Gothic Granola

National Chocolate Chip Day is another one of those made-up holidays that must have been made just for bloggers. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's been around since before the Internet since most sites about it seem to reference the original chocolate chip cookie . NCCD is 15 May, and my post is a day late. I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road on Thursday (the other day I usually blog) and didn't decide what to bake for NCCD until yesterday afternoon.

Vegans go to some extreme lengths to make food that resembles animal products. Just challenge someone to go vegan or give up alcohol and you will see the deep emotional bonds humans form with certain food preparations (goat cheese! applewood-smoked bacon! craft beer! mom's apple pie!).    This is some kind of chicken? Or sausage? According to my family, it was tasty...for dead flesh. /vegansnark

  Here's an article I saw this week about the dearth of Omega-3's and overabundance of Omega-6's in the American diet. Hence, we have more than double the linoleic acid in our body fat as do our parents' generation, and fatty acid turnover in adipose tissue can take years. So you may feel the health effects of your diet from the past year or two, even if you switch to a healthier diet. Besides the importance of supplementing with Omega-3's ( preferably eating Omega-3 rich foods before turning to supplements), the point about the "delay" in your healthier habits taking hold reinforces the idea that you just have to give things time. The body doesn't repair itself overnight. Major health changes through behaviour change are not easy, and the rewards don't come quickly, but they will pay off with consistent effort over time. How about some Omega-3 Powerhouse Muffins?

They really do. I served over 250 squares of cacao goji hemp protein bars on Wednesday for Foodie Call. This week's theme was Whole Body, the supplements department. I modified this superfood bar from Earthsprout , having bookmarked the idea when Eleanor included it in her newsletter earlier this year.

They don't pay me to think anymore, so I tend to think hard anyway. When I'm speeding home from closing shift, downing 800 mL to 1 L of water in order to rehydrate while blasting Rage Against the Machine, my mind runs in high gear. It's time to write. It's difficult to be consistent in other areas of life when one's job is inconsistent. Let us begin with this premise. Being a cashier and having a standing sedentary job is no more healthy than being a desk jockey with a sitting sedentary job. The inconsistent hours, workload, and cast of characters is beginning to wear on me. When a job begins to impact my health negatively, in preventable ways, then it's time to go. This is a job, not my career.

As I ate Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise with almond milk, I realised that eating cereal is actually quite pleasurable and why don’t I do it more often?  Said I, I usually have oatmeal for breakfast, and since oats are a blank slate, they’re good for all meals of the day, and they can be ground into flour.  Cereal’s somewhat one-dimensional since it generally retains a breakfast connotation.  Or it’s dessert (hello, my freshman year of college: salad and cereal for supper.  I made being vegetarian and eating healthful meals…challenging).  

Snowed in today.  Much thesis-ing, besides making sushi filled with a rice-and-lentil moosh, blending hommos, and baking & chilling coconut cream pie.   At this point, I still owe a "how to frost a cake" post and a "bread pudding" post. Good bring-to-work/class fare: I made these bars many times in spring 2011 since these are a convenient way to use up bananas fast going south or a third of a jar of apple butter or a bit of pumpkin...you get the idea.