Since I work at a restaurant that serves awesome deli sandwiches, I get to bring home empty pickle jars that are very helpful as far as keeping my staples goes. Each is filled with a different vegetarian delight food like hummus mix, lentils, brown rice, and falafel mix. I truly enjoy looking at the jars full of goodies. They are so colorful - and the textures are all different.

I think falafel mix is particularly good, health-wise. It is made from chick peas. I’ve had some that was too spicy, but what I buy up in Medford, Oregon is excellent quality and enjoyable. If I were hiking in the wilderness with a little stove, this is one food I’d take with me for nutrition and to provide lightweight staples. You can mix falafel mix with cooked, crushed beans to produce a thick textured burger patty. Fry that up, and eat in a hamburger bun with all the condiments, lettuce, onion, and tomato.

Recently my significant other, the magnificent Bob, decided to make beans and rice the new staple of his diet. First let me say I’m very proud of this man. He was a meat eater all his life until gout stopped him from eating 90% of the foods he loved, including red meat. Now he’s recovering thanks to some medication, but rather than going back to the bad diet, he’s adjusted to being mostly vegetarian, though he still eats fish. I don’t, so we usually don’t share meals. He cooks what he wants and I cook what I want. I’ve gone on a vegan diet. Anyhow, as I was about to say, Bob wants to eat rice and beans. So I’ve been cooking them, keeping them on hand in the fridge. I’ve been using pinto beans. The rice and beans fill several jars in my pantry. I find that when I’m cooking them constantly, I go through the beans pretty fast - so I need more than one of the gallon jars full of them.

I have granola in one jar. I’ve been using that to make the sweet treat I mentioned in my last post. More on that in another post. I’ve morphed the recipe into breakfast bars! Recipe to be announced SOON. I keep the rice flour in another gallon jar, and cinnamon I bought in bulk in another smaller jar. Cinnamon and rice flour provide the outer coating for these treats.

Anyhow, if you need jars, ask at your local restaurant or deli. If they use pickles, they probably have more jars than they want. The one gallon mayonnaise jars are plastic, but they’re handy too… I use them for pasta and beans.

Suggestion: Stock up on as many dry staples as you can.

Transitions, part one

Recently I went through a food transition. I am overweight and want very much to have my health back again. But I’ve struggled with this for many years. I was thin when I was younger, but after my fifth child was born, gained weight quickly at the rate of about ten pounds per month, until I was about seventy pounds overweight. I later learned that my thyroid went bad. Hypothyroid disorder - an under-active thyroid gland - is common for older women. So that’s what happened to me. It took almost ten years for a doctor to point out to me that I needed thyroid medication.

I’ve been using the meds for a few years now but so far, haven’t been able to lose weight and keep it off. Because of my desperation, I decided to do something drastic. I went on the lemonade diet - the Master Cleanser - for ten days and now have transitioned to a vegan diet. I’m cutting all dairy products from my diet. I’m hoping that by staying away from cheese and butter, mayonnaise, etc. I’ll get healthier and lose the excess that has plagued me for way too many years now.

I’m going through another transition at the same time. I’m 55 - enjoying life, and grateful for it. My youngest child just had his 18th birthday this last weekend. So at 55, I’m child-free for the first time in about 35 years. I’ve been very much looking forward to this for many months. I plan to celebrate by taking a trip to Oregon Caves to stay in the Chalet overnight with Bob (my significant other).

Life without worrying about minor-aged children sounds like a treat to someone who has been responsible for young people for 35 years. Believe me, I am ready for this retirement!

Since transitions are on my mind, I’m planning to write about them this month in this blog. This will be my theme for the month. Since I’m in the kitchen, I’ll mainly be talking about food transitions. In my case, it is from lacto-vegetarian to vegan. A hard jump for me to make, but the time is right.

Part Two: Looking Forward

I was in the mood for a sweet treat tonight. Now first I must explain, I’ve recently gone on a vegan diet, with lots of raw food. So I wanted something healthy, sweet, and preferably not cooked.

I used a blender, but this is probably better for a food processor, using the s-blade.

Peanut Butter Granola Rounds

1 + 1/2 cups granola
1/4 cup peanut butter
4 tablespoons real maple syrup

Blend, process, whatever, until this is the consistency of cookie dough.

Roll into balls and dredge in a mixture of rice flour and cinnamon.

I could only eat two. This definitely took away my craving for sweets, and I’ll have something in the freezer for ‘next time’.

Earlier this month I reached my limit of patience with weight gain. My clothes were getting tighter and I had to do something to turn things around. Being as I was particularly desperate, I decided to cleanse my system with the Lemonade Diet. Ever heard of it?

I first heard of the Lemonade Diet (aka: Master Cleanse or The Master Cleanser) on an Internet message board about two and a half years ago. The person writing there warned that it wasn’t for everyone. I agree, because it takes incredible determination and commitment that most people won’t have. The process is somewhat grueling, but the results are a much cleaner body, internally.

Actually, once the fast starts, after a day or two, there’s not much desire for food… so it usually isn’t hunger that’s difficult. I don’t want to go into all the particulars of the fasting process, but it is complex and people indulging in this process are encouraged to get the definitive book on the topic, The Master Cleanser, and read it through first.

The book, which is more like a semi-thick booklet, was first published in 1976 by Stanley Burroughs. It claims that cleansing the body through fasting is “basic for the elimination of every kind of disease.” He wrote that the Lemonade Diet started over forty years before as a cure for stomach ulcers. The diet takes ten days to heal. Ten days is the minimum, though many people fast longer, up to forty days, and even beyond.

The Lemonade Diet is also an effective weight loss diet, and that’s what I needed. The book states “fat melts away at the rate of about two pounds a day” and during the first few days of my fast, that was true for me. Toward the end of my ten-day fast it slowed down a bit, but I was happy to lose thirteen pounds in ten days. That’s a start.

The lemonade recipe is simple, and here’s my generalized version of it. Take the juice of two medium sized lemons, add two to four tablespoons of real maple syrup (to taste, with less if you want to lose weight), add water to make one quart, and add a tiny tiny tiny bit of cayenne. I’ve seen other versions of this recipe on the web wherein a bit of salt is added, and it is considered an electrolyte replacement drink (like Gator-Aid). But with the Lemonade Diet, add no salt.

This is what I drank for ten days straight. We’re supposed to drink six to twelve cups per day. I figured that meant at least three lemons. I personally had trouble drinking more than six cups. I supplemented with cold spring water. Lots of it. We’re allowed a cup of peppermint tea once daily. Plus we have to do an internal cleansing routine consisting of laxative tea at night plus a salt water flush in the morning. This is very effective in getting toxins to move on out of the body. It is essential to the success of the fast because detox symptoms build up if the salt water flush isn’t used.

The back of Burroughs’ Master Cleanser book contains information on how to break the fast, recipes for sustaining healthy eating after the fast, and other health information. It is all good advice… and don’t forget, if you plan to do the fast, reading the book first is very important.

Here’s more sad news from the economic crisis. People are selling their prized possessions and heirlooms to get enough money to pay for their basic living necessities. I haven’t gotten that desperate, but perhaps it is because I’m already living in affordable circumstances and haven’t lost my job. In fact, I’m starting a new business to supplement the money I make working in a local restaurant, so I’m hoping for better times and not worrying about how to pay the electric bill.

But many Americans are apparently that desperate already. This article, Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet by Anne D’Innocenzio, an AP business writer, was published in the Sacramento Bee on April 29, 2008. The writer states that people are selling their belongings to pay utility bills, buy gasoline, buy food…

This is tragic… and I wonder what percentage of the population is having to sell things now. I haven’t noticed anything like that here in the mountains where I live.

Yesterday I was at the laundromat when an acquaintance came in and started talking about her frustrating day at work. We talked for maybe an hour, ending on the crisis in the world’s economy, poor choice of presidential candidates, and things like that. It seems that most people are aware now that something is dreadfully wrong in America, that someone is controlling us, forcing us into poverty, making America into a nation of slaves.

Have you ever considered that? America IS a nation of slaves. We are forced to work five days a week to be able to afford to live in this civilization. If we wanted to live off the land, that’s not allowed. We can’t camp full time in the National Forests. We have to buy land, so that means working, for most of us. Yes, I know some people own their land outright and have the cash reserves to live without working, but most of us work day after day, year after year, just to be solvent.

For those that can’t work, the crisis has shown its sharpest edge… that precipice between having something to hold onto and the fall into homelessness and despair. For those of us who are not at that point yet, it is unkind to pretend there’s no disaster looming, or to say we shouldn’t try to prepare for the worst, in case our homes are visited with the dreadful disease of poverty next.

My main theme here is “Wake up! Wake up! Things are changing.” Thanks for reading this far.

All the best to all of you.