Day 17

I had a fried egg sammich w/Morningstar patty and no cheese this morning (I'm out of Horizon American slices).

I brought leftover stir-fry for lunch but didn't feel like eating it, so I picked up pizza in the cafeteria. It had spinach and artichoke. Not bad but not good either; certainly not worth the cost or calorie count.

I brought an EAS protein shake for a snack, so that's what I had.

I ate the stir-fry when I came home at 5:00ish, followed by a fudge bar.

...and then a bowl of chili at 8:30.

Day 16

One poached egg from Vital Farms on a Morningstar mock-sausage patty and Alvarado St. Multigrain toast for breakfast. I plan to stop buying the Morningstar patties since learning that they have mystery eggs in them, but I have a large box of them in the freezer. I also plan to stop buying Healthy Choice products since learning that it's a ConAgra brand - let's say that's why I'm eating the fudge bars like they're going out of style.

Leftover Penne w/ Cheese for lunch.

Tofu stir-fry on brown rice for dinner.

A mini Clif bar and two fudge bars throughout the day.

On a side note I spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine yesterday and again today.

Day 9

I did my first big grocery shopping of the new year today. I bought some stuff at H.E.B. last week, but today I went to the co-op and dumped a pile of money on them. It ain't cheap to eat well, but I believe healthy, sustainable food is a worthwhile investment. I actually like that natural, humanely raised meat is so expensive because it forces me to limit my meat intake and to be conscious of the life that was taken for my meal.

For breakfast I had a bowl of Kashi GoLean Crunch cereal with organic skim milk.

For lunch a PB&J sammich, some Kettle Fully Loaded Baked Potato chips and my roommate's homemade lentil soup again. The roomie's stepmom made the raspberry preserves used on my sammich from her garden - it's an annual gift he gets.

This time I asked the roomie what's in the soup and he said it has carrots, onion, celery, red lentils, garbanzo beans and cannellini beans. Like I said before it's a bit weird tasting but good. I'm re-using the picture because I didn't see any point in taking another one.

I bought a new wok today so I made Chinese beef and broccoli for dinner. Unfortunately the wok broke while I was cleaning it (don't ask, it was cheap) so I used my flat-bottom, non-stick poseur wok by Joyce Chen. The beef was from Niman Ranch and pre-sliced for stir fry, but I would've sliced it thinner. I marinated it for 30 minutes using the first recipe I found in an online search basically soy sauce, water, sugar, rice vinegar, corn starch, and for the seasoning sauce I used a recipe from a YouTube video. Basically oyster sauce, sherry, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, pepper, corn starch. I served it on brown rice.

I came up with a dinner menu for the week:

Monday: Chili w/ Rice, salad
Tuesday: Salmon w/ Pilaf, spinach
Wednesday: Chicken Cutlets w/ Mashed potatoes, green beans
Thursday: Mac & Cheese w/ Ham & Peas
Friday: Stir-fried Veggies w/ Soba noodles

Day 8

I had a packet of Kirkland Signature (Costco brand) instant oatmeal, Apples & Cinnamon flavor, with a splash of organic skim milk for breakfast. Both the milk and orange juice are Central Market Organics brand. I'll do some research into Central Market and add a post about their products for a later entry.

I was in the car with my roommate around lunch time, so ended up going to TerraBurger. It's not inexpensive or good for my waistline, but at least the food is all natural, it's humanely raised beef and incredibly delicious.

I made a tofu stir-fry for dinner. I marinated the tofu overnight (actually two nights) in water, soy sauce, tarragon, oregano and thyme. I meant to get extra firm tofu and got just firm though, so it was a little too soft for my taste. I served it over brown rice.

For dessert I had a Healthy Choice fudge bar. I bought a big box of them at Costco because they are only 100 calories and delicious (and I had a coupon). However in researching for this post I discovered that Healthy Choice is a Con-Agra company, so it's very likely that some cows were harmed in the making of these things. I'll look for a natural, low-calorie dessert replacement at Wheatsville tomorrow. I also learned that Morningstar uses eggs in their "veggie" sausage patties and I found no evidence that the eggs they use are natural or uncaged, much less pasture-raised. Ugh.