filling the void

in other belated news, the diet has all but completely dissolved. one night last week (i believe it was around the 21st or 22nd) i called doug from trader joe's to see if he wanted me to pick up some clementines, and instead, he tried to coerce me into going to yoma for burmese food. i did not go out to burmese food. but by the end of the night he was on his way out to a bar with esther for belgian beer and fried food of some variety.

before he actually hit up the bar scene we did have a long (LONG) talk about what dissolving the diet meant and what the future of our eating habits would be. i'm not sure how well in keeping with this pattern he has been, but my initial goals have not really changed, i'm more just dropped the restrictions, which at this point were not really serving any purpose, and skipped right to the end of the diet, the hopefully sustainable eating pattern which was the diet's ultimate goal.

basically, i'm eating only whole foods, which means only vegetables, fruits, and seeds that have not been processed, or at the greatest extent of processing been either dried or chopped/pulverized but in all other senses remain untainted. the one exception is for cooking oils, which are acceptable but only if they are garnered through mechanical pressing and not through chemical refining. i can process foods however i wish, once they are in my own possession, so i can make bread from whole wheat flour, or tofu and soy milk from soy beans, should i so desire. and there are exceptions: alcohol, going out to eat, and eating dinner at a friend/relative's house are the ones i'm aware of, tho hypocrisy abound, and there are probably more. going out to eat is to remain a deliberate, intentional act, not one done out of laziness.

what i'm dealing with now, more than the idea of eating a whole foods/restricted diet, is the origins of my food. this has been weighing heavily on me since 1. i'm reading animal, vegetable, miracle, by barbara kingsolver, which is a book about intentionally eating only foods from local sources (mostly homegrown) for an entire 12 month period), and 2. because the additive method of the original diet plan meant eating foods that were significantly out of season and traveled a HUGE long distance to make it into my body (grapefruits from florida every day!! grapefruits are HEAVY!!). i realize it's not possible for me to eat foods only grown in my region (new england in winter isn't exactly abundant with thriving plant life) but there are significant changes i can make in the foods that i eat that will enable me to eat more locally. i'm thinking, specifically:

1. eat seasonal vegetables as the main staples of my diet: which right now means things that winter well, like root vegetables (beets, potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, garlic) and winter squashes (like pumpkin, butternut, delicata)
2. foods should not have to travel overseas to make it to me, especially when there is a completely adequate substitute available from a more local source: like buying rice that was grown in minnesota instead of buying basmati rice from india, and abstaining from bananas
3. buying in bulk, whenever possible: bulk foods mean less packaging, and fewer hands in the bucket. farmers themselves get more of the money when food is sold and purchased in bulk, and generally some of the savings are passed to the consumer. beans, grains, and flours are all available in bulk local to me here.
4. buying non-local foods in dry form: there are no seasonal or local sources of rice and oats. corn, yes, but not this time of year. so if they have to be shipped, since i DO need grains and beans to survive a winter in new england, they should be in dried form, to reduce their shipping and storing cost. so no canned beans. no canned anything. and no frozen anything, either. not unless i had the foresight to freeze it in my high effeciency freezer from my own harvest last summer (read: i did not).

of course these are just ideas, and they haven't been put into practice, much, yet. they are more just ideas of the direction i want to go, rather than an actual dogmatic practice i'm going to instate. but in keeping with the goal of reducing my own impact as much as possible, it seems the most logical extension of this is to shrink the footprint of my diet. and after having so completely altered my eating habits for the past month, i'm pretty well aware of how easy it will be to survive on the available options i've listed. oil, potato, and onion?? in fact, it sounds like heaven!