Story with pictures

Ugh, I am going to skip out on zucchini til I am off this cleanse, I think. It's meant to be eaten the Italian way (breaded and fried or baked) or maybe the French way (deep-fried, stuffed zucchini flowers). Not steamed. Yuck.
Edit: Also, zucchini are "an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower."


I was supposed to have Swiss Chard with lunch but I bought Kale on accident. The Kale was pretty decent, but not especially delicious so I decided to learn what was good about it, from wikipedia:

Kale is considered to be a highly nutritious vegetable with powerful antioxidant properties and is anti-inflammatory.

Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium.

Kale, as with Broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane, a chemical believed to have potent anti-cancer properties, particularly when chopped.

I can deal with that! Also, Chard is actually beet greens! I much prefer chard to the beets, beets are tooo sweet, and can only be my friend if they are in borscht.

The Swiss Potato Salad was quite nice. I added a bit of chopped celery for texture. Lentils were flavourless and blah.

Dessert though! Ohhh, dessert! Quite smashing, maybe a little sweeter than I needed. I had a sliced Bosc pear dressed with organic dark maple syrup and chopped cashew. It was a treat!

I hope to get in the habit of includng photos with posts, at least on these days where I have all my meals at home. It's the least I can do to properly log my experience during my first cleanse. And now that I am not complaining and dreaming about food all the time, hopefully my posts will be increasingly interesting to look back on.

For the record, current emotions include:

• glee
• energy
• excitement
• optimism!

This is in comparison with about a week ago, when I was:

• weepy
• uninterested
• whiny
• disheartened

Ahh, how the times have changed! Also, I ordered a few vegan cookbooks off amazon that should get here during week 3. I am excited to cook more (again).

Week 2, Day 3

Well, I am all talk sometimes when it comes to blogging. Anyway, today will have a good post or two (three?)

Week 2 is like a week of forgiveness to evil Dr. Rau who has inflicted steamed vegetables upon my humble life.

Breakfast is full of stimulating flavours and hearty goodies. After my warm, alkalizing mug of baking soda and water (it's growing on me!) I eat half a grapefruit (on sale at Safeway! 6 for $3, regular $7). I linger over the paper, usually the National Post, or the Globe & Mail if it's at my door while my steel cut oats cook. Today I ran out of dates, which is the sweetener for my oatmeal, but it was still delicious with my morning banana.

And today included a new, soft-boiled egg with my spelt toast! I was pretty excited leading up to it, and though it wasn't as fantastic as my imagination described it, it was still satisfying.

Week 2 means green (i.e. caffeinated) tea in the morning and I enjoyed a pot of lavender jasmine that I bought on a trip to Canmore at the start of the month.

Today's snack was 5 cashews, hahaha.

Now I'm cooking lunch, which has been a bit laborious because it includes lentils, that I needed to cook, and Swiss Potato Salad, also not yet cooked. But now it is time to eat. Photos upcoming!