Sweet And Lowdown

The other day as I walking to work I passed a bum on the sidewalk out in front of the store who was soliciting money from pedestrians, claiming to be hungry and wanting to buy some food. When he came to me for some change I offered him my lunch instead -- a box of Ak-Mak crackers and a container of hummus -- but he politely declined the offer. I insisted that it was good, healthy, nourishing food, but he just kept repeating "No, thank you." until I moved on. So throughout the evening at work I was assuming testily that the guy wasn't really hungry and was probably bumming for beer money instead, until a customer came in several hours later and told me that she just gave the guy her leftover doggie-bag from Ruby Tuesday, and he accepted it.

So given the option... or in this case, barely any option whatsoever... a hungry homeless man will turn down glucose-free whole wheat crackers and mashed chickpeas and hold out on the dim hope of somebody dropping a greasy, half-eaten, room-temperature cheeseburger on his lap?

Okay, no need to really answer that. Who wouldn't turn down a cheeseburger over my own brand of glorified parakeet food if their life depended on it? Even though Ruby Tuesday's cheeseburgers are some of the fattiest, greasiest globs of low-grade beef you can get in a chain restaurant outside of fast food. And I gotta admit, even I miss cheeseburgers. I even had two chili dogs this past Sunday at the Royal Rumble so it's not like I have room to talk shit, yo.

I did go exploring at The Heritage this afternoon, buying organic goji berries and more cacao powder (my new favorite high-energy, antioxidant breakfast is a smoothie I make in the blender, with a small bag of frozen organic strawberries, a handful of raw spinach leaves, a heaping tablespoon of cacao powder, and some blue agave nectar to taste... yum!) and delving into the deli section with some of their prepared lunches that they make every morning, especially the raw wraps and burritos (vegan and gluten-free) which really helps freshen up the boredom of green salads every day. Expensive as hell ($6.99 for a small raw wrap and burrito each!) but worth it every now and then to switch up on my digestive system. This may be way too much information, but uh, let's just say that with all the lettuce and spinach in my diet these days, I feel like a damn leaf-blower every time I take a deuce. Makes me kinda wonder if any of the lettuce is getting digested at all, if it's coming back out of me in dry shreds. So I'm blending more green smoothies to get them down to a more manageable, molecular level (spinach with fresh mango and banana is good too, with a pinch of raw ginger, but make sure it's just a very small twig of ginger because it can certainly overwhelm a smoothie to the point of burning a hole in your esophagus, and you don't want that).

I also bought some Ezekiel bread at the Farm Fresh across the street last night, since I've heard good things from some people... and uh, not so good from others. Ezekiel bread is bread baked in the Biblical way, according to Ezekiel 4:9 ("Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it...") and turns out the combination, meant specifically for starving people in the deserts of the Middle East at the time, is incredibly rich in protein as well as very low in fat. I bought the "cinnamon and raisin" kind, which I'm pretty sure goes against God's Plan and all, but I figured it would be the easiest way to transition into something new with a touch of the something familiar. Turns out it's not bad at all. A little dry, but a thousand times better than the brown rice bread I had a few weeks ago. With a little spread, like maybe almond butter, or with my veggie burgers might be worth an experiment or two.

Gotta stay on the ball this week. Going to my first doctor's visit in over a year this Wednesday. Wanna see how low my blood sugar is these days since my vegan/raw change. Plus I might be going to a lavish Superbowl party this weekend, where I will be encouraged to indulge in All That Is Wrong. At least my trousers are loose enough these days to allow for such intermittent joys of the flesh. ;)