I am starting off the year with a meal plan that is a bit faddish, and a bit complicated, but it should be fun. For the next 14 days, I will be following the Bon Appetit Food Lover's Cleanse. The rules are pretty simple:
- Beverages: No alcohol or coffee. Drink 2L of water a day. I was doing this anyway.
- Eat more whole grains. Included are farro, quinoa, bulgar, whole wheat bread, and oats. Which are largely tasty, but I need prodding to remember to try.
- No dairy, except for yogurt and kefir. I'll miss the cheese as easy snack, but have stocked up on a carton of yogurt at work and at home, and will be trying almond milk for the first time.
- Meat is somewhat limited, but there are only 4 days without meat, and that's fine by me. This diet is much more fish-focused than I usually subscribe to, but that's a good direction to go in anyway. Hooray for salmon.
- No white/processed sugar or corn syrup. This is the biggest appeal of this diet. Over the last month I have been eating much more sugar than usual, and wanted to find a way to limit this in my diet. Since fruit is still allowed, I am confident I can persist. I also bought some agave syrup, which is delicious.
- Eat more raw vegetables (delicious) and make sure to eat every 3-4 hours.
The grocery trip yesterday was, how do you say, EPIC. They have a grocery list, but I felt like it assumed that your entire household of 4 was also participating in the diet. On the list was kale, chard, sweet potatoes, squash, mushrooms, onions, ginger, shallots, spinach, bananas, beets, carrots, celery, bell peppers, jicama, lemons, limes, oranges, apples, pears, grapefruit, avocado, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, endive, four kinds of beans, 3 kinds of grains. I love living in an area where all of this abundance is at my fingertips, and also to be able to afford (in time and money) to commit to cooking all my meals for the next two weeks. I also like that by freezing the leftovers, I will have healthy leftovers for the next month.
And I also cleaned out my pantry and refrigerator yesterday. Nothing dire like throwing out all the sugar. I just was disposing of food past its expiration date and clearing room for the new additions. It was an excellent way to start out the year, and I'm excited about how this meal plan is acting to shift my eating to more wholesome foods.
Today I made an omelette with mushrooms and onions on toast with green tea. Lunch will be an avocado sandwich with a side of raw cauliflower, jicama, and carrots with dressing/dip. Then I get to make a smoothie (and test out our blender). Dinner is a bulgur and winter vegetable dish that appears to be like a tagine with chick peas, apricots, sweet potatoes and carrots and parsnips.
