The Foods We Eat and The Recipe We Make
Excerpt from A First Step On a Journey of a Thousand Meals, the introduction to, The Tyranny of the Taste Buds
“List of the Foods We Eat; everything organic whenever possible:
Almonds (fresh, raw, organic; soaked before use)
It is important to soak fresh nuts before consuming them. They have enzymes on them that prevent the nut from sprouting until sufficient rain has fallen to sustain it. These enzymes upset many people’s stomachs. By soaking them for twelve to twenty-four hours you dissolve the enzymes and activate the nut to sprout. Many consider this to be the most nutritious stage of the plant; all of the nutrients for the new plant’s survival are right there popping forth.
Avocados
Cat eats avocados. I am allergic to them. There is a protein in them that my body recognizes as a threat and sends my immune system into a frazzle. It took quite a while for me to recognize that it was the harmless avocado that was making me nauseous. We cut out certain foods at certain times to check our susceptibility. Cat discovered that her body prefers that she not eat walnuts. her tongue is especially sensitive. Be aware of your sensitivities.
Baby Greens
“Rabbit food” turns out to be filled with essentials our body needs from antioxidants, calcium, potassium and magnesium to manganese and chlorophyll. This comment applies to all of the vegetables listed.
Beets
Broccoli
Celery
Four days to a week after table salt is given up, celery tastes very salty. Its sodium satisfies. Lemons add a similar accent to food.
Cucumber
Grape Seed Oil
Make certain to get “Expeller-pressed” oil. It is an inefficient method for producers but makes for the best quality oil, otherwise there is excess heat in the process, or chemical solvents are used to get the last little bit of oil from the seeds. Be wary of any oils you buy and how they are processed.
Hazel Nuts (organic, soaked before use)
See notes with Almonds
Lemons
Four days to a week after table salt is given up lemons become a very satisfying flavor-enhancer in place of the poison sodium-chloride. Lemons have many benefits in relation to alkalizing the body.
Onions (when the Walla Walla Sweets are ready)
Cat loves these. They are filled with anti-oxidants. I eat them rarely. It’s a personal taste issue.
Peanut Butter (Organic, nuts only)
Radishes
Raw Eggs (free range)
Red Bell Peppers
Sunflower Seeds (organic, soaked before use)
Spinach
Swiss chard
Zucchini
If a food is not on this list we don’t eat it. Most of these ingredients are ground up and mixed together in the following recipe we affectionately call “Grub.” We make a dressing out of the eggs, grape seed oil and lemon juice. I also add fresh squeezed lemon juice to my drinking water. Cat adds different mixes of onions, peppers and avocados to her grub occasionally. I don’t eat them. I’m a straight Grub kinda guy (see following recipe).
But First a Word About Water Water Water
We drink water as our beverage of choice and lots of it. We have a carbon-filtered water system. Water prevents dehydration eliminating 99% of our headaches and body cramps, and it facilitates smooth body metabolism and elimination. Next time you feel a headache coming on, drink a couple glasses of water and feel it disappear. It’s an amazingly easy cure and, as a consequence of putting it into practice both Cat and I have left analgesics behind (except in the waning days of her recovery as she weaned herself off of the codeine related pain-killers that the health-care professionals had given her, of which she took only 17 of the 30 prescribed). Every other beverage, except an occasional herbal tea, has a cost we’re not willing to pay.
We don’t drink water while eating, however. At the very least, drinking water while eating interferes with the enzymes in the mouth endeavoring to start breaking down food even before it is swallowed. These enzymes are the first step in the digestion process.
Please investigate anything I offer, if you have questions.
G R U B
This recipe is for six meals of approximately 3/4 of a pound (350 grams, 12 oz) each.
These are the ingredients and amounts (You can convert to ounces by multiplying by 0.03527, but getting a scale that will measure in grams will help you a lot):
Zucchini: 350 grams
Cucumbers: 350 grams
Celery: 340 grams
Carrots: 230 grams
Baby Greens/50% Spinach: 125 grams
Sprouts: 175 grams
Almonds: 120 grams
Filberts/Hazelnuts: 120 grams
Sunflower Seeds: 60 grams
Directions:
1. Get a big mixing bowl to put your chopped ingredients in.
2. Chop up all of the ingredient to your preferred texture. We use a Cuisinart. When we started we hand-chopped our vegetables and nuts in a wooden salad bowl with a curved knife. Use what you have.
3. Once you get all of the chopped ingredients in the bowl, make your dressing. If you prefer you can make it ahead of time and have it ready to pour on at this point.
4. Make your dressing.
Dressing Ingredients for Six Meals of Grub
Grape Seed Oil, 150 grams
Fresh-squeezed Lemon Juice, 120 grams
Eggs, 3 large to jumbo
5. Add these three ingredients into another commodious bowl and stir fast and hard enough to rid yourself of any un-whipped egg white. We use an egg beater and it handles the job perfectly well.
6. Pour your dressing onto your chopped ingredients.
7. Enjoy.
Missing Sugar and/or Salt?
If you miss sugar and/or salt we understand. We missed sugar, and salt maybe more, but we stayed strong. After a week we started tasting the incredible sweetness in vegetables, sweetness too subtle for a jaded tongue to detect. We also noticed the salty taste of celery and lemons. You may find them satisfying. We do.
If you stay committed to leaving salt and sugar behind and get over those addictions you will find tastes in your food you never expected, all of them hidden by the overwhelming tastes of processed food. In addition to giving up all-but-unavoidable carbs, we think giving up salt and sugar is the biggest favor we could have ever done for our bodies. These simple steps have produced the manifold rewards for both of us listed in the main text.
WARNING!
If you start eating this dish you must avoid any additional carbohydrates. They will cause you to pack the fat in this recipe onto your body instead of burning it for fuel. Remember that your body will burn the carbs first and hang on to the fat for dear life. We can eat all of the fat we want because we use it for fuel and don’t shut down the process by introducing additional carbs into the mix.
We have found this meal satisfying, nutritionally complete and time saving. When people say that it must be boring to eat the same thing for every meal we chuckle because Grub is endlessly nutritious and delicious as opposed to the monotonous repeating of the same toxic weekly schedule of Pasta Monday, Taco Tuesday, Pizza Wednesday, Meatloaf Thursday, Mac Donald’s Friday etc. If that isn’t eating the same thing all of the time, I don’t know what is. Even after seven years of eating our current recipe, we still remark to each other how heavenly the taste is. If grub wasn’t such a good name we would have called it Ambrosia. It started tasting this way, of course, after we got over our withdrawal from salt and sugar and our lingering desire for their tastes.”