What's in this Stuff?

I'm just a bit curious...

We bought this pack of bagels on March 3rd and I pulled it out of the bread
basket today, May 5th. Please note, there is no mold and it looks the same
as when we bought it 9 WEEKS ago. I would like to know what kind of
preservatives are being put into these and don't think I want to put any
more of them into my body.

"All my life, I've eaten too much and slept too little..."

...commented Steve the other day. It's amazing how little you eat when you
prepare it yourself and you only eat what you're hungry for. We're both
charter members of the 'Clean Plate Club' and as such, when presented with a
plate of food tend to eat a plate of food.

On this trip though, the amounts on the plate have grown smaller and
smaller. For breakfast, we split a bagel. Lunch is half a sandwich each,
maybe with a bit of fruit. Dinner is usually a smallish piece of meat and
some veg or a pasta / rice meat veg combo (a curry, Jambalya, carbonnera,
etc.). If we go out to lunch and eat a WHOLE BURGER, we tend to have cheese
and crackers for dinner. This morning we each had A pancake with A slice of
bacon. We are probably eating a quarter of what we used to eat.

Steve has probably lost 50 pounds, none of his clothes fit him anymore.
Mine's coming off a bit more slowly, but I put on a pair of shorts that I
wore when I was 28 and managed to button them up so that's a definite
improvement. The big test will be when we get back home and put on the
motorbike leathers, that should be really interesting!

We're not good at deprivation and there certainly hasn't been any of that at
all. The food we've been eating has been great (see the recipes), we've
just been eating less and less of it.

We're also sleeping like ROCKS! And what a treat that is. It's been years
since I've had a complete and deep night's sleep. If the anchorage isn't
rolly, we sleep at least 8 and sometimes 10 hours - what a difference from
my 6 with a 'two hour middle of the night reading so I can get back to sleep
interval'.

As we get further along and the supplies dwindle, I'm experimenting with
different combinations based upon what foods I have left. This one came out
particularly yummy.

Spaghetti Carbonnera (on Steriods)

1/2 a tomato
a handful of black olives
1/2 a cup of chopped very salty ham
one stick of celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 heaping tblsp of cream cheese
2-3 heaping tblsp of sour cream
Enough angel hair pasta for two

Boil the water for pasta and cook pasta while doing the following:

Fry the onion and celery in a little olive oil, when softened and lightly
browned add in tomato, olives and ham. Cook through. Mix in cream cheese
until it is melted and coats all the ingredients. Mix in sour cream and do
the same. Pour in the cooked pasta and toss all together.

I'm sure it fails all health guidelines, but I'm also sure it's healthier
than what you get from a package and you certainly have a better idea of
what's in it than what you get from a restaurant. Besides it was absolutely
delicious - enjoy!

If It's Manmade - Don't Eat It

One of the things this trip has enabled us to do is take total control of what we eat. While we were doing a lot of travel and in the consultancy workstyle, we didn't realise or didn't pay attention to how out of our control food options were. Living that way, oftentimes there is no choice as to what one eats, there is only one option presented and you eat what you are given. Lunch is brought in and that's what you get (and you can bet there are no vegetables or salad!). That option is usually not the best choice or one that would even be considered if there were other options available. Five-a-day? Ha, you're lucky to get one-a-day!

And then there is 'treat yourself' syndrome. This is where you've just worked a 14 hour day, you're in a hotel by yourself for the 4th night in a row and you order a 'treat'. (Are you really going to forgo red wine and a ribeye steak with a port wine reduction, garlic mashed potatoes with fresh made bread for broiled fish and some steamed veg?) Do that 3-4 times a week and then celebrate being together as a couple on the weekend and watch the waistline grow!

Steve says, "If it didn't come out of the ground and it wasn't running around, don't eat it." That's the approach we've taken towards provisioning and eating on the boat. And I've found that's really hard to do! Not from a preference perspective or from being able to create good meals from that approach, but to FIND things that don't have added alpha, beta, hydroxi manmade elements added to them. Over and over I've bought things that I thought had nothing added (olive oil, 100% fruit juice), but then when I read the label something has been added. I don't want to eat chemicals, pesticides or preservatives, thank you, but it's a lot of work to find things without them. Even natural (supposedly) products aren't.

And sugar! When did sugar become an essential component of EVERYTHING! I'm not a big sweets person, I tend to prefer savory foods - with a periodic chocolate binge. When I cook, I usually reduce or completely take out the sugar in recipes because they are either too sweet or the sugar doesn't impact the taste so why have it? Now, eating very little manmade or food prepared by others, we really notice when sugar is added. Why on earth would you put sugar in Chinese food? Since when is potato salad or coleslaw supposed to be sickly sweet? Is it really that difficult to make a fancy cocktail that doesn't taste like you're drinking syrup?

So now it takes me four times as long to plan and provision, searching the shelves for things with no 'stuff'' added (as poor Steve loses the will to live), but in the majority of cases I've been able to do it. Where I can't, I've tried to pick the best of the possible options.

And that work is paying off. The weight is falling off Steve and mine is coming down nicely. We're sleeping at night (except in rolly anchorages!). There's no desperate need for an afternoon nap. While we eat great food, there's been no 'consoling' ourselves with a 'treat'. And when we do go back to the 'old' way of eating, we can really feel it. Load up on carbs and sugar for breakfast? All of a sudden there's a huge desire for a post-breakfast nap!

Now of course, some of 'feeling better' is the lifestyle and doing something we love, and living in the same country is a big plus! Those reasons are big contributors to a feeling of well-being. But I think food is one of the biggest contributors, and we're enjoying feeling better than we have in a very long time!

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No Wonder People in America Get Fat

As part of the new thrifty lifestyle, we did a bit of grocery shopping at Walmart and came to a realisation, no wonder people in America get so fat - the food doesn't taste like anything. The 'good stuff' is so bland that the only way to get one's taste buds excited is to eat something terrible for you - check out the line for McDonalds or fried chicken. Our grocery shopping excursion resulted in Romain lettuce which tasted like water, tomatoes of such a pale peach colour we couldn't even bear to buy them and ham which had just a hint of ham taste. After that we went running for hot chicken wings!

It took a lot of searching, but we finally found some great tomatoes (Italy quality) and they were three times more expensive than the peach coloured ones. I quickly threw them in the cart and decided to save money somewhere else!

A Healthier Lifestyle

Steve has been working very hard on the boat and it shows! We're not
measuring in pounds (or stones), but his old clothes are getting a bit
too big!