of raspberries costs $3.15 - essentially you need to pick about 1 1/2 lb to cover your cost. It was hard to estimate how much we picked because generally you buy a tiny plastic box of raspberries at the store. I filled a box (The Berry Ranch provides that) and ended up having 3 lbs of raspberries. What to do, what to do? Well, the next morning we had raspberry chocolate wheat pancakes and I made 12 raspberry chocolate whole-wheat buttermilk muffins from a recipe I found online. I used only unrefined organic sugar and a little sea salt and followed the recipe to a "T". And they turned out really good. You can find the recipe here. 

Whole-wheat raspberry buttermilk muffins

 Now that we still have a lot of raspberries left, I will make more muffins, more pancakes and some other delicious snacks/desserts until we are out of raspberries. I bet raspberries would also taste great in a salad. 

Me and Amelie at the Berry Ranch

WISDOM OF THE DAY 

Freezing is recommended for long-term storage.  All berries can be prepared with or without sugar or syrup; For freezing they should be packed in an airtight container, leaving 1-inch of head space. Without sugar: Frozen berries should be used within 3 months.