Walking the Line as a Foodie

Just for the record, I'd like it noted that I barely minded being called Miss Granola at the salon in Portland, Oregon where I first began my massage therapy career so many eons ago. And, it's also true that I did make all of my own baby food.

I've long prided myself on my healthy eating. I'm also convinced my aversion to preservatives in my food far outweighs my passion for butter and cream.

But it's not always easy to eat healthy when you're a confirmed foodie. I grappled with this continually in my 20's but it was when I at last found myself making homemade frosting to mask the cardboard-esque flavor of fat free, sugar free, wheat free cookies that I knew I had gone too far. It was time to return to center.

Now I only rarely stray a few steps to either side. Early last week I did try no-carb flour tortillas but I unexpectedly tweaked myself by beginning to ponder what wheat becomes without the carbs. In the end, I tossed those.

Yesterday, by accident, I picked up fat-free half and half. If you take the fat out of half and half, doesn't it become skim milk? I hate skim milk. I tossed it. Not to mention that the pondering of what made it as thick as regular half and half again tweaked me.

Neither here nor there, but I also accidentally picked up orange juice with extra pulp. I meant to pick up the no-pulp (the Florida Nienhaus' are die-hard no pulp people).

But that I just strained. This throwing away of food that now has only elements of real food is making a noticeable dent in my grocery budget. 

How do they get extra pulp into the orange juice? 

So, as adventurous as it sounds, I better wait until next week to try the fat free, black bean brownie recipe.

The picture you see above is a bowl of zucchini "noodles" - one of the many unusual dishes offered at a tea I recently attended at Ms. Tina ________'s home - "Tea in the Raw". All the food was raw vegetarian. It was fascinating and tastier than you might imagine but I confess to a wild craving for a burger on the way home.