43 posts tagged “food” (page 2)

There's a reason I don't eat much sugar. Seriously.

So, today is the one day out of the year that I'm allowed to do whatever I want (within legal limits). My grandmother taught me this and, well, who am I to argue?

For breakfast this morning, I had an avocado at home with the baby. Not exciting, but I like avocado and all the avocados I've been buying lately get mushed up as soon as they're ripe and sent to school with the baby. The funny thing, of course, was as he watched me eat the avocado, he got a little agitated (it is, after all, a food he normally eats), so I had to share some of it.

Then, once I got to work, I was surprised with a container of chocolate covered almonds sitting on my desk (along with a couple of cards and the updated Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that I've been eyeing for several years). Now, I love nuts. (After all, we are what we eat.) I love almonds in particular. And the best almonds in the world (besides roasted and lightly salted) are chocolate covered. So, I had to sample a few.

And a few turned into quite a few.

And quite a few turned into many, until I realized I ate half the container.

That was all before 11 this morning. And now I can feel my body rebelling and ready to crash.

Naptime, anyone?

This morning, on the Today Show, Matt Lauer interviewed a 12-year-old from England who is allergic to just about every food imaginable. The poor thing has a tube attached to his stomach so that he can hook himself up to a feeding bag every night.

So, it could be a whole lot worse than just needing to cut out gluten from my diet so that Baby C's eczema doesn't flare up. He could be allergic to everything. At least he's doing well with rice cereal, apples, avocado and butternut squash (that's all we've tried so far).

I can take great comfort, then, in knowing that as difficult as it may be to completely cut out wheat and gluten from my diet, it could be worse. A whole lot worse.

I found myself in need of a food mill once my son started solids, especially since I really want him to eat as much fresh food (versus jarred) as possible. So, I visted the first place I go when in search of kitchenware: Williams-Sonoma.

Williams-Sonoma carries three different food mills: one by All-Clad, one by OXO, and one by a French manufacturer whose name escapes me. All three would do the job adequately, but it was just a matter of deciding which would be best for me.

After testing out all three, I settled on the OXO model for several reasons: (1) it had the most comfortable grip, (2) it was easy to assemble and disassemble, and (3) it was the least expensive of the three ($50.00). The All-Clad food mill is nice because it fits into an All-Clad pot, but I found this feature unnecessary as I would be transferring food from the pot into the food mill, and not vice versa. So, I left the store with the OXO food mill.

After using it to puree food for my son this past weekend, I am exceptionally pleased with my purchase. It's wonderfully easy to use and clean, and I really like the folding feet at the bottom that enable me to prop it up onto a very large bowl. (This would come in handy if I were to use the mill to make large portions of something, like grown-up mashed potatoes, for example.) Storage is really my only issue, but that has more to do with the fact that I have too many things in my kitchen than a design flaw.

If you're in the market for a food mill, I highly recommend the OXO Good Grips Food Mill. I think it stands up to the pricier mills quite well.

One of the buyers came out of a meeting at the start of lunch exclaiming, "I can't believe they didn't pack the soy sauce!" It so happened they ordered out for sushi, but the restaurant left out that condiment.

"I have soy sauce," I called. And, sure enough, I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out my little 5-ounce bottle of soy sauce. Sure, it was only half full, but that was more than enough for this group.

No one was surprised that I have soy sauce at my desk. I don't think anyone would bat an eye if I decided, one day, to set up a small kitchenette in my cubicle (complete with toaster oven and portable burner). I think I shock more people by not having a food staple at my desk.

It's almost a little unnerving.

It began in the fifth grade.

One morning in the spring of '85, I asked my mother to please pack two sandwiches in my lunch bag that day. She seemed a bit skeptical, but she was also never one to deny me food, so she complied. And from that day on, I had two sandwiches in my lunch bag whenever she packed my lunch.

Now, 22 years later, I still have to eat multiple sandwiches. Or, at the very least, a footlong sub.

No one could ever accuse me of being a fat child, or even slightly overweight. (I could find fat on me, of course, but that's a different story for a different post.) In fact, my weight didn't hit the triple digit mark until I moved to the east coast. (I blame it all on Florida's humidity.)

As I was building my sandwiches today (because one doesn't make a sandwich; they're constructed), one of my coworkers stopped at my cube and gawked at my creation.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "That's like a Scooby sandwich!"

Another coworker prarie dogged over my cubicle wall and looked down at my desk. "No, that's a Shaggy sandwich!" he said.

I honestly don't know why people make such a fuss over my appetite.

In all fairness (I should have taken a picture of my plate before I ate my lunch), I already built one sandwich and had stacked the bottom half of my second sandwich atop the first completed one. So, to the average passerby, it may have looked like a gargantuan Dagwood. Additionally, my sandwiches often contain more lettuce or sprouts than deli meat, and that always makes the sandwich look bigger than it really is, too.

But I have to confess that I do have a healthy appetite. I always have.

So if anyone's genes are to blame for Baby C's ability to consume massive quantities of food, they would have to be mine.

Dedicated readers of this blog are aware of my son's awesome ability to consume large quantities of food. Let's put it this way: The typical 4-5 month old will drink about 24 to 32 ounces of formula or breastmilk a day; Baby C drinks about 40-48 ounces of breastmilk a day. As of his last check up, he was in the 90th percentile in height and in the 50th percentile in weight, so he's clearly not overweight.

What does this massive consumption of food mean? Well, for one thing, I have to keep up with his needs and find myself constantly hungry. This latest diet doesn't help matters much, either. (I ate an entire rotisserie chicken for lunch today with an artichoke heart salad and an entire 10-ounce bag of gourmet potato chips... and I was still hungry.) As I'm still breastfeeding my son, I'm not overly concerned about the quantity of the food I'm eating, especially since I'm also losing weight.

But what concerned me for a while was precisely why my little boy was eating as much as he was - and how was it possible that he was consuming as much as he was and not showing it?

Last night, Chris and I were having dinner, and Baby C sat happily in his bouncy seat while we ate. As I watched him, it finally occurred to me how his weight remained average though his appetite certainly wasn't: the boy constantly moves. Just in his seat, he talked to us, kicking his legs quickly all the while. (It also explained how his legs got so strong, when I cave too quickly and excuse him from the requisite Tummy Time exercises.)

I'm really not looking forward to the day he is mobile. If I think I'm getting a workout now by just picking him up and putting him down, just wait until I have to run after a crawling baby to pick him up. Karma is truly unbiased. (Note to self: Send Mom and Dad a note apologizing for my constant activity as a kid.)

So, where did he get this fantastic metabolim, you ask? Believe it or not, from both Mom and Dad. Chris and I were mere shades of ourselves when we met many, many moons ago. Back then, we were in our early twenties and had metabolisms that rivaled those of race horses. Plus we were still in college and, well, that meant a certain amount of walking each day.

Now, we're not so slim. We've each grown a clothing size or two, but I firmly believe it's because we're really not all that active anymore. Plus we're in our early thirties, and, well, metabolisms start to slow at our old age.

But Baby C has inherited our metabolisms. And I think he's picked up my childhood appetite (large portions) and Chris's adolescent feeding cycle (constant). What will this ultimately mean for him?

For now, I have no idea.

It's Day 9 of the diet, and I'm starving. No, I really am. Rice, salad, and meat only fills you up for so long before you're in desperate need for something a little more filling... like a milkshake or even Wheat Thins. I ate an entire rotisserie chicken at a meeting on Thursday (everyone asked where I was putting all the food, and my Sr. Director said, "She bottles it for the baby.") and was still hungry by the time we got out an hour and a half later - hungry enough to help myself to a bowl of cereal.

But this new diet is working, because Baby C's rash is almost completely gone. He's still got some redness behind the knees and inside his elbows, but even that has abated substantially since I started using the topical treatment Dr. W prescribed. He's also not burning up anymore, so I actually have him in a onesie and a pair of shorts right now. The bumps on his skin are gone, his cheeks aren't rosy out of irritation, and he actually let me swaddle him last night so I could change the sheets on the bed and do a few other things around the house. Plus his disposition is much better.

So, I'm encouraged now by the drastic change to the baby's skin, though I'm still a little bitter at having to refrain from eating all the things I love. But with that said, I just heard my stomach growl, and I'm not convinced a banana is going to fix that.

[sigh]

I'm on Day 5 of my new diet, and I think I'm getting better at finding alternatives to the things on the banned list. Among my staples: Rice Dream rice milk, Rice Chex, oatmeal, and bananas. My husband cooked dinner the past few nights, seasoning the meat with only salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and I've really enjoyed it. I also found a vinaigrette that I can use (sans corn or soybean oil), so salads can be enjoyable again, too. The hardest thing to get over is my inability to eat bread (right now). Even yesterday's trip to the Fresh Market proved futile in finding wheat-free bread.

Baby C's rash has improved dramatically. I'm using Cetaphil cream on him each morning and in the evenings, and it has reduced the bumps on his arms and legs dramatically. We're also using the Cetaphil wash on him, though we haven't bathed him since Friday. I think the lapse in bathing has helped a bit, too, but we'll need to give him a bath tonight, as he's starting to get a little stinky. Right now he just looks like he has a very bad sunburn.

So, in short, things are going pretty well. I'm managing to survive (and have a very valid excuse to avoid the donuts in the break room), and Baby C seems to be feeling better. All is well.

Baby C was sent home from school yesterday because he had a rash. It's still there today, but much less than yesterday. We went to the doctor this morning (Dr. W is on vacation, but Dr. S was able to see us today), and I showed Dr. S pictures of Baby C from last night. Dr. S checked my little boy's temperature and listened to his heartbeat and breathing and found nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, Baby C was laughing and smiling the whole time. (The only thing he was doing that was out of the ordinary was keep his hands clenched. I noticed he only does this now when he's uncomfortable.)

Anyway, the verdict is that Baby C's rash is an allergic reaction to something he's eating. And that means, he's having an allergic reaction to something I'm eating. So for the next six weeks or so, I need to carefully monitor my food intake. On the banned list? Oh, just about every great food imaginable. No dairy, no chocolate, no wheat, no corn, no tomatoes, no seafood, no turkey, no citrus, no nuts, no soy... I think there's more on that list, but I can't remember it all. Basically, any high-allergy food (especially seafood, since I had an allergy of my own as a child) is on my list of things I can't eat.

Naturally, I have to keep taking my vitamins and make sure I take my calcium supplement, too. But my diet will primarily consist of a lot of rice, pasta, and chicken. I think I can eat a few vegetables, too. I hope I can, anyway; I just had some potatoes, green beans, and spinach from Boston Market. (Yes, I know the spinach has cheese. I will cut out all dairy immediately, but I desperately needed some iron.) And I will have to keep a diary of everything I eat so that I know, once I slowly begin introducing foods into my diet, what is bothering my little boy. I'm viewing this as a practice run for starting him on solid foods.

I am going to lose so much weight.

In honor of the office redecoration, my boss brought cannoli and cheesecake for the memorabilia installers. It so happened that they weren't interested, so guess who just polished off a cannoli and a (small) slice of cheesecake?

This is the real reason I'm getting fat. I love to eat. I especially love to eat good food.

(I'm really not getting fat, though. I'm only 10 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. But I do love to eat.)