So how’s my month of Puritan eating going?  Ha ha.  Not as well as hoped.  I have some elaborate rationalizations but first, let’s check out the score board, shall we?

1. Vegan.  Yep, this one is the no-brainer.  I’m still a vegan, 100% to my knowledge.  No problems here.

2. Buzz.  Okay, not doing well here.  I was supposed to get off the Coke Zero entirely, which has been a project many months in the threatening (though not the doing).  I continue my proud tradition of failure by regularly announcing this is my last can srsly forever I mean it okthxbai.  Yeah.  Then I have another one.  I actually fully quit for ten days before weakening and having a pop when I was out for lunch with Husband (another oops), and since then it’s been nothing but an orgy of pop.  Actually that’s not true, I seem to enjoy one or two a day and then I just want water.  So there has been progress… but not success as far as the challenge goes.

3. Lite.  Another almost total success - the only processed food I’m eating is pop.  And I had some tortilla chips at the poker game last weekend but they have about four ingredients, all of which I can pronounce, so I don’t think they’re too bad.  Otherwise I’m eating real food all the time.  I’m even eating home made jam, which a friend whipped up for us.  It’s very good.

4. Cafe.  Mixed results.  I am eating out way, way less than I used to.  But I did have lunch with Husband when I met him on his lunch break last week.  And I had a Subway sandwich over the weekend.  But that’s it.  Oh no, it isn’t, I had sushi for lunch on my final day of classes, which was Sunday.  Okay.  Three meals out in two weeks - I’m going to call this a 75% success.

5. Sugar. I’m doing pretty well here too.  I love fruit and that’s what I have for dessert most nights, so my added sugar intake is generally pretty low.  But I baked cookies at poker last weekend, and they are full of sugar.  But I think that’s the only slip, so this one category is still pretty good.  One sugary treat in two weeks?  I’m pleased.

6. Second serving when not hungry.  No problems here.  When I get full, I stop.  The only time I push it is when I make my vegan pho, which I love, and tend to really stuff myself with.  But even though I made it twice last week, I haven’t been overeating on it.

So all in all, there are only two categories I achieved full success with (vegan and second servings), but three I am doing very well (lite, cafe, and sugar).  Buzz is the holdout.  As a matter of fact, I am drinking a pop right now!

It’s been an interesting process.  My main thought has been that the last weeks of summer is a bad time to try going all Puritan, because this is a social season and also the time when you want to be out and about, making careful eating hard.  But maybe that was the point?  Also, when I’m at my grumpiest with it, I figure being  a vegan is already enough work, dammit.  If I can actually find a restaurant that serves something I can eat I should bloody well eat there and be happy about it!

I have also had plenty of opportunity to think about what I should just call my Food Spirituality (though I hesitate to use the latter word - “spirituality” is so often used as code for “religion” by people who try to appear tolerant - which is not what I’m going for).  But shared eating is really such a good experience, and passing opportunities to, say, eat lunch with Husband downtown is just such a bummer.  I guess I see eating out as part of the package of eating joy and I’m not liking its absence.  Although I will say this, I don’t miss eating out alone.  That’s something I’m going to probably totally ditch.  But eating out with friends?  That’s good times.  I’m officially quitting the cafe category as it pertains to social eating.

Sugar is sort of the same.  It’s good that I’m eating less of it, but I’m not prepared to quit it entirely.  My problems with sugar are the wage slavery it relies on for its production - I’m not afraid of sugar per se.  It should, indeed, be a occasional treat.  But that doesn’t mean no treats at all!  I’ll continue to bake every now and then, and to indulge in non-fruit desserts sometimes too.  I can see why it was part of the challenge, being devoid of nutrition, but I have learned that that’s okay with me, for once in a while.

The one thing I was interested to see how it would play out was being out of the house and hungry and having to wait - and it just hasn’t happened.  I’ve been pretty housebound these two weeks, what with finishing school and then being a lazy bastard.  Husband and I are already pretty used to taking all our meals at home.  Alas!

Some issues that I’ll be thinking about as I do my Discretionary Eating Challenge:

1. Entitlement. Will I be really bothered if I’m out, get hungry, and need to wait until I get home to eat (assuming I didn’t pack a snack)?  Because of course it’s not a big deal to wait - it’s not like I’m starving or anything.  There are absolutely no long term consequences of waiting an hour or something to eat.  But I suspect I won’t have much patience for waiting, which has little to do with true need and much to do with entitlement.  I predict I will think: I shouldn’t have to wait.  And of course, there really is no need to wait - I can afford to buy a snack when I’m out.

But the real question is: am I truly buying a snack because I can and it’s no big deal, or because I lack the patience and impulse control to just wait?  When entitlement becomes inability to self regulate, you have a problem.  If I find myself really, really irritated at waiting, that would be very telling.

2. Money. How much money will I save if I’m not eating at Subway three times a week?  Okay, that’s easy to calculate, but what is less easy is all the money I thoughtlessly throw away on bottles of pop, bags of pretzels, sandwiches or sushi when I’m out, and so on.  I don’t often plan dinners out - I eat out because I’m busy and happen to be hungry when I’m away from home.  It’s more a product of laziness than anything else.  I tend to think eating out is enjoyable and sociable and therefore has intrinsic value.  But in real life I usually eat out alone, spontaneously, due to the need to immediately gratify my needs (hunger).  So in my case, I think it will be instructive to see what happens when I don’t eat out any more.  Obviously I will save money, but this will relate to Point 1 too.

3. Spurious convenience.  I predict I won’t really miss processed foods.  I don’t eat much of these anyway (though I do like those packages of fake soy meat, which I call smeat).  I hope that what will happen is I stop buying this stuff, don’t miss it at all, and thereby replace chemicalled food with whole foods.  Processed foods tend to be more expensive, which is a waste, and full of strange and mysterious chemicals.  I’m not one to get all hysterical about chemicals - for instance, I never hesitate to take medication if I feel a symptom that can be helped with some.  So maybe it’s hypocritcal or irrational, but I somehow figure it’s better to avoid the heavily chemically processed foods whenever possible.

4. Environmental waste. This relates to Point 3 because processed foods tend to come with a lot of packaging, which  is generally plastic.  So if I buy less of these things, I will generate less personal waste.  I’m also thinking of cutting way back on plastic bag usage.  I have a little rolling cart I take to the grocery store and there’s no reason I couldn’t just pack my purchases into it without bags.

5. Pop and osteoporosis. I don’t drink tea or coffee, so giving up stimulants really only means giving up Coke Zero.  This challenge is the perfect excuse to finally do this because I’ve been meaning to do so for a long time, because pop is a contributor to osteoporosis.  Here is the blog-appropriate level of science to explain why:  The carbon dioxide in pop (which is what makes it fizz) mixes with the water to form carbonic acid (H2CO3).  The body has to neutralize the acid, and to do so, uses buffer systems.  One of these is to take calcium out of your bones.  That’s bad.  I anticipate this being hard to give up because I do love me some pop, but I’m thinking I’ll work on finding a healthy replacement, such as waters flavoured with fruits.

6. Food pleasures. I’m also hoping that I will deepen my already pretty happy relationship with food.  I really enjoy cooking and take a lot of satisfaction in making healthy meals for myself and Husband.  Every week I plan my grocery shopping and, I guess this sounds kind of lame, but I have a grand old time flipping through my cook books to plan the meals I’ll make.  This challenge will focus me in on these domestic pleasures, and I hope I come out the other side liking it even more.  Of course, I could just come to resent the extra work and hassle and things could get worse!  So I’ll just have to see what happens.

I must say, I’m quite intrigued to do this little food values experiment.  One month isn’t a long time, but I figure I’ll learn some things about myself.  Two more days until I begin!

Husband thinks I’m ridiculous for deciding to do the discretionary eating challenge for August.  We had this conversation in the bathroom, where I was soaking in the tub and he was eating dinner.  I don’t think anyone who eats in the bathroom is in any position to judge what I do, but that’s another issue.  I was telling him about it and the discussions that had gone on around it - sustainability, ecology, nutrition, mindfulness, and so on.  And he pretty much poo-pooed it.  In part because we already live pretty close to the goals (pop excepted), so in that sense it won’t be much of a challenge, and in part because something very important is about to happen:

Football season is starting.

Holy cats!  I sat up in the tub with alarm!

We don’t have TV any more.  This means we have to go out to watch a game, and the only place “out” where games exist is pubs.  Pubs don’t like it when you show up and don’t order food and drink.  But I can’t miss games!  What’s the point of having time off school if I can’t waste it watching football?  My two football instructors are potentials here, since both have enormous TV’s and cable - though Esan has a proper job and a new bride, which probably makes Monday night football at his house a no-go.  Z is the other choice, but he doesn’t like to let me come over lest I be shocked at his bachelorly housekeeping standards.  I keep telling him about my colony of pink mold in the bathroom but it doesn’t change his mind.

Still, it’s only one month.  This is not a forever change - surely at some point I will go back to restaurants.  (Though as I have said, it is a disturbing trend that whenever we’ve eaten at a vegetarian restaurant the food is inferior to that which I make at home.  This was never a problem when I ate meat.  Just sayin’.)

Discretionary eating is the amount of an individual’s food consumption that is eaten after basic caloric and nutritional needs have been met.

I found this on this blog.  I think I’m going to join in for the month of August.  Think of this as Lent, wherein the goal is the reduction or elimination of discretionary eating for one month.

The terms of the challenge are to select from a list of eating behaviours that are wasteful or deficient in one way or another:

• restaurants (money)
• refined foods (nutrition)
• sugar/sweets (processed and refined are bad when eaten as more than just an occasional treat, but of course fruit is totally fine)
• seconds only when hungry (overeating)
• stimulants (meet no nutritional needs)
• vegan (healthiest)

The challenge asks that you commit to either a 50% reduction of your current use/intake of these items, or to a full 100%.  You pick which ones you want to work on, and of course are invited to go the whole enchilada and do them all.  And since I have a long and proud tradition of making eating as complicated and restrictive as possible, I think I’m going to commit to one month of 100% of all of the above.

Holy shit.  I am already freaking out about Coke Zero.

And already thinking of some exceptions that need to be pre-agreed upon: I’m attending a wedding reception next weekend and there will be drinking.  Which I will participate in.  Also, I’ll be doing some travelling in August and it’s just stupid to make hard and fast rules about where you’ll eat when you’re going into the boonies.  Shit, I might end up trapping and eating little mammals, you know?  Never say never and all that.  So okay, let’s call it a 90% challenge.

But seriously.  I’m really intrigued at this idea of just getting back to the basics: no crap food, no chemically laden mystery ingredients, no wasting cash on food I can make at home for a fraction of the price, restricting treats to their proper place: special occasional indulgences, not daily habits.  Eating to satiety and no farther.  Just eating actual food as it actually comes out of the ground, prepared economically.

I still feel entitled to have delicious and varied foods at every meal, so in this sense the challenge does not ask for deprivation as such.   At this point the food I make at home is almost always better than what we get when we go out.  But should I feel entitled to have cupcakes (or other junk foods) at my fingertips, at any time of any day?  Should I view it as a deprivation to eat what I can make for myself at home (particularly when I can go to Safeway and pick any food I want)?  I imagine I’ll discover some interesting previously-unknown assumptions about what I unconsciously think I should or shouldn’t have, should or shouldn’t be required to tolerate, during this process.

So I have three days to guzzle as much pop as I can handle before this experiment begins…!