DAY 41: MORE SALAD PLEASE

April 19, 2022 ~ Tuesday

Refeeding Update: Day 8 of 14.

Phase 3: Steamed – Continue raw fruit and vegetables but add steamed vegetables, light soups, potatoes, yams, squash, and small amounts of dressings.

Daily refeeding numbers: Weight-178.9 Weight loss since adopting diet-56.1 BP-117/78 Heart rate-80 Oxygen level-98 Temperature-98 Glucose-95 Sleep-4.3 One minute pulse rate-steady 75. Muscle pain level-0 (scale 1-10) Energy level-8 (scale 1-10).

My Comments: I can not say this enough. The reset of the palate is an amazing event. I LOVE to eat salads now. The flavors in the lettuce and spinach leaves are complex and tasty. When combined with steamed mushrooms and other fresh veggies, and just a couple of table spoons of whole plant based SOS free dressing, tastes out of this world. I have made the switch and intend to stay in this place. I have no expectations about anyone else’s lifestyle where food is concerned. Just please allow me to have my space to enjoy a salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Should I ever slip, please do not point it out as I already know. In fact, we all slip up and eat something we shouldn’t. The question is what do we do next? My very next meal will be a salad and/or a green juice which I have the recipes for. I do not plan to slip up, but should I do so, I have a plan. And strange enough even kale can be made to taste better. It is about a balance of flavor. Spritz kale with some lemon juice cuts the bitter. At least my neuro-adapted palate.

Cooking: This morning there was another cooking demo by Cathy Fisher. She made Southwestern Stew, a salsa, and baked tortilla chips. I was able to taste it because I am feeding again, however, I only tasted it as she heavily spiced it and put peppers in it. Peppers of any color bother my stomach and I do not like very spicy food. Still, I can alter this recipe to my liking.

But the jewel of the day was a private cooking class with Chef Bravo for three of us. We choose the fruit we wanted to work with and the spices we wanted to use. I chose pineapple, strawberries, fresh ground nutmeg, and a teaspoon of vanilla. There was no written recipe except for the guidance of the chef. He was teaching us some cooking theory. One way to gain flavor in a dish is to remove as much of the water as possible. In this case, to reduce down the fruit so that no sugar was needed to sweeten but what was already in the fruit. It is like making a jam and we used Agar, a plant based gelatin for a thickening. And you have to watch to make sure you do not let it burn. Then we watched him make a cashew custard for a topping on the fruit mixture.

I was a bit intimidated by the experience as this was from a true professional in the culinary world. Remember, he can cook meat based or plant based. And the two are in different worlds. All in all, my fruit concoction was very tasty. I got to “take it home” i.e. back to my suite fridge to taste in the morning when he said it would be at its best after the flavors blended.

One huge take away in all these cooking classes is that I can use a recipe but I do not have too. I can make a meal from whatever is in the fridge.