Our Day In Food

Recently I've been asked quite a few times, by friends, family, and a random reader or two, how our change in diet has been going. So I thought it would be nice, to switch gears from Friday's rather embarrassing semi public emotional outburst, and document a day in the life of our plates.

We've been a low fat raw vegan family since late April. It hasn't been easy. The transition was anything but, and at times we didn't think we'd be able to do it. But here we are, all in better health than ever, feasting upon the delicious food that nature intended for us to eat- even on the days when all we can think about is a Burgerville Tilamook Cheeseburger, even though we haven't had one in 6 years.

During the daytime we eat mostly fruit, with a leafy green vegetable or carrot thrown in the mix, and at night we delight in our savory dishes. Some days we'll go all day without eating anything other than fruits and greens, and other nights, just to spice things up, we go all out and make a gourmet cuisine like raw vegan sushi. Of course, on nights like those, I make sure that Christopher is home to help watch the kids while I blend up buckets of fake fish pate and roll it between the stacks of sprouts and seaweed, because- as you can imagine, it takes a lot of food to fill this family up.

So anyways. Now onto our day in [unedited and probably blurry] food photographs...



The kids started off the day with simple fruit plates. Bananas, mangoes, and pears.

Charlie thought it would be fun to poke apart his banana with his tinkerbell fork, before picking it up and eating it dog-chewing-a-bone style. He didn't finish his mango, or his pears, but instead had a meltdown about not wanting to (because the mango wasn't very juicy, and who knows what his problem was with the pears), so he chose to go hungry for the next 2 hours.



Eleanore, for texture reasons, cannot stand smoothies. The very thought of drinking a smoothie, is enough to send this girl into a frenzy. So she always looks forward to her morning fruit plate. But of course, like her brother, (because what kind of siblings would they be if they didn't copy each other in all of the worst ways) she refused her mangoes and pears as well, and went hungry until snack time.



Christopher had 2 large jars full of some kind of pretty yellow smoothie. He doesn't build his breakfast so much for taste, as much as he does "what all can I shove into the blender and pour down my throat"? He has made a few really good ones though, so I have to give him credit for those.



Evelyn is never too impressed with breakfast time. If there aren't boobs involved, she really just couldn't care less. Eleanore and Kitty though- well they always put on a theatrical show.



I drank a quart of fresh squeezed orange juice. Its my favorite breakfast- about 8 oranges worth. A lot of mornings I jump on the smoothie train with Christopher, sometimes we even share a blend, but- that stomach bug that I had last week caused a flare up of whatever my stomach ailment is, and today I wanted to try to focus on just eating mono meals (one food at a time) in hopes of healing.

Healing isn't happening, by the way, so tomorrow I'm taking a trip to banana island, where I'll eat nothing but ripe bananas for a couple of days, total gorilla style, in order to give my tummy a break. ...Yeah- I know what you're thinking. But trust me? I've gone there before.




Snack time: banana ice cream! All this is, is bananas chopped, frozen, and then blended. It takes all of 60 seconds to make, and its the most delicious natural soft serve you've ever had in your life. I eat it daily.



While mine was just straight up bananas, I used the leftover pears and mangoes in the next batch for Charlie and Christopher. Charlie doesn't care whats in banana ice cream- that boy will eat bowl after bowl after bowl (as proved by his recent healthy weight gain, which has bumped him up an entire clothing size).

I made Christopher a gallon or more, and he took it down to the playmat to eat it while spending some time with the girls.



Check out miss baby ma'am there, eye ballin' Daddy's bowl. Don't let her fool you into thinking she cares about solids. All she'd do is dump it out and then happily slap the mess into the ground, keeping it as far away from her mouth as possible.



Eleanore had a heaping bowl (even though it was nearly empty by the time I could get to my camera) of seedless red grapes. Her very favorite.



For lunch we decided to do something with apples. We buy cases of organic galas from the commissary at cost (just like we do our bananas and navel oranges- only those ones aren't organic), so we had a good amount to use up. While I washed and ran the cutter over those- the rest of the family (and Kitty) played GI Joes.

The kids got to eat large bowls full, with a side of caramel (date) dipping sauce, and sprinkles (shredded coconut). Christopher and I ate ours plain, and by the dozen.

And of course my camera battery craps out during our afternoon snack of delicious "granola" (so there are no pictures), the very best snack ever, that the babies go absolutely crazy for. A mixture of raisins, dates, and coconut- all pulsed into a granola like consistency, and perfectly sweet and chewy in all of the right ways.



And then for dinner, because its Tuesday, we had tacos of course. Only, our tacos are probably a little bit different than yours, right?

Tomato, cilantro, basil, scallions, freshly chopped sweet corn, avocado (gotta get in our fat source), and romaine "taco shells".

And we ate, and we ate, and we ate.

Dinner was a struggle for Eleanore, who decided tomatoes weren't worth her time tonight, but the rest of us filled up and patted our happy bellies. We have to really pack it all in, in order to get enough calories. Charlie ate 3 bowls full (of just the filling)? Christopher ate a countless number of tacos., including half of mine (because like I said earlier, my stomach is no bueno). And Eleanore, who even though ended up having to go to bed early (which she really needed to anyways) for being disrespectful, made a pretty good effort in taking a couple of bites with those awful red chunky tangy things.

So that was our day in food. Thats what we ate today.

Tomorrow I'll be hanging out on banana island while the rest of the family chows down on celery and kale, banana/strawberry sundaes, blueberry pudding, and for dinner- steamed and herbed red potatoes.