Friday, July 02, 2010

Confession time

Don't get all excited, it's not about sex but about food specifically being a vegetarian.

The vegetables that I like are vastly outnumbered by the vegetables I don't like. Tofu is only made bearable by coating it in batter and smothering it with sweet and sour sauce. There are tofu sausages made by Sanitarium which gives me a taste of normality with tomato sauce and mashed potatoes although if you read the ingredients on the back of the pack it might as well be MacDonald's.

It's no good directing me in the direction of good vego recipes, I have them by the hundreds but the problem is, they all contain vegetables and I have to cook them. I am so past cooking a decent meal.
Yesterday I had such a craving for roast pork that I gave in and bought 4 little pork belly cutlets. I put a skewer through them, covered them in soy/ginger marinade, hung them over a baking pan and let them cook. The smell was enticing, the eating not so much and I will be glad when they leave the body. The sight of how much fat was left in the bottom of the pan from four 8cmx4cm pieces of pork was frightening. It wasn't wasted, the magpies were enjoying bread dipped pork drippings all morning.

I no longer want red meat, add pork to the list but a geniune free range piece of chicken does find it's way to the table at least once a week along with some salmon and a tin of sardines or my doctor screams about bone fractures along with the other screaming he does when I refuse to get on his scales or have blood and fasting tests which means getting up too early on cold mornings.

My weight is at the limit of what frightens me, not as much as it was in 2000 but more than it was when I lost 20 kgs in the post divorce glow. My credit card is at the same limit, I dare not go over either of them. It's not like I'm not trying, I mean I'm not just sitting here eating chocolate, it's chocolate covered dried fruit. See, I'm trying. But I confess, my diet is appalling.

Breakfast cereal is a mixture of whatever's on special but mainly high fibre and skim milk but it's winter and that's cold eating. Don't mention porridge, I've told you lot before, it's like eating cold snot. But toast (wholemeal wholegrain) and two free range boiled eggs (before Miss O'Dyne has the vapours, Kangaroo Island free range eggs) and steaming hot Earl Grey tea I can manage with my eyes shut and they usually are until midday.

The problem is, I'm a stress eater and staying home with my feet up beside the fire lessens stress but I'm still stressed because I'm not used to de-stressing yet, being still in 'what's happening to mother' mode. This is not as bad as it was but the brain still lingers there. The last time I lost weight, I stayed home, kept busy (not housekeeping, never housekeeping) and the kilos dropped off. It didn't last, the motherdrama kicked into high gear and I was back in the fat business.

If I could just resist the siren call of cakes, forget the hand to gob pleasure of chocolate, the melting goodness of a quiche made with sour cream and Tasmanian Brie, the steam from hot crisp fried chips crusted with sea salt and bread, lovely lovely fresh bread with creamy butter and not the crap Nuttlex I'm stuck with. You did notice the absence of vegetables in there, I thought you might have.

There's no getting round it, I'm the world's worst vegetarian.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just reread The Honorary Consul. Doctor Parr's mother was often to be found eating cakes in a Buenos Aires tea room. And to use another reference from the same, it is all about the measure, referring to alcohol but I am sure it applies to cakes too.

JahTeh said...

Darling Andrew, there is no measure to apply to cake or in your case, sex.

River said...

Nuttelex is evil. Avoid it at all costs. Ditto red meat, although there was a day recently when I just HAD TO HAVE a steak, so I bought a mini rump, (they're about 3inches by 2 inches)and managed to eat half.
My own diet is pretty crappy at the moment. I've had a cold, so have been eating just whatever takes my fancy. Which isn't much. Tonight's dinner for example is raisin toast with real butter, washed down with tongue burningly hot coffee.
I haven't wanted chocolate for a week, and thoughts of cakes, even vanilla slices, are fleeting.
Rug up and sip hot chocoalte JahTeh, ignore all stresses for at least an hour a day.

Ann ODyne said...

Ha! I got to the Eating Babe bit and immediately started the fast-scroll down to avoid horror ... screeched to halt when I saw my own name though.

Cubed sauteed tofu will absorb the tastes around it. throw in grated fresh ginger and garlic, sliced onion - all good for blood.
Eating meat is really evil
Read The Weekly Times adverts for antibiotics and evil chemicals for farmers to buy in 20-litre drums.
Every creature you eat has antibiotics in its flesh and that's why all of you are resistant to your own shots from the quack.
Eating meat more than twice in a week will deplete your calcium absorption and leads to osteoporosis and the Meat Marketing Board spends millions to stop you finding that out.
and if none of the above was true, there is still the fact that every creature is terrorised before slaughter and pumps adrenaline like crazy and you are eating it.

Now dairy foods production is really cruel to cows ...

JahTeh said...

River, it's cheaper than Flora and it's so bad I don't eat as much but raisin toast and real butter, I can feel the kgs piling on.

Annie O, everything we do is evil, making bread means killing the little yeast beasties and I'm not cut out to be a Breatharian.

Kath Lockett said...

Well if it makes you feel any better, I had my cholesterol level checked this week.

Last year it was 6.5 (the bad stuff) and now it's 7.4. Trouble is, my good cholesterol is 3.0 which had my doctor muttering something like, "I have never anything like this - this is so high."

So, instead of telling me to take Lipitor and/or change my diet(all pretty good except for the two kgs of chocolate taken each week), I've been told to get tested again in three months' time and I don't intend on altering my lifestyle one jot!

R.H. said...

River when thoughts of vanilla slices are fleeting you're not hungry at all.

-Robert.
Hoping to come through your checkout one day.

R.H. said...

My social science lecturer niece is coming to Melbourne next week. Maybe I'll pick up a few tips on the Human Condition.
I'll let you know.

Middle Child said...

For some reason I don't like cake all that much and seem to have gone of chockie too - I figure if I didn't drink a few glasses of wine every day I would lose weight - I can maintain easily but can't shift it...like you just occasionally i feel like something cooked and warm - I used to cook every night, but after don died its on occasion - last night I cooked a small bit of Silverside, with brussell sprouts (my favourite), carrots, sweet potato, spuds and onion all in the one pot -( because of laziness)

tell you what is really good to prevent osteo - thats sardines...an old lady at the checkout told me that and she had about 10 tins - that was for the fortnight... and she reccommended it in the olive oil because she reckoned olive oil helped stave off dementia - or something like that ...er I forget the rest

River said...

R.H. Planning on visiting Adelaide?

R.H. said...

One must be discreet.

Jayne said...

Am considering becoming vegetarian, as is His Nibs of 13 although the meat will still find its way onto a growing kids plate.
Keep your hands busy, that's the only suggestion I've got that works for giving up smoking and eating.

JahTeh said...

Thank you Jayne, keep the hands busy, that would be the hands that are busy opening the lolly packets.

Therese, one pot cooking and one plate eating is a recipe for joy unless one is a pig and forgoes the plate altogether. I'm very cautious with the sardines as I'm allergic to fish oil but I buy the ones in spring water.

Kath, sounds like it's genetic and definitely nothing to do with the chocolate or the delicious meals that LC dishes up. Does he deliver?

iODyne said...

Howdy cityslickers - since you don't see the ads on regional TV let me tell you that when you see one for DavidJones, we see Extinosad - knocks out sheep lice!
Do you want your leg of lamb lunch to have been steeped in extinosad? hell no. The sheep doesn't like it either, and it costs the farmer a fortune - maybe Big Pharma is behind it all and poisoning the lot of us with health conditions which were not rampant when my healthy grandparent farmers ate nothing but meat and fat.
Next episode: the cow chemicals which claim "you can sell the milk only 4 weeks after using this on your herd!

JahTeh said...

Holy crap, Stacks, never mind the chemicals, sheep have lice? Thank heaven lamb's been off the menu for years.