Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Day 191- And I Pasta Again

So, this may be TMI, but there's something that's going on with my teeth. It's a really new something, like just since I started eating pasta for food every day. After I eat, the chewing surface of my teeth feels like I've rubbed chalk over it. Brush for a good long time and it goes away, only to come back like an hour later.

I has a wondering if this is what the dentist keeps warning me against when he goes "you drink a lot of soda, don't you?" But I'm hoping it's just something with the pasta of sauce. 'Cause after a second good, solid brushing my teeth go back to feeling smooth and lacquered and don't get chalky again. Hmmm....

Ok, back to food-

So yesterday when I was cooking my pastas, RM's 1&2 were in the living room (1 was reading Naruto fan fic, 2 was in what looked like a PUG). I was just cooking the pasta, tofu, sauce- no really good extras. Oh, there might have been some salt (some?) and a bit of balsamic vinegar, but not much. They thought it smelled like corn, or maybe salty chocolate.

I'm not sure what is wrong with their noses, or my wok, that they'd think those things smelled like what I was cooking, but... yeah. I finished up my cooking super speedy then, and crawled back into my cave to nom it. Om nom nom.

Yesterday Kim said she doesn't see what the problem is with eating pasta all day, every day. Other than the strange chalky tooth thing, i get that. Problem is, I only know two or three things to put over that pasta. Science (and the .gov) tells me that I need a varied diet.

Ok, wait, slight de-rail.

Has anyone out there flipped through diaries or cookbooks from the whole US westward expansion? How about read the Little House books? Or even just loaded up a wagon for a game of Oregon Trail? These were not "varied eating" kinda people. They might have had some veggies, but food was salted meat, fresh caught fish, cornbread, wheat bread when they were feeling rich, and a whole heck of a lot of beans. Eggs if they had chickens, milk and cheese if they had a cow or goats.

Now, I don't eat a lot of that, but there really wasn't a huge variety. And sure, they grew veggies, but not as much as people are supposed to eat today. And not a huge variety, either- there wasn't a whole lot of time left after cooking, cleaning, chasing kids, chasing cows, and so on for advanced gardening and preserving. Grow ten different things that require in-depth preservation techniques and you'd run out of time!

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, variety.

So anyway, while I suspect that too much emphasis is put on "variety" of fruits and veggies in peoples diets today, I still try for general variety. Black beans one week, pintos the next. Corn bread one week, then wheat bread, then pitas, then... And if I can find/ make some cash space for varied veggies, that'll be great. Right now, though, I'd be happy with a 10lb sack each of garlic, onions, and sweet and white potatoes. Om nom nom.

Now, I need to figure out what to sauce the last 8oz of pasta with, since I finished the red stuff. Maybe carmelized onions, roast garlic, and pureed tofu/ almonds? Kinda like an alfredo?

QOTD- I kinda led into this yesterday, then spazzed and forgot it. What's something you love to eat, made of real foods, that either ends up more expensive, or far less healthy than it should- like my cheese/ onion/ pasta mix?

9 comments:

  1. I like a nice fresh salad starting with lots of greens and veggies, but then I add sunflower seeds, lots of shredded cheese and croutons, not to mention my favorite dressing is bleu cheese. Unhealthy salad? Well not low-cal fer sure.

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  2. That film on your teeth could be a sign of an overgrowth of Candida (http://jennafermentedgrapes.blogspot.com/p/candida-diet.html). A lot of pasta is the perfect recipe for Candida. That film is the first thing I notice when my body is slipping into a Candida overgrowth.
    Also, I LOVE the blog!

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  3. haha, i think there's a reason people on the oregon trail died of dysentery/mumps/measles/randomness. but with modern soap and medicine you'll be fine!

    my favorite expensive things to eat - steak. really expensive cheese with really expensive crackers. boxes of european chocolates (free from my grandmother once in a while...). i am a total lush, bleh.

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  4. Cyndee- you have to make that green stuff taste yummy! It's not like asparagus, lettuce takes work!

    Jenna- Dunno that I could live on that diet- I know a bunch of it is what I eat now, but life without pickled foods? No white flour or tea? I thought budget-dependent tea-totaling was bad, without tea it'd be worse!

    theresa- lucky me that I've had my MMR and other boosters, don't go walking in places with snakes, and I'm not big on fording rivers. With that and my trusty box of vitamins, I should be ok! Now, tell me more about this chocolate (I miss it so)...

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  5. I think people used to be a lot shorter than they are these days, because of the lack of nutrition in their diets while they were growning up.

    I LOVE to just brown a BUNCH of garlic in olive oil and then toss that with pasta and dried parsley or dried chives. YUM. It's good with corn or peas tossed in there too. Parmesian is good, but since you're lactose intollerant, probably not a good idea.

    I also like pasta (rotini is great for this) boiled matchstick carrots and broccoli with a soy sauce, sugar, vegetable oil, a little vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder dressing. The dressing is the main thing though. I like the pasta mixture cold or warm. It's good with olives or corn or kidney beans or chickpeas or onions/scallions or radishes... whatever. The pasta is the filler and the other stuff add some variety too it. Sometimes I add a little mayonaisse to the dressing to make it more creamy. Probably soft tofu would work great instead, if you used the blender to mix it. My mom makes a cold salad like this with rice instead of the pasta. That's good too. My brother does one with crushed up Ramen Noodles... I don't like soggy Ramen Noodles, so if I eat that, I only like it when it's first made though. It still surprises me that you don't make more cold salads that involve pasta, rice, beans, or potatoes.

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  6. Honestly, I haven't done cold salads because i don't really think about them. In the past I've gone through periods when I'd have coleslaw or potato or pasta salad (or chickpea for chicken salad) every day for weeks. Those are pretty mayo heavy the way I make them, though, and without either a free mayo fairy or mayo making ingredients (can't find a bulk bin with guar gum in it) they're pretty much out.

    Lucky me, I'm done growing. Good thing, too- it's already tough to find jeans and shirts that are long enough.

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  7. OMG, Oregon Trail, I love that game. I would play it for hours. I always thought that the people who lived a hundred years ago actually had better eating practices than we do today. Processed foods were unheard of and everything was either fresh, homemade or preserved. Oh, and of course, those moments in the game where you lived off the land, now that's what I'm talkin' about. We need more of the olden ways in our modern day life, imo.

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  8. Ha, you just want to stand in the middle of a field and shoot at bison. Which I don't recommend, btw- they're not friendly at all.

    I'm really not sure which is worse- preservatives and franken-foods, or risking starvation and scurvy...

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  9. I understand, it is hard! And if you are just having film and not tummy pains, I am sure the diet is worse than the film. It is just a 3-month diet, not forever. But 3 months without coffee and wine?! Awful!

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