Day 8 & 9: Sustainability, Steer, and SCARED

“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.”
–Albert Einstein

The more research I do, the more freaked out I get. I should really stop, but it’s like a train wreck—I can’t look away from all of the repulsive practices of the food industry. I also become disappointed by the ignorance of people. I’d think higher of my own mother if she didn’t diagnose me with an eating disorder for caring about where my meat comes from and being afraid of the packaged disasters we call “food.” Anyways, I don’t want to freak people out, I just want to make people aware, and I don’t find it a problem to try and get as much information as I can get my hands on about what goes into my body. If everyone were to be educated, and demand higher standards for their food, that’s what the producers would produce. Unfortunately, most people aren’t educated or they don’t care. They should. I’m not recommending it because it will make you seriously freaked out (and it’s also quite dry), but the film Frankensteer is some seriously messed up shit (literally…SHIT). Just because you shoot some gamma rays on the feces that are on my burger doesn’t mean anyone should be eating that. I’ve never been much of a beef/hamburger person anyway, but certainly not now. It really just baffles me why places like Yeah! Burger are out of the ordinary. Places like these should be the ordinary. Just look at their food philosophy: http://www.yeahburger.com/real-food. I’m sorry, but shouldn’t this be the case of everywhere we get our food? It’s infuriating to think that so many companies just think that they can destroy animals, health, and the environment to save a penny. People need to demand reform, because otherwise all we’re getting is toxic waste.

On a lighter note, yesterday was an off running day in my training schedule so I went to my fave–hot yoga. Unfortunately we worked the lower body a little more than I expected, and I was still sore for my run today, which kept my pace lower than I would’ve liked. It was a wonderful day though and I got 4 miles in. Yesterday’s breakfast was Blake Lively’s Green Juice that you can find the recipe for here. Lunch was my favorite kale salad, which is also in a previous post. One of my go-to snacks is yogurt, and I’ve recently been experimenting with new ones trying to find a new favorite with less sugar and ingredients than the one I had previously been eating. I raided the organic yogurt section of Kroger and picked up every manager’s special I could find. This may seem weird, but I totally scored getting $3 yogurt for just 50 cents! First one up: Redwood Hill Farms Goat Milk Yogurt. I have to commend them for their Certified Humane Raised and Handled badge of approval. While this yogurt was a tad tangy and different than what I’m used to, it was only 100 calories, 7g sugar, 7g protein, and 3 ingredients, so it’s pretty much an A+ for nutrition as far as yogurts go. I had to dress it up a little bit with some honey, blueberries and my favorite granola, Bear Naked Peak Protein, but I don’t mind adding a few extra calories coming from stuff that makes my yogurt more delicious and filling versus packing in 20g grams of sugar just in the yogurt and not getting all my extra treats.

For dinner, I experimented with a twist off of one of my favorite Asian dishes from Pf Changs: Chicken Lettuce Wraps. I chopped up some chicken, bell peppers, mushrooms, carrots, water chestnuts, and shallots, and tossed it all with some rice vinegar, coconut aminos, and just a spoonful of peanut butter. It was delish! Surprisingly filling despite the lack of calories, so I’d say that’s a win.

Today’s breakfast was a slice of Ezekiel Bread with Justin’s Maple Almond Butter and a banana to fuel my run. Post workout I cut up a turkey burger to put atop some spinach, and finishedwith some delicious ripe strawberries. 

I tried experimenting again with dinner, and I’m happy to say that I really have never had a kitchen experiment go wrong. I wanted breakfast for dinner, but with a twist. Thus, my sweet potato and kale skillet was born. This dish was kind of the brainchild of J Christopher’s (the best breakfast/brunch place EVER) breakfast skillets, but with way fewer calories I’m sure. I started by sautéing 1 chopped sweet potato in a skillet until the pieces were pretty brown. I set them aside and sautéed the kale. Then I added the veggies for the eggs—this could be anything you like, I personally love bell peppers and mushrooms in my eggs. Then I poured the eggs over top and sautéed til scrambled with some feta cheese. Then I just added back in the sweet potatoes and kale to toss it all together and voila! Super simple brinner (breakfast dinner) with tons of superfoods!