"For the gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him." Ezra 8:22

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Elimination Diet Diary, Day 3

Today is the third day of our elimination diet. We finished the two days of green smoothies only and did very well.

I was encouraged by this passage in Psalm 28.

6
Blessed be the Lord! For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.

7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.

8 The Lord is the strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his anointed.
9 Oh, save your people and bless your heritage!
Be their shepherd and carry them forever.

I have been looking to God for help to stick to this... He is so faithful! I have noticed I am praying more throughout the days as well.

Last night I was not able to sleep very well. I felt cold and a bit hungry. I didn't want to get up and have a green smoothie though as that would just add to the coldness. I thought about making tea but it was after 1:00 AM and I new I needed to sleep since I had to work in the morning.

This morning, when I got up I felt warm again. :) Back to the tank top and shorts.

We started our day with the Berry Green Smoothie I posted yesterday. Yum.

Phase 1 of the elimination diet allows us things like broccoli, kale, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, sweet potatoes, yams, adzuki beans, lentils, mung beans, rice, sunflower seeds etc. Here's the complete list for Phase 1.

Last night, Jeremiah and I decided we wanted rice and lentils today. I soaked about 1 cup brown basmati rice, 1 cup lentils and 1/2 cup wild rice overnight in water covering by 2". I also soaked 1 cup of short grain sweet brown rice.

For breakfast today I rinsed and drained the short grain brown rice. Then added 2 cups of water to it and put it in my blender and blended a bit to make a cracked grain. I cooked this about 20 minutes or until the rice was tender and most of the water absorbed. It was good as hot cereal. I had 1/2 cup and added a bit of salt, some pumpkin seeds, cinnamon and just a dash of maple syrup.

In preparation for lunch and dinner I rinsed and drained my rice/lentil/wild rice mix and cooked it in a large pot...cover the grains with water and add 1/2 an onion and 3 cloves garlic. (remove the onion and garlic after cooking) I just cooked these about 45 minutes or until tender. Jeremiah and I both had to taste this as soon as it was done...we really liked it! I drained off the water to use in the soup later.

For lunch we had carrot sticks and a variation of the Healing Quinoa and Cabbage Soup from my friend Ali's blog.

My changes: I added the cooking water from the lentils and rice...about 2 cups.
I used 6 cups of shredded savoy cabbage
only used 2 T of the ex virgin olive oil
used 4 cloves of garlic
used 4 tsp of freshly grated ginger
I used 2 1/2 cups for quinoa and mine was red quinoa (yum!)
omitted the herbamare, cilantro and black pepper
(We salt at the table and I just forgot about the cilantro and pepper. Oh well.)

It was so good! Also, Jeremiah doesn't care for soupy soups so he figured out that adding some of the rice/lentils to the bowl filled the need of a thicker consistency. (filled the void that crackers use to)



For a snack, I had a brown rice cake with sunflower seed butter that I made myself. It was quite a task. While I was working...process sunflower seeds...take phone calls...process sunflower seeds...do emails...process sunflower seeds...make dinner...process sunflower seeds...you get the idea. Here's the recipe for how I made it:

Sunflower Seed Butter

2 cups of raw sunflower seeds
3 T or as needed coconut oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp agave

Process the sunflower seeds to smithereens. :) This takes a long time and since I didn't want to burn out my food processor I did it a couple minutes at a time. It never quite liquified but it did turn putty like and a thick smooth. Then I added the salt and agave and coconut oil 1 T. at a time. When it was a texture we could spread I called it good. We like it. :)

I think if you want a more liquidy sunflower butter you can toast the sunflower seeds first. I just wanted it to be a raw butter so didn't want to do that.




For dinner I had a delicious salad of Romaine,
red leafy green I don't know what's called :),
avocado, Green Apple Salad Dressing by Ali and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. Yum! (I only used one garlic clove instead of the 3 and about 1/4 tsp sea salt in my version of the dressing.)

We also had steamed broccoli and the rice/lentils I made earlier.

Broccoli with Rice and Lentils

1 1/2 cup of broccoli per person, chopped
3/4 cup of cooked rice/lentil/wild rice mixture per person (see above)
1/2 " of water
sea salt, garlic powder and pepper to taste

Put the broccoli into a large skillet, add the 1/2" of water (pour over broccoli until there is 1/2" of water in the pan). Steam until bright green. Add the rice/lentil/wild rice over the top. Cover and steam a few minutes. Stir and allow water to evaporate but don't over cook the broccoli. We all love this. Quick and easy and nourishing.

What a day! Whole foods elimination diet cooking is a lot of work but we are feeling great and looking forward to day 4 tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Linda,

    This is cool. Good job!

    One quick comment: the flower on the left hand side gets a little bit in the way of the text. Just wanted to let you know.

    James

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi James, yep, I know. Thanks. I don't have a clue how to fix it. :) Do you? :)Linda

    ReplyDelete