Yogurt.

Seriously?  I mean, who knew that what I've been eating at years wasn't real yogurt.  Well, I suppose I was *forcing* myself to eat it.

Today, I experienced what I consider actual yogurt for the first time.  This is what I purchased at the g-store:

Organic Plain Whole Milk, Cream on Top, Yogurt

Besides the unpleasantness of slicing my thumb open on the foil yogurt lid (OUCH!), I was really surprised by this yogurt.  Here's my brief yogurt history.  I never really ate yogurt until late 2005 when I hired a nutritionist and personal trainer to facilitate weight loss.  I was to have a low fat yogurt cup each evening at 8:30pm IF I was still hungry.  I was restricted to a certain brand and line of yogurt.  The consistency always presented the "ick" factor, and even with vigorous stirring it was still kinda, well, lumpy.  Often, I would even hold my nose to get it down, no matter the fruity or pie flavor.  Eww!  Well, today was different.  When I opened the container and smelled the yogurt (yes, I smelled it!), it smelled a little like cream cheese!  This totally intrigued me!!  It didn't taste like cream cheese (darn!), but with a little on top of fresh strawberries, it was pretty good!  Definitely not my typical yogurt experience.  And, today could have been the first time EVER that I was satisfied without sugar on my strawberries.  That's a huge accomplishment!

So...my big question is WHY people don't talk about this?  Why are full fat dairy products so demonized?  This yogurt was definitely superior to any sugar free, low fat, flavored yogurt I've ever tasted.  I hope my local g-store keeps carrying it...

Weird!

So...I cooked dinner from scratch at home as well.  I actually only had iced tea for lunch because I wasn't hungry after a late-ish breakfast for the stars.  Dinner consisted of the following:

--brown rice.  Well, the brown rice was kind of an experiment in the rice cooker.  I used chicken broth instead of water, and added sauteed garlic, parsley and an onion to the rice.  It turned out FAB!  The broth taste with the onion reminded me of my mom's rice that she always made growing up.  Now...if I could only use broth that wasn't from a can...

--grilled chicken.  Right now the only chicken I have are some boneless, skinless breasts from whole foods market (no meds/hormones).  The only "grill" I have is a George Foreman. ;)  So I grilled a ginormous chicken breast with a lot of black pepper.  I only ate half of it, so yay for leftovers.

--local zucchini.  Zucchini is seriously one of my favorite veggies.  MMMM.  I pan cooked the zucchini in some pastured butter with seasoned salt and red pepper flakes.  I didn't cook it long, as I don't like my zucchini mushy - yuck!  Then, I grated some fresh parmesan cheese on top.  I only ate half of the batch...so again...yay for leftovers.

This dinner was GOOD!  I used a LOT of pepper though, it it was a little heavy on the heat side.  But guess what I found out?  I was craving a glass of milk after the meal to counteract the heat.  The milk tasted similar to an after-dinner ice cream treat because of the taste and the creaminess of it.  WEIRD!  Who would have ever thought that a simple glass of milk could quench my nighttime ice cream cravings?!  Amazing...  I also have to say that with both meals I cooked today I had a different experience.  Usually I get a sickly full feeling when I eat a meal.  Today I just felt satisfied, not sickly or overly full.  Of course, it could just be a psychosomatic thingie-ma-bob...so I guess I'll see if I continue on this coolio path.

New Breakfast Tradition

So, I haven't blogged in a while.  A very, very brief catch up.

--I read the book "Deep Nutrition" from cover to cover and it made sense to me.
--I have been scouring the internet for information.
--I started an ecouse on traditional food and budgeting

Last night, I went to the grocery store determined to get "better" food for breakfast today.  I love breakfast, but I had gotten into the bad (very bad) habit of eating McGriddles from McDonalds in the morning.  Well, I have to tell you that my breakfast this morning was so much tastier than McDonalds today!  MMMMM.

At the store, I bought the following for breakfast today:
--organic, cage free eggs (not free range, but pretty close)
--preservative free, nitrate free bacon (I was shocked to find this at the regular g-store!)
--Organic, pastured butter (mmm)
--Organic, whole, vitamin D milk

I have to say I was really concerned about drinking whole milk.  I've been drinking skim milk since starting high school (hmmm...that's about...well...holy crap 17 years!  I'm old...), and milk fat has been vilified.  I honestly expected it to be chunky and taste like gristle or something.  Well I was wrong.  I opened and poured it into a glass this morning with uneasiness.  Then, I smelled it.  Who smells their milk?!  Apparently, I do.  I realized there was no smell.  When I buy skim milk, I have thought for years it smelled - even when it was fresh off the shelf.  This is one of the main reasons I stopped drinking milk straight out.  There was NO smell to my new milk in the red carton.  Then I took my first sip and MMMMM.  I have rediscovered milk!

Amazingly, I also decided that I would be fine with LESS food than I made this morning.  That's weird...I usually always want more breakfast.  Maybe that real fat told my body that it was full.  Anyway...so far, so good.