Garden Photos Autumn Bounty

Autumn is here and so comes the bounty from the garden. I took a stroll in the garden today for the first time since we returned from Sukkot. I was surprised to see how many tomatoes went to waste while we were gone. Still there were five crates mostly full after I picked and that's not even touching the cherry tomato patch.

The peppers, cabbage, beets, carrots, squash, green beans, potatoes, and herbs will be a yummy addition to our autumn diet.

Autumn Bounty

Yummy peppers and a HUGE beet!

Cats Love Cantaloupe

Mom and I have been doing some major diet makeover in our kitchen lately. It's been on the to do list for quite some time but getting around to doing the to do list isn't always as easy as it sounds. A while back I bought the book Whole Foods And Healing Recipes by Ron Lagerquist. It gathered dust for about 5 months before I felt so bad about keeping it hidden away in the bedroom that I brought it out to re-read. By some miracle I was able to persuade mom to read it too and next thing I knew we were buying carrots, corn, and cantaloupe!

Now speaking of cantaloupe, we've been buying "herds of cantaloupe"(as Lagerquist says) each week for a dollar a piece at the roadside stand. Now mom is not convinced yet that we should juice the whole cantaloupe rind and all but did you know that is the most nutritious way to eat a cantaloupe? According to Lagerquist's research, cantaloupe(rind and all) are high in vitamin A and C, myoinositol, and a large amount of digestive enzymes. They are also good for weight loss and in fighting off certain types of cancer!

Learning some of these fascinating facts on cantaloupe has been enough to keep me interested in eating it for breakfast...but the rinds? A few year back(honestly it was like 13 years back) we realized that our cat Mimi LOVES cantaloupe! We found it funny so we tried feeding her all sorts of fruits and veggies. She didn't really catch on to the vegan concept. We did have another cat that liked peaches and pineapple, and our cat Amy tasted Dr. Pepper once...um that's another story though. So, back to the rinds. Last year I had too many cantaloupe in the garden and they were starting to rot so I took little old Mimi out there and showed her where to harvest and she just dug those fanged teeth right into the rind and began eating. So the cat knows what's good for her and she's not going to let the taste of a tough cantaloupe rind get in the way of her raw food consumption! So take a lesson from my cat and eat your rinds.

Well so far each morning I'm still throwing the rinds out the back door hoping to hit the compost bucket and occasionally I'll throw one toward the cat. And if one of these mornings you catch me gnawing on cantaloupe rind...don't raise your eyebrows at me, I'm just trying to follow Mimi's good example.

Fruit diet proves itself!

Here I am on day 20 of an all raw diet on which I'm only allowed to eat raw fresh fruits and freshly juiced vegetables. I have 8 more days to go and so far I'm impressed, I have lost close to 14 pounds. I wasn't in dire need of weight loss but over the past few years my weight has been creeping up and I just felt like I needed a fresh and healthy start.

It has not been the easiest thing to do but certainly not the hardest either. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would say it rates a 6 in difficulty. Mornings are always a breeze, I'm fine with eating fruit for breakfast and most of the time fruit for lunch is fine too, its' always when the dinner bell strikes that I begin reasoning with myself over whether or not it's worth it to stay on the diet. I figured out that I just need to talk myself through the difficult moments when I'm craving mom's home-made fettuccine or chicken and dressing. If I can make it through the last few hours in a day then I know I can make it through the entire 4 weeks.

So now, as I'm nearing the end of this diet, I'm thinking more on how I can improve my eating habits on a more permanent basis. I know Yahweh would want me to take better care of my body day to day throughout the year on not just on some freak fruit fast to loose a few pounds. I think I'll definitely include more raw and whole foods, less dairy, more fish, drastically less refined sugar and flour. And...I think I'll take the time, finally after all my life of avoiding the kitchen, and learn how to cook. :)