Trip to the Farmer's Market Never Fails to Induce Guilt

I read Mother Earth News. I grow some vegetables and fruits in my yard with varying success. I see the wisdom and veracity in eating local. I was one of the few subscribers to the one and only CSAs in our valley while it existed. I love that my town has a farmers market. But apparently that market is not meant for me. 

When I lived in LA I could fill to overflowing two or three canvas bags with fruits and veg for $20 or $30. More than I could prepare in a week. But we were dinks then. Still, it didn't break my budget. And I dare say they were farther flung farms from LA than the Coachella Valley where I am now, no doubt driving farther than they'd have to to reach Palm Desert. 

I went to the farmers market this morning thinking, "Perfect. I have $20 in my wallet and I haven't been able to get to the grocery store in a week. I'll be able to knock out my family's fruit and veg needs before work!"

Uh, not so much. While I subscribe to the wisdom of eat local, eat organic, I can't manage to squash it into my family's grocery budget at the store. This, claim innumerable articles in all those hippie foodie magazines I read, is where your local farmers market comes in. Just buy direct from the farmer, you're cutting out the middleman, so getting it at a great price. 

Again, not so much. I don't know if it is because I live in a city considered affluent by outsiders that the prices were so high but with one quarter of my weekly food budget in my pocket I could have afforded exactly fixins for one large salad. That would have been a great meal no doubt. But how could any responsible parent spend one fourth of their weekly food budget on one meal?

If I shopped at my local Bristol Farms I'd be hard pressed to spend $4 on one head of organic lettuce. And these farmers were not even claiming designation of organic, all difficulty in obtaining that designation aside, what, I wonder would I be paying for?  As lovely as that head of lettuce may be or as tasty as those $5 a pound cucumbers I'm certain are, that does not get around the fact that the farmers market is MORE expensive than our highest end market. 

Is this really the way it's supposed to be?  I want to support farmers and I felt awful leaving empty handed this morning, but if supporting them means that I don't have enough to feed my family, how does that help anybody?

This is really worth another look.

Un-raw Update

So I baked peanut butter cookies tonight. I cannot tell you how many tenets of raw fooding that broke.

I thought it would be easier doing this detox while the hubby was out of town. You know, one less finicky mouth to feed. But I underestimated, oh you know, how much life circumstances get in the way. A late meeting and my stepmom, who was nice enough to watch my kids and to make dinner, which I get to after 7 and starving. And portability problems and then there is the avocado thing. Nearly every salad recipe on the menu has it. All well and good for most but not my tummy. Can't eat it, makes me sick.

Ok fine. Then of course Fridays are a bust as previously noted. So not quite the weight loss I was hoping for...

But I feel less bloated and I figure if I keep combining well I will eventually feel thinner!

Fridays a Bust

So even in the most liberal of eating times, Fridays have always been a bust.  It is Movie Night at our house and even though we take turns picking the movie, nothing ever changes on the menu.  First there is homemade pizza - Rose Program conflict number one! Protein mixed with starches!  Then there is popcorn, hot or cold chocolate milk and marshmallows.  And for me, later in the evening usually, a couple glasses of wine.  Now I can eschew the chocolate milk of either variety and not much of a 'raw' marshmallow fan (oh but hold it over an open flame till it burns then you best get out of my way) I can avoid those but I love popcorn.  That is a holdover, or rather a longing, of my Berkeley days when there was a popcorn vendor in the Student Center.  They popped it fresh every few minutes and for a couple of dollars you could get the best, hottest, most crispy, crunchy, flavorful popcorn imaginable.  And they would sprinkle a variety of flavorings on it, or just salt and butter... until the administration decided it was a health hazard or too loud or too smelly or something....

I digress.  But that is really the point of any dietary regime gone wrong isn't it?  One digresses.  All good intentions in mind and then suddenly something shiny, or interesting or smelly, or fascinating catches your attention and then you ate something that was NOT on the menu!  But I cannot be so regimented with myself.  I once went on the rice and fruit diet.  Because I stepped on the scale at the gym and I weighed over 170lbs.  I was appalled and irritated and ready to do anything to fix that problem!   Of course, back then my 'problem' was an aesthetic judgement.  But I stayed so strictly on that diet for months that I went from 170 to 126 in a few months.  And I have to say that after inching back to 130lbs after a few months I managed to stay there for over a decade.

And then children.  Nothing can erase the memory of standing on the scale at my doctor's office at UCLA Medical Center for a prenatal check up and seeing the number swing past 200.  Just like in the movies, the waterworks sprung from my eyes and all reason aside I balled in the hallway, in front of passersby, my doctor, my husband, the nurses... I could not be consoled by the fact that I was PREGNANT! and thus expected to gain some weight.  No, for me this was tragic.  Oh I calmed myself eventually but I vowed to never let this happen again!

Cut to 3 years later, post-second baby birth, I am sitting on the end of my bed, said baby just down for a nap, looking in the mirror at the end of the bed, and, I swear, the words in my head were "Jabba the Hut".  Because I looked like a hut, or rather tent, shape wise that it.  Triangular and floppy.

Since that time almost another decade has passed.  I have lost much of my "Jabba" weight, but still I step on the scale and there it is, 170+lbs.  Now firmly ensconced in my 40s I make less aesthetic judgements (OK I'd like to be able to gracefully wear a bathing suit again, I admit it) than emotional ones.  I have beeeutiful children, whom I am really, really fond of.  I like them and want to be around them, to see what they do, and feel, and think for a very long time.  As I tell them, I will live to be 135, just to annoy them and force them into wondering when their mother, who they love so well, will finally die!  And there are things I'd like to see and do too.  But it ain't gonna happen probably at 170lbs and a 5' 6" frame.  So, at least 25 or 30 of it has to go.

So far, despite my bad combining, my busted weekend - though I did the best I could to stick as faithfully as circumstances and my lack of planning allowed to good food combining - I have at least lost my broken arm bloat.  And that my friends, is considered progress.

Day Four

Woke up this morning - late - not knowing what day it was, groggy, sweaty and feeling rather bad. Detox day. Always inevitable when you take the difficult to digest slow foods out of your diet. Your digestion speeds up! This is the good and bad thing about a detox diet, if it works.

And felt bloated. I ate nuts late last night, I was just so hungry! And I could not put one more shred of lettuce in my gob. Lunch today is all cooked foods. Must slow down the detox so I can get through the day of work.

Trying Kombucha for the first time ever. Acquired taste no doubt. With blueberry juice. The no fruit mandate of this diet works my nerves. But I try, I try!

Day Two

I guess this blog about my detox experience is a consume less, enjoy more prospect!  Day two and so far, so good.  I even watched two Anthony Bourdain shows last night in a row and it didn't make me jump off the wagon, even as the husband was waving a bag of cheese puffs in my face.  Good thing I don't like cheese puffs much!

But I don't think I realized how much sugar I was eating because I have been craving sugar today a bit.  I found a pack of gum in my purse so I went with that.  I don't suppose sugar free gum is on the detox diet...

But it is solidly mid-day and I have not even eaten my snack, which is a good thing.  I am afraid I miscombined slightly, including a potato - starch - with my egg and cheese on my salad.  I can tell that the food is sort of resting there in my system, not speeding through.  But I am already feeling less dizzy and a little more focused.  I hadn't noticed how unfocused my vision actually is until this morning when I realized my focus is better.  Odd that.

And though yesterday for some reason my scale would not give me my pounds (it gave me BMI and percentage of fat and water and bone) so I couldn't actually check, have I lost a pound already?!  I looked in the mirror this morning and just looked less puffy, jeans fit better, feel leaner.  So far, so good.

Begin

I have decided to do a Detox Diet.  I did it a couple of years ago for a few weeks.  It is the Natalia Rose program and I found it was very easy and pleasant and my body craved the food after just a short time.

But then, you know, stress, job loss, more stress, children growing, vacations... all that.

So, I broke my arm at the shoulder in January of this year, and since I have not been able to do much exercising.  On top of that there was about 2 months of pretty intense pain medication.  Now that it is summer the eczema I have suffered from on both my hands and to a more irritating extent my left foot (no pun intended) have flared, as they do this time of year.  And of course, because it's summer I am loath to wear socks, which would help with post flare up healing.  And, and I know this is a little squirrly, but I have begun to stink.  Literally.  I have never had much problem with underarm odor, but now I do.  No doubt all of the above mentioned, plus the intense stress of a year plus unemployed husband, contribute. 

So, there it is.  Necessity smacks you in the face.  And so I begin.

Shopped at Costco today for much romaine and carrots.  Prepared a big salad to be ready for tomorrow.  Mentally I feel ready to begin.  I will do my best to do 30 days.  And an inspiring event happened today.  I went to see the Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty at the movie theater - a fairly recent and welcome addition to our cultural landscape here in the desert.  My daughter is taking ballet and I love to watch the ballet so we went.  And as I watched I couldn't help wishing I could have that - no, not body - movement.  How wonderful it would be to have that sort of physical acumen.  To be able to feel that fluid and buoyant in your skin.  At 40-something I dare not harbor any fantasies of actually being able to do that, even when I was in my teens and twenties and taking dance class consistently I never felt that light.  But to at least be able to move about my world with grace and balance, that would be a feat.  Resolve in place and fingers crossed no major derailments!