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IMBY diet - Days 6 & 7

Day 6 & 7
 
The weekend was pretty busy so I did have too much time to update
 
Day 6
 
Breakfast: Nest egg

Ingredients: 1 potato 1 egg, some hamburger.
 
I used the hamburger to grease up the pan. I used a cheese shredder to shred potato in a pan I formed it in to a nest. I added an egg, fried it all up and there I go.
 
This was an awesome breakfast. I know it is similar to one of my days earlier but I really wanted to try it. I will make this one of my breakfast cravings.

Lunch: Chicken pieces and raw vegetables
Ingredients: chicken, carrot, kohlrabi, celery and yellow beans.
 
I went canoeing on Day 6 so I could not really make a meal, and I had to try to make something that I was able to eat easily. I know this was not creative at all.
 
Dinner: hamburger patties,
 
After the canoe trip I had to go to a family BBQ. The only food that was there was the hamburger patties so I had a couple of them.

Snacks: dried apples
 
For the trip I dehydrated apples, and some apples that were dipped in maple syrup. I love my food dehydrator. The maple dipped apples I have never tried before and they were very good; except they can get pretty sticky with the humidity.

Drinks: Tea and Chicory coffee substitute and a little mix of both.

Tea: Ginger mint apple.
Ingredients: Mint leaves from the creek and from the garden, wild ginger, apple and maple syrup.

I dehydrated all the ingredients (dipped the apples first in maple syrup) for 12 hours. I used my magic bullet to mix and slice it all up. Added some of the mix to a mesh ball infuser, and dropped it in some hot water.
 
Very good very minty and gingery. I am going to make some more and properly store it. I think next time I won’t add maple syrup to the apples before dehydration, because the tea becomes sticky over time, especially in humid conditions, as the water is reabsorbed to the material.

Chicory coffee substitute:
Ingredients Chicory root.
 
Collected and washed the chicory roots. I put the chicory in the oven on bake for 20 minutes at 400 F. After it was baked I added to the magic bullet and grounded it up. I used it in my coffee maker as I would with coffee. I was better than I expected. It had a very roasted flavour. I found out that chicory actually doesn’t have caffeine. Silly Silly. So it’s a decaf. I usually drink coffee for the caffeine not as much for the taste. I liked my tea better,
 
I decided to put a bit of both the tea and the chicory in the tea infuser. It worked out great. I let all my family members give it a try and they all enjoyed it too. The chicory to the tea kind of gave it a chai kick. I think that is as best as I can explain it.

Day 7: The Last Day!
 
I slept in a lot so I missed out on breakfast.

Lunch: Kabobs
 
Ingredients: small potatoes, carrot, kohlrabi, zucchini, and red onion
 
Chopped up the veggies and added to some wooden skewers. Put in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 C. Pretty good can’t complain about baked veggies.
 
Supper: Chicken soup
 
Ingredients: chicken, chicken broth, carrots, potatoes, celery, kohlrabi, zucchini, garden garlic, red onion, and green onion.
 
Chopped up the veggies some medium some fine (found the pamper chef chopper that would have been more useful 6 days ago) added to the slow cooker.
 
Used broth from the chicken I made a couple days ago. Took all the chicken pieces left in the fridge from the leftovers.
 
Tossed everything in a slow cooker and left it for 5 hours.
 
It was good. It was bland, but I didn’t find it as bland as the ox-tail soup. Either I got use to blandness or chopping the vegetables finer may have contributed to more taste.

Dessert: Baked apple
 
Ingredients: Apples, maple syrup and tea mixture.
 
I chopped up the apple in small pieces, and mixed it with maple syrup. I put the bowl in the oven at 350 F for 20 minutes. After I took it out I decided to add some of my tea mixture too it. I wish I put the tea mixture with it before I placed it in the oven. It was an excellent dessert. It did not stick to the bowl like I was afraid of. It was just like apple pie without the crust. And... It was pretty quick to whip up.


My week is up of my IMBY diet. It was a lot of fun, it made me be creative and make me realize all the meal opportunities in my back yard. I will write some more concluding remarks tomorrow, with an addition of my top meals I would definitely make again.


www.eatwellguide.org

“..the milk of cows did not start out as a nutritious food for humans; in fact, it made them sick until people who lived around cows evolved to digest milk as adults. The gene for the production of a milk-digesting enzyme called lactase used to switch off in humans shortly after weaning until about five thousand years ago, when a mutation that kept the gene switched on appeared and quickly spread through the population of animal herders in north-central Europe.” Michael Pollan. In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. Pg 102.

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IMBY Diet Day - 4 &5

I was up late last night so I didn’t get around to jotting the days diet down.

Day 4
 
Breakfast: Omelette & potato gritz
 
Omelette
Ingredients: green onion, red onion, beet leaves, 2 eggs, and hamburger. And I added zucchini last minute. In a pan I fried up the hamburger with the medium chopped red onion, green onion, beet leaves, and I shredded some zucchini. After it was all cooked I moved it to a bowl. In a different bowl I scrambled 2 eggs together; the pan was all greased up from the hamburger so I poured the egg on the pan, added the mixture and made an omelette.
 
The omelette was very good. It turned out great.
 
Potato stix:
 In request to Amy I made these and I will probably make them again. They were awesome!
 Ingredients: hamburger grease and one large potato.
 
I had a pan greased with hamburger fat. I used a cheese shredder to shred the pieces of potato on the pan and fried it up. The potato pieces kept sticking together so they kind of made a patty like form. Again it the potato was awesome! I will now crave this.

Lunch: Carrot and apple power juice:
Ingredients: 8 carrots, 8 Apples
I used the Hamilton beach juicer and put all the ingredients in it, to expect the outcome to be a glass of juice and some pulp. This was an ultimate failure. The Hamilton beach juicer it absolute crap. I was not very hungry and I didn’t have time to make a large meal so I wanted to try out this juicer. All I got was a shot. The pulp was still full of juice, I tried to use a strainer and push the juice out by had. It was such a mess. I gave up and just blended the remainder of the carrots and apples in the magic bullet. If the juicer worked it would have been awesome. If I added wild ginger it would make it even better. Does anyone know if the Jack Lalanne juicer works well?
 
Supper: Steak and vegetables
 
Ingredients: rib eye steaks, potatoes, yellow beans, peas, and carrots.
 
The beans, peas and carrots were placed in a steamer then all ready to go.
Tin foiled the potato and put it on the BBQ, Steaks thawed them out put them on the BBQ.
 
This meal had the potential to be great but I cooked the steaks for way too long. Kind of embarrassing since I had guests over for dinner. (Thank you Beth and Hayley for helping make supper and for supporting me, by also eating 100 IMBY diet (In Meaghan’s back yard for you two I guess)). I tried to eat the steak but it was way too dry, even the dogs were having a hard time eating the scraps. But... The vegetables were very excellent. Everything tastes good steamed. I recommend everyone to get a steamer, best appliance I have ever bought.
 
 
Day 5:
 
Brunch: Cabbage rolls
 
Ingredients: Cabbage and (leftovers from the omelette mix above)
 
I microwaved the hamburger mix filling that I used in my omelette yesterday and I steamed some cabbage. When cabbage was ready and cooled I placed it flat on a plate, added the hammy mix and then rolled the cabbage. Then done. I was going to go further and shred some potato and stick it in the oven to get a little crispy, but at that point I was too hungry to be patient.

Supper: Thanksgiving in August.
 
Ingredients: Whole chicken, celery, garden garlic, wild garlic, potatoes, zucchini, red onion, green onion and parsley.
 
Thawed the chicken out and dropped it in a pan. Chopped up all the vegetable and herbs and stuffed it in the chicken. Also placed small whole potatoes around the chicken.
 
Put it in the oven at 300 F (I think…) and let it cook for 5 hours.

Results: The stuffing was great I would totally make it again, and for people who can not have gluten this probably a great alternative. The chicken was a little dry I left it in a bit too long, but was much better than the steaks.

 

Today I noticed I was not very hungry and I did not crave anything. I was very surprised, so either I finally cleansed myself from process foods, or because it was really hot today… maybe both factors.
 
Today something exciting happened, my wish was answered. It turns out “The Healing Arc” was having an open house so my Dad and I went to check it out. The Healing Arc is where they sell SEA BUCKTHORN!!! We bought 10 females and 3 males for our orchard. I am very excited for its berries next year. Also the woman at the open house showed us proper management and harvesting of the berries. These plants are amazing 8 of the berries will provide you with your daily vitamin C, they can withstand temperature of -40 to +40, they are drought tolerant, the berries do not spoil quickly so you can take up to 3 weeks to harvest them and These trees grow very fast. And I will admit I did cheat on my diet I did try a couple berries, but mainly because the lady was very nice and very insistent. Oops…

Lastly, I found some chicory last night!!!! Which equals caffeine? Even though I do not feel I need it anymore I still want to try it.

“Supposedly it takes twenty minutes before the brain gets the word that the belly is full; unfortunately most of us take considerably less than twenty minutes to finish a meal. with the result that the sensation of feeling full exerts little if any influence on how much we eat. What this is suggesting is that eating more slowly, and then consulting our sense of satiety, might help us to eat less.” Michael Pollan. In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. Pg 193.

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IMBY Diet - Day 3

Breakfast: Bowl of fruit & berries
 
Ingredients: Apples (Red Astrican and Early Harvest), white current, raspberries, gooseberries.
 
Cut up the apples sprinkled the berries, Volia!
 
Lunch: devilled eggs with microwaved potatoes on the side.
 
Devilled eggs Ingredients: eggs, 1 potato, red onion, dill, celery and wild garlic.
 
I microwaved a potato for 4 minutes. Boiled eggs sliced them in half removed yolks. Chopped dill, celery, onion and garlic finely, and put it in a wok to heat them up.
Put the potato, yolk, and wok mix all together in a bowl, added a little bit of water and mixed by hand. Rolled mixtures in to balls and set them it the whites of the eggs.
 
It was okay, It was a little dry, and I think there was a bit too much potato.
But I think it would better with some paprika.


Supper: Veggie Salad
Ingredients: Lettuce, peas, beans, carrots and green peppers.
 
I am not a big salad fan, I wish I was. Usually the kind of salads I like at restaurants are the kind that have higher amount of calories than the majority of the entrees available on the menu. (finding out the calories for the meals at the restaurant’s website afterwards).
 
But it was much better than I Anticipated. I was super hungry at supper time so I had some of the ox tail soup leftovers.
 
Dessert: Applesauce
Ingredients: apples (Red Astrican and Early Harvest ) and maple syrup
 Chopped up the apples added 2 table spoons of the remaining maple syrup ( I really hope we have more jars left). Put it all in the magic bullet, ready to serve in 15 seconds.
 
The apple sauce was AWESOME. Those apples are great for apple sauce, I am tempted to make apple butter ( apparently you just keep boiling down the apples until it mysteriously becomes butter, but it might take a long time to do.)
 
 
This morning I weighed in at 74K (162.8lb). I felt really lazy today, plus I was busy with school. So I made a simple breakfast, and a semi simple lunch. I had to drive 1 ½ hours for a school appointment. I did not plan well I was starving at 5pm and I still had to drive back home. When I got home I immediately went to the fridge and ate leftovers of the ox tail soup. The highlight of my meals was definitely the apple sauce. I have made this before with apples from the grocery store. WOW this was 10 times better.

Term:
Early Harvest: (Yellow June, Yellow Harvest, Yellow Juneating) - Early Harvest is believed to have originated in the 1700's in Long Island, New York. It ripens over an extended period, grows well in all types of soil, and is prized for its great eating and cooking qualities. The fruit is small to medium in size with smooth, pale yellow skin with an occasional small reddish-orange blush on one side and whitish surface specks which darken as the fruit matures. The tender white flesh is crisp and juicy with a brisk, tangy flavor. Ripens June to July in most areas. http://www.bighorsecreekfarm.com/descriptions2.htm

 

 
Westen Price born in 1870: "… had personally witnessed the rapid increase in dental problems beginning around the turn of the last century and was convinced that the cause could be found in the modern diet" Michael Pollen. In Defense of Food. pg 94
 
" Where ever he found an isolated primitive race that had not yet encountered the 'displacing foods of modern commerce' – by which he meant refined flour, sugar, canned and chemically preserved foods, and vegetable oils – he found little or no evidence of 'modern degeneration'- by which he meant chronic disease, tooth decay, and malformed dental arches. Either there was something present in the Westerm diet that led to these problems or there was something absent from it. '' Michael Pollen. In Defense of Food. pgs 96-97.

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IMBY Diet - Day 2

Brunch: Potato Pancakes
 
Ingredients: 3 Yukon gold potatoes, 3 eggs.

I put the 3 potatoes in the microwave for 6 minutes, then mashed them with a hand masher. Added the Three eggs and mixed it well together. I greased the pan with some beef fat, rolled the mixture in a ball then flattened it on the pan, and fried it up. It turned out alright, it mostly tasted like potato. I think next time I would only put one giant potato with the three eggs, and add some onion. It was a bit bland. I tried some red onion in a few of the pancakes and it improved the taste.
 
Supper: Ox-tail soup
 
Ingredients: Ox tail, carrots, green onions, wild garlic, red onions, green peppers, beets, beans, peas, red potatoes, kohlrabi, wild ginger, and celery.

Poured water and placed ox-tail in a slow cooker. Simply chopped up all the vegetables (first time ever using kohlrabi) and dropped them in the slow cooker for the day. The broth looked very nice, an orangey red colour, and it smelled great. But.. taste meh.. It was very bland it really needed some salt. As well… The ox-tail was really fatty, which is good for making the soup, but I did not enjoy eating the oxtail on its own.

Desert: Rhubarb stew
 
Ingredients: Rhubarb, huckleberries, Red Astrican apple and maple syrup
 Put all ingredients in a pot with water and I let it boil to mush.
 
I made the desert since I had a late btodareakfast y. It was probably the most tasty of the meals, but it lacked eye appeal. It probably would taste awesome with ice cream.

Drink:
 
Ingredients: water, mint leaves ginger and ice cubes.

I just put the ingredients in a pitcher of water. I bet it would be better if I boiled the ginger and mint first. I did not take a picture of this, I’ll probably make it again. What would be awesome is some sea buck thorn berries in replacement of lemon and water. I have been trying to get the shrub. I was unsuccessful this year, hopefully I can find a place that sells it this fall or spring.

Terms:


Red Astrican Mentioned: early as 1780, this variety is one of the older ones. It was being grown in Massachusetts by 1835. It has a deep rose crimson color, with juicy white flesh. A sweet flavor is combined with strong acidity. It cooks to a juicy, light puree http://www.applevalleyapples.com/Varieties.html#Red_Astrican
 
Kohlrabi: (German Turnip) (Brassica oleracea Gongylodes Group) is a low, stout cultivar of the cabbage that will grow almost anywhere. It has been selected for its swollen, nearly spherical, Sputnik-like shape. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlrabi
 
Huckleberry: Small, dark purple or purple or black fruit that is edible (despite looking like nightshade) and is usually cooked or boiled before eating. See below for more explanation. (http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/garden_huckleberry.htm)

Sea Buckthorn: Sea-buckthorn berries are multipurposed, edible and nutritious, though very acidic and astringent, unpleasant to eat raw, unless 'bletted' (frosted to reduce the astringency) and/or mixed as a juice with sweeter substances such as apple or grape juice.Sea-buckthorn is also a popular garden and landscaping shrub, particularly making a good vandal-proof barrier hedge with an aggressive basal shoot system exploited in some parts of the world as wind breaks and to stabilize riverbanks and steep slopes. They have value in northern climates for their landscape qualities, as the colorful berry clusters are retained through winter. Branches may be used by florists for designing ornaments. The plant is the regional flora of the Finnish region of Satakunta. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-buckthorn
 
 
Today was much better I was not as tired as yesterday, and I did not crave sugar and bread as much, though I did miss salt.

I was asked by a few people where I got the acronym IMBY from. I actually derived it from NIMBY (Not in my back yard). I use to hear this word a lot when I was doing my major in Agro-ecosystem management. It is often used to negatively describe the attitude of a person who disagrees with the development of anything they feel is inappropriate in their neighbourhood. The majority of the times we discussed NIMBY was the conflict of food producers and their neighbours producers and non-producers complaining about certain ‘Rural pollution”.


“… USDA figures show a decline in the nutrient content of the forty-three crops it has tracked since the 1950s. In one recent analysis, vitamin C declined by 20 percent, iron by 15 percent, riboflavin by 38 percent, calcium by 16 percent. Government figures from England tell a similar story: declines since the fifties of 10 percent or more in levels of iron, zinc, calcium, and selenium across a range of food crops. To put this in more concrete terms, you now have to eat three apples to get the same amount of iron as you would have gotten from a single 1940 apple, and you have to eat several more slices of bread to get you recommended daily allowance of zinc than you would have a century ago.” Michael Pollen. In Defense of Food. Pg 118.

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IMBY Diet - Day 1

Breakfast: Steamed beet leaves (similar to spinach)
     Fried egg
     Small amount of hamburger.
 
To prevent the egg from sticking to the pan I used a bit of hamburger to grease it up. It worked perfectly. I need to find a piece of fat on a piece of steak, so I can fry things more often.

Lunch: Stir-fry with hamburger
  Ingredients: Peas, 1 green tomato, 2 green peppers, beet stems, 4 large carrots, 1 red onion, yellow beans and 1 lb of hamburger. Herbs: some dill and parsley Some lettuce for decoration.
 
Supper: Sweet Beets and Carrots
5 large beets, 5 large carrots, 3 roots of wild ginger, 3 tablespoons of maple syrup. All meals were edible. I made extra lunch and dinner so my parents could share their thoughts.  This meal was actually my favourite I first steamed the carrots, beets and wild ginger for 20 minutes, then put it all in a wok and poured watery maple syrup on it.  i was very surprised how much the ginger actually flavoured the meal.

 

All meals were very good, other than some grittiness due to not washing the beets enough. Oops. I also think next time I would only put in half the amount of hamburger in my lunch. I’m glad I encouraged my younger brother to go around and collect maple syrup from our trees this spring, or I probably would have cheated by now. I must be having some fructose with drawl or something, I felt really tired the majority of the day. I took a few spoonfuls of maple syrup. I improved a little bit, but still feeling drowsy. I need coffee. When I went to the woodlot to gather some wild ginger I was looking for some chickory. If I find some chickory, I will have coffee…well it provides the same effects as coffee anyway. I have seen it on our property before we started renting out our grazing fields for soy production.

 

This morning I weighed myself as 75K (165 lb) I am not really looking to lose weight on this diet, but I am curious if I will lose weight and how much due to the diet change, which I believe is a healthier diet than what I was on before. Sure I would be ok with losing the 8 lbs I have gained since I have finished competing, but it is by no shape or form a priority with this challenge.
 
 
“The rise of nutritionism reflects legitimate concerns that the American diet, which is well on its way to becoming the worlds diet, has changed in ways that are making us increasingly sick and fat. Four of the top ten causes of death today are chronic diseases with well-established links to diet: coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer. Yes, the rise to prominence of these chronic diseases is partly due to the fact that we’re not dying earlier in life of infectious diseases, but only partly: Even after adjusting for age, many of the so called diseases of civilization were far less common a century ago – and they remain rare in places where people don’t eat the way we do.”

Michael Pollen. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. 2008. pg. 10.

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Introduction to the IMBY Diet

I recently finished the book “In defense of food: An eater’s manifesto” by Michael Pollen (Thanks Shannon). Many of the points he has made I agree with, but never put in a true effort to practice in what I believe. As a student and athlete, I would try to eat mainly fruits and vegetables, but I am not one to bake or cook so it was amazing how much processed food I would actually purchase and consume with out realizing. As well, in the past I did not eat a very balanced diet, it was more of a binge and cut pattern due to having to make weight for competitions. Recently I have finished my athletic career, and realized I really did not need to pay rent and be in the city anymore . I decided to move back home to write my thesis and to find new procrastination activities such as this.

What is IMBY diet?
 
The acronym IMBY stands for In My Back Yard. For 1 week, 100% of the food I consume will be from my parents’ property. I am hoping this will encourage me and my family in the later weeks to come, to consume the majority of our food from our land. There is a bundle of benefits of being on this diet to name a few:

- Locally grown therefore, very low on carbon emissions.
- I know the practices used to grow the produce.
- I will be eating within the ecosystem that I live in.
- It will take more time to make meals than just opening up a box, this may make me appreciate what is made and take more time to enjoy it.
- There is zero waste created, everything will be compostable.                                                                                                                          - I’ll be eating a larger range of foods, instead of consuming what is in the majority of processed foods: corn soy and wheat.                                 - And of course save money.

My IMBY diet rules:
 
1) Every meal I make will have to be different than what I have made previously in the week.

2) I am not allowed to use anything that was produced off the farm to aid in cooking i.e: salt, spices and oils.

I am very fortunate that my family has a large property. Today I looked around to see what is available and this may be an easier task than first thought. The only foods that I will be unable to eat are diary and cereals. On Saturday I discussed my week diet with a stranger on the Go train. He said that he once did a similar diet, but instead caught a fox via the belly flop method and ate the entire fox for a week. Luckily there should be no need for me to have to hunt small game.
The family property consists of:
- Garden
- Wood lot
- Berry bushes and shrubs
- Old fruit trees
-Maple trees
- Laying hens
- Freezer full of lamb, turkey, chicken and beef that was previously raised on our property. Animals were grass fed, free range and drug free.
 
Let the diet begin. Readers feel free to share some meal ideas with me, I think that will be the hardest part for me. Attached are some photos of the property.

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