The No-Label Diet Diary: Weeks 3-4 and Wrap-up

Week 3: Now that I’m eyeing my toaster with suspicion, I’m seriously considering replacing it with a juicer. I wonder how well Hubby can live without his occasional toast. Maybe that’s best left for another experiment. 

I developed a new allergy to black mission figs, and just when I was starting to like them.

Occasionally, a strong desire for a handful of nuts or a hunk of soy cheese would come up, but I settled for navel oranges and apples instead, while Hubby seemed to be doing well without any cravings.

My weight has begun to zigzag, while Hubby’s has paused, then resumed downward—I think I may know why, and will write an article when I confirm my suspicions. Gray hair has continued to diminish or darken, and skin remains soft. I myself am finding lots of gray hairs in my brush, and loose gray hairs on my clothes—I wonder if I should go have my head checked out for total hair loss, or just revel in the gray loss while worrying about the brown.

Our shopping list has gotten noticeably shorter, and is costing less time and money to complete. I’ve been noodling around on Google and the USDA nutrient database website, trying to see about further refinement, and looking for foods with the highest concentrations of nutrients. It seems dried split peas, dried lentils, dried whole grains, and nuts are concentrated sources of energy, because a serving size on the database is listed as 1 ounce (about a handful) for nuts, and ¼ cup for the legumes (they would double with cooking, of course). On initial read, it would seem that buying and using concentrated forms of proteins would also go a long way to help out a struggling food budget, because less would get purchased and used at one time (and they’re shelf-stable). I’m going to continue to look into this. Sprouts of all kinds are also concentrated forms of food, but they’re perishable.

Hubby enjoyed the lentil/wild rice side dish I made for him, and has expressed an interest in making chili with lentils instead of kidney beans—this goes into next week’s plan. I’m still enamored with the lentil sprouts, and wish to continue adding them to salads.

After looking deeper into the quinoa/amaranth suggestion of my health food store owner, I discovered that the high level of carbs per serving was for the refined form (pasta), not the grains themselves. She happened to have the pastas on her shelf, so that’s what I used as reference. The nutrition database told a different story about the whole grain itself.

Week 4: We can see the finish line, and I already started lining up sources of fiber for the experiment exit: corn in almost all its manifestations (cob, tortillas, frozen kernels--who knew it was loaded with fiber?), Ezekiel and Genesis breads for Hubby, baked potatoes, dried legumes, dried quinoa and amaranth, as well as high-fiber selections from all the “new” fruits and veggies we pretty much used to ignore. We eschewed corn and potatoes in the past for their starch and sugar content, but it looks like they’ll become a chapter in an ongoing diet experiment—I still have to learn whether corn is considered a grain, a vegetable, or both.

We found that lentils fill us up for most of the day when eaten early, as in an early lunch salad or soup. Hubby sure has been eating a whole lot less now that I bumped up his fiber intake. Without lentils, lentil sprouts, or some sort of beans, I turn into an eating machine with big salads three times daily, plus meat with breakfast and dinner. Our energy levels are high, and gray hair continues to lessen--I imagine it will return if we stop eating this way.

Wrap-up: Hubby lost about 10 lbs. and 20 points off his blood pressure. I lost about 6 lbs. and 25 points off my blood pressure. Cholesterol numbers haven’t come back from the doctor yet. This was pretty painless and absolutely nobody went hungry or crazy—it was an easy “diet” to stick to, considering how we ate to begin with.

Anybody out there want some grass-fed butter or low-sodium Swiss cheese? I don’t think we’re going to go back there in the future.

This experiment sure has taught me a lot about the foods we eat, the foods we buy, and how outside influences play into why we buy them. It has also taught me how to shrink the food budget without sacrificing health and nutrition, how to streamline food shopping trips, how I could make more space, do less dishes and cooking, and incorporate more variety into salads while still “eating the rainbow.” I also got a good look at what others were feeding their families, and said to myself, “If they only knew…”

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I chose to omit grains and nuts from the diet (aside from allergies). I got the idea from observing nature—squirrels eat nuts to build fat for winter hibernation (or semi-hibernation), and today’s cows are grain-fed to fatten up for market. If these foods build fat in animals, what do you suppose they do to humans? Also, it doesn’t help that working people are a lot like today’s mass-produced cattle: they both stand (or sit) around in pens (cubicles) and eat (or have eaten--mostly grain-based foods). What’s worse, we eat the meat from these poor animals, and continue adding grain-based foods of our own—and we wonder why there’s an obesity epidemic!

I have come to believe that the label on the front of foods is just as dangerous as the one on the back, because it serves as a lure for shoppers. The best and healthiest foods come without a label—especially on the back. Some are lucky enough not to have one on the front, either. Shopping for and living with these foods, as well as their effects, has revealed a way to health, happiness (spatial, temporal, and financial), and the way back to nature—where it all began. I found a way out from under the commercialism and marketing deluge, and an excellent way to stretch my (mostly organic) food dollar with ease. No more price books, coupons, rebates, or other trickery to deceive me (and hopefully you too) into buying low-quality, high-label food again—now I see too clearly to ever go back.

If you’re going to buy canned peaches and green beans, why not buy REAL peaches and green beans instead? No name, no shame. No label, no libel.

Home ownership around here (SE Virginia) is way more expensive than renting, so Hubby and I have given up on a garden. Sky-high home prices (in my opinion) and property taxes just aren’t worth the luxury of growing our own food, so we’re contenting ourselves with supporting the county’s organic farmers instead and banking the savings.