Day 1 of no processed food no meat fast

-
Update: June 14. 2011
Sorry for the long delay in updating but I had a few personal life moments to have before coming back here, which I will post about in a bit. Giving up meat for lent was one of the hardest things to do for the first few days and then it came naturally. Unfortunately, I ended up compensating for what I thought was a sacrifice by eating a lot more carbs. I put on quite a few pounds from it and learned at the end that moderation is indeed key. I cannot continue to eat food as if it's my last. I'll learn this lesson more as I went through Europe, eating the local way as well as the tourist way. New updates from here will be about my foodie honeymoon through Paris, San Sebastian, and Barcelona! Stay tuned!!!

Original post:
I'm not Catholic but there is something to say about sacrificing something for the time of lent. Being a nondenominational Christian, I never attended church where we were required to give something up for 40 days before Easter. There were prayer fasts and dawn prayers, etc. but nothing that tore me away from my beloved food. Also, I never understood the point of sacrificing meat or beer or chocolate or facebook. What's the point if I can't even stick to a new year's resolution, right? Well, recently I've realized the point of sacrificing something isn't to just do it for my own betterment but really to honor Jesus when he sacrificed his life for us. Before you think I am getting preachy, just let me write it out because this is my belief and you don't have to agree with me but this is something that just dawned on me. Even Christmas to me now has a different purpose - it's about family and gift giving and less about honoring Jesus. As for lent, it's only for 40 days so it's not like a new year's resolution where you drunkenly make a resolution that you're supposed to keep the entire year.

After directing The Raw Truth, and reading The China Study, you'd think I was already a vegetarian. Well, it's definitely hard and even doubly harder because I'm cooking for my husband, who though healthy, would never go vegetarian. So for the first time, I'm going to give up meat and processed food for 40 days and see how and where that takes me by Easter. Probably to a big Easter Ham.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Sesame - the food trend I love

-
Image
Black sesame ice cream, black sesame cake, black sesame creme brulee, black sesame mochi, black sesame mochi ice cream, black sesame sauce, black sesame paste, black sesame soup, black sesame dim sum, black sesame gelato.... Is it just me or is this the new trend in desserts? Especially among Asian (or Asian-inspired) restaurants, the black sesame could be the new red bean! According to Betty Hall from LA Times , not only is the black sesame taking America by storm, it's wildly popular in Europe as well. Growing up, I've always had black sesame in my food. Many Korean dishes call for it, but never had I had it in a delicious dessert until I tried the Sesame Bean Sensation ($7.50) at Royal/T cafe , located in Culver City, CA. It was a layered cake with gray sesame cream filling. The nutty and sophisticated taste of the black sesame with the girly sweetness of the fruity cake got me hooked. Ever since then, I've been on the look out for black sesame anything. When I went to L
Read more

Cuñape

-
Image
"Cuñape" is the best cheeseballs in the world, and it’s from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. These gooey and addictive cheese balls are similar to the Brazilian "pão de queijo" or the French "gougères" or the Colombian "pandebono" but all of these are different from each other as well. Gougères are lighter and more airy while the Brazilian ones are chewier but drier on the outside. I would say the pandebonos are closest in taste and texture to the Bolivian cuñape but it is slight more bready. In Bolivia, we use mennonite cheese (farmer's cheese) for this recipe and honestly without that cheese it will never be exactly like the original but you do what you can. I've been hunting down a similar cheese in the U.S. for ages but the closest I can get to it is to use the queso blanco or fresco and add some more salt (or even mix some feta into it). The history of the cuñape is very interesting. It is a Guaraní word that means "a woman's b
Read more

Making Mocochinchi

-
Image
I get really excited when I can think of a food or drink that is solely Bolivian. I admit there isn't too many Bolivian dishes that are not influenced by the many countries that it borders. Even the Saltena, Bolivia's most famous empanada looking pastry comes from a woman who came from Salta, Argentina, to Tarija, Bolivia.  So when I'm researching Mocochinchi, my favorite childhood and now adulthood drink, made from dehydrated whole peaches, sugar, and cinnamon, and I find that it's a "Bolivian"drink , I get really really excited. Bolivia Bella  goes on to describe regional favorites.  In Santa Cruz, you can buy the dehydrated peaches in the open markets. I snag a pound of dehydrated peaches because you really can't find these in the U.S. except maybe in Miami or Virginia, where there is a huge population of Bolivians. Using sliced dehydrated peaches don't really work for this particular drink because the fun is eating the reconstituted pe
Read more