Thursday, April 7, 2011

The day I never stopped eating

Today has been one of those days where I feel like I'm eating one continuous meal. Or, more precisely, a never-ending parade of snacks that I so thoughtfully packed for myself. Since today is a 10 hour work day, I packed a bunch of things that I thought would help fortify me without having to order take out. But because I'm still trying to figure out how much food my body needs vs. how much food my eyes want to eat, I packed wayyy too much. And that's bad because it seems that I have as little impulse control with healthy stuff as I do with the candy that is all over my office.

Today's blog is about all of the stuff I've been grazing on all day, which is a nice segue into something I wanted to talk about anyway - store bought foods I'm obsessed with right now.

I started the day with my new favorite breakfast - Fage greek yogurt with apple butter. Ellen Tarlin raved about it on her Slate.com Clean Plate blog and I've been thinking about trying it for months now.

***NEW FOOD ALERT***
I totally shouldn't have waited! The greek yogurt is more tangy than regular yogurt, so the apple butter adds some much-needed sweetness and spice. I decided to turn breakfast into a snack food by slicing up a fresh apple and dunking the pieces. I highly recommend this - it was like a healthy version chips and onion dip.

I was full by the time I finished, but a few minutes later I realized that I was eating Veggie Stix. For those of you who don't know, Veggie Stix are 10,000x better than potato chips. They're made from all kinds of veggies and the ingredients list is written in words normal people can understand, like "radish" and "sweet potato" and "sea salt." I wouldn't go so far as to say that you can actually distinguish which straw is which vegetable by taste, but I will say that they're fantastic and addicting and I can't wait to go to the grocery store and buy more.



Then I moved on to the most annoying thing in my lunchbox: the hummus. Yesterday I sliced extra cucumber and orange pepper into bite sized pieces and set them aside for the hummus. And today, I finally slayed the beast. I don't even know why I've had this aversion to hummus lately - I enjoyed it once I started eating - but for some reason I don't find the idea of it very appealing right now. Does anyone else go through food phases like this? Sometimes you can't get enough of it, and other times you wish it'd drop off the face of the Earth?



I decided to wash it down with something sweet. In come the mini chocolate meringue cookies. If you've never had them before, you should. They are stiff, fat free cookies that literally melt in your mouth. They're really something else. We used to get them at the farm stand when I was a kid, but I found theses at the higher end (read: more expensive) grocery store. I really can't get enough of them.



Next I had a fruit cup. I love fruit cups, they're my favorite way to drink juice. You have to be careful though because some fruit cups contain heavy, sugary syrups that aren't good for you. I generally buy the generic in light or natural syrup and I honestly can't taste a difference between that and the name brand stuff. My favorite are the mandarin oranges.

The last time I was home, my mom offered me a Clif Bar as a breakfast substitute. I was a little skeptical because the last one I had was peanut butter and very dry, but this time it tasted really good, although I couldn't decide if it was because the flavor was better (it was chocolate chip) or because I really was just that hungry. I've found that mornings are really hard for me (I'm about as far from a morning person as you can get) so I went looking for a breakfast bar that would keep me full. I found the oatmeal raisin walnut Clif Bars and gave them another shot. I'm glad I did because they're really, really good. It's like a slightly gooey oatmeal cookie....but for breakfast. My favorite oatmeal was always cinnamon raisin, so this bar definitely makes me feel like it's time to start my day. The one I packed today fell on the floor halfway through...but I have a whole box at home, so I'll just make up for it tomorrow :)



The fun didn't stop there, though. I also finished the little focaccia (the onions were perfect!) and the rest of my doctored ricotta cheese. And I threw in a clementine for good measure. 

The worst part? I still didn't eat everything I packed. I have a lemon meringue pie Jello Temptations I've yet to try, an extra fruit cup, and another clementine left to go. Who needs meals when I've got more snack food than a snack bar?



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