Vegetarian? Really Chef Roy? We've seen you eat meat!

After yesterday's post about meat I received a few comments from friends about my personal eating habits. And they were correct, I have eaten meat in the past, and I do eat a bit now. Now days though, it has to be grass fed free range or imported from Spain or Italy. Whereas the meat that my friends did indeed see me eat back some years ago when I catered or cooked for events, was always just grocery store meat. However, I won't eat that stuff anymore. And since I have very little money, pretty much I don't eat any meat. 

So what do I eat then?

I am Lacto Ovo Piscevarian Vegetarian. As I have explained in the past, people my age that are not intense athletes, lose the delimiting enzymes needed to convert smaller chain Omega 3 fatty acids ALA and EPA into the much needed DHA. So since I don't run, bike or otherwise burn 4 to 5 thousand calories daily, (which it is thought promotes the production of those specific enzymes) I need that DHA from organic dairy, free range organic eggs or cold water fish and shellfish. Lacto - Ovo - Piscevarian. Earlier this year a very dear friend told me she was going totally raw. I looked into it, was impressed with the amount of data there is on the internet about the subject. The concept is pretty sound, cooking destroys most of the enzymes that natural whole foods contain that the human body uses to actually digest the plant material. So I tried it as well. For about four weeks, I ate nothing but raw foods. Except for beer and cigars, which technically I ate neither one. Anyway, I felt like crap after four weeks. I dropped nearly 20 pounds in that time. Maybe that was part of it. But that did make me look more into the Omega 3 aspect of diet. Learning is something I like to do, and the world does in fact change as new data, new experiments and new conclusions are reached all the time. The human race is learning. There just isn't a whole lot of wisdom coming with all that knowledge though, and that's the problem. Yes, we can make food plants grow in toxic synthetic weed killer, but should we?

Anyway, what do I eat? I love to eat. I eat spicy foods, I eat whole grains, I eat raw vegetables, I eat to fuel my body. I used to eat stuff that satisfied my tastes and hunger for sweet, fat, processed and crappy. I weighed 325. Today I weigh 248, just looked. In the past few months I have changed my diet to what I call the Modified Raw Diet. It's the diet for a healthy existence, one that allows the person to maintain an exceptional degree of good health. Provides all of the nutrients needed for maintenance of a healthy human body. And also like me, helps you to achieve weight loss goals. The diet is simple, eat a wide variety of raw plants, nuts seeds and some fruit. Organic. If you eat food that has pesticide residue, was grown in exhausted soils using  petrochemical fertilizer, your body has to work hard to process the toxins that are IN your food. Don't eat the toxins, and you are off to a great start to begin with. Then in the modified Raw diet, eat the things that help your body, things like whole milk yogurt, aged raw cheeses, real eggs and fish. And that last one, eat wild caught fish, never farm raised crap. And finally, eat some whole grains that are prepared in the time honored traditional ways of preparing them. This basically means don't eat plain old cooked rice or wheat or corn, or other grains. Grains and seeds (nuts to a lesser extent as well) contain lectins and phytates which need to be neutralized in order for them to be healthy. Soaking, fermenting (or souring), sprouting and steaming all are traditional methods of processing grains that were discovered many many millennia ago and make those foods healthier. It's so easy to do, soak your brown rice overnight before you cook it. Ferment your bread dough overnight before baking your bread. (Yeah yeah, I know, I'm the only one in the world that bakes his own bread. Try Ezekial sprouted grain bread, just as good) 

So, me, I eat brown rice virtually every day. I eat a small piece of real whole wheat bread (I know it cuz I make it) three or four times a week. I eat eggs 5 or 6 days a week. And I eat humus a few days a week also. The rest of the time, I eat vegetables and fruit. Some of the vegetables I cook lightly. Except Kale, that needs to be cooked awhile. And fruits, I only eat what's in season locally. I make raw crackers, I soak and dry my own nuts and seed mixes and snack on those, and I eat an avocado every day. Seventy- Eight pounds lost. And although I have continuing long term medical issues (Thank you City of Austin) the reality is that since I have begun the raw and then went to the modified raw diet starting in January, I haven't been in the ER or hospital, haven't had a flare up of my MRSA infection in my sinuses, haven't had to go to the doctor because of uncontrolled asthma, been able to walk a mile or two nearly daily (well, the last one I stopped as it's 95 degrees at 6 am now)((but I ride the stationary bike)) and I feel better than I have since the black mold incident back in 2009. Now maybe part of all that is because I absolutely and completely gave up eating all processed sugars, any and all processed foods of any kind really and only eat things that I myself made so that I know exactly what it is and how it was processed. And all the food I eat is organic or grown by local farmers. I do go to farmers markets every week and I do get to trade with those guys for my food, but I have found that market food is comparable in price to organic produce sold at grocery stores. And the quality is way way better. 

So just one example of a fantastic breakfast I made that only took about fifteen minutes to make and it was indeed, fit for a king. I took some baby zuchinni, split them in half and

threw onto my cast iron in some olive oil. Then sliced locally grown mushrooms, a sliced red onion and a red pepper I grew in my container garden, then stirred them around a bit. Then cracked in two real free range eggs and cooked them over medium. (note in the picture just how ORANGE the yolk is, compare that to grocery store eggs with their insipid flavor and pale yellow color) Served with some sliced cantalope and it was the perfect Father's Day breakfast. Not exactly raw, but they were just lightly sauteed and still able to retain a lot of the desired qualities of raw vegetables.

Yep