Okay, maybe battle is a string word, but carbohydrates can be addicting. Not so, you say? Well naysayers, you might want to read Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer? from Time Magazine and Carbohydrates are addictive (Dr Eades summery of the Time article).
Basically what happened in this article, is that German researchers took a bunch of cancer patients and put them on a carb free diet. This was a very small study with dying people. So sick in fact that four died in the first week. Some dropped out of the study, were drying of cancer, but still the desire for sweets was too strong for them to stop. As for five that remained in the program, "the patients stayed alive, their physical condition stabilized or improved and their tumors slowed or stopped growing, or shrunk.". The people who dropped out of the study, couldn't stop eating carbs, even to save themselves. I call that reason addiction.
Addiction is the cause of some crazy behavior among otherwise smart people. Even smart people do dumb things. Like when you are a teen and you start smoking. You grow up and you can't afford to smoke, but somehow you find the money. You know it is bad for you, you know it smells bad, you know it is freaking freezing outside during your coffee break but you go outside anyway. Addiction.
The battle plan for today is to clean the pantry and fridge out. Things to toss:
- Drinks
- anything 'sweetened' especially diet and/or energy drinks
- sodas
- powered drink mixes
- performance drinks (stuff with electrolytes)
- Fats and Oils
- trans and partially hydrogenated oils
- canola
- cottonseed
- corn
- soybean
- margarine
- shortening
- convenience foods
- french fries
- hot dogs
- burritos
- anything that has ingredients that a five year old can't read or understand
- Fruit and Veggie Juice
- Grains
- wheat
- rice
- corn
- rye
- cereals
- breads
- pastas
- basically anything made with grains
- Legumes
- peanuts
- alfalfa
- beans
- peas
- lentils
- soybeans
- Snacks
- energy bars
- granola
- pretzels and all other grain based snacks
- Sugar
- Flours
Now that the cabinets are cleaned. It is time to shop. I am headed to the farm stand, the fair-share grocer and the farmers co-op before I hit the conventional grocery. I am taking a notebook too so I can compare prices of produce and meats. I do have to live within a budget. So as much as I want organic everything, it just isn't a reality. I will buy local as much as i can, and organic soft things like lettuce and tomatoes. Other than that I will have to depend on sales.
