Wednesday:

rye with boiled egg, tomato, mushrooms and swiss cheese
coffee
sushi with mixed ingredients and rice paper rolls
miso soup with tofu, bok choy, cabbage, mushrooms
apple, grapes

how do you count that?? I think its about 12??

I’ve nominated you as a “bloggers with purpose”, http://confessionsofafoodnazi.blogspot.com/2008/05/blogging-with-purpose.html. Keep the flag of healthy eating flying high :)

Sue, that’s more than 12. I think you’d be over 15 / 18 – depending on your sushi fillings.

AOF – thank you so much, that’s very kind of you. I’m behind in my blog reading / responding, so thank you for letting me know directly.

Kathryn, your food for the day looks delicious! I got about the same number as you on my first day’s tally – though I’m not confident I’m counting things up as you intended. Either way, it was interesting to look at my results and I look forward to the rest of the week!

Wow – that’s an incredible mix of foods. I don’t eat nearly that much variety, just too strapped for time. I know a lot of it comes down to being prepared, though. I must admit, I need to eat a wider variety… now inspired.

What a great menu—and so glad you tried the quinoa croquettes! I’ve since had them as a savory meal, but prefer them with jam for breakfast!

Here’s what I had yesterday:

Cooked millet with coconut milk, agave nectar and goji berries
banana
potato/apple/white bean/tofu casserole with onion
tamari rice cake and handful of almonds
homemade spelt-crust pizza with basil pesto, chopped leeks, chopped dandelion greens, tomato, and black olives
serving of French Toast souffle with summer berries for dessert

On reviewing the list, I see lots of choices (I think over 20), but it does seem like way too much food in general!

Ricki, your menu is making me hungry. :)

My food journal for yesterday:

Breakfast in 2 parts: strawberries and green tea / rye crispbread, hummus, sliced veggies

Lunch: carrot muesli with oats, carrot, flax, hemp, apple, agave, almond milk – I know it seems my breakfast and lunch were backwards! ;)

Snack: 1/2 mango and celery with peanut butter

Dinner: mung bean dal with spinach, whole wheat naan, cucumber and coconut salad

Snacks: rice crackers and kiwi

I wrote out a list of all of the different foods and it came to 33 with 6 of them showing up more than once (tomatoes, cucumber, lemon, garlic, olive oil, chile peppers). I think that was it.

I’ve just posted my list of foods from yesterday up above.

Paul – a bit of planning and pre-preparation do help when you’re trying to eat a variety of foods. I find having muffins, bars and soups in the freezer really useful and I make sure each of these contain a variety of foodstuffs. But there are also some simple and easy things you can do to push up your daily totals. I’ll be posting on that subject a bit later today.

Ricki – I haven’t tried the croquettes with anything savoury yet. I was thinking they would go well with a tomato & spinach sauce. But I’m also enjoying them with jam! And I’ve also been eyeing up your french toast souffle recipe. Yum.

You’ve got a lovely variety of foods there. Different vegetables, protein sources, nuts, grains, fruit, etc. The mixture is great, but then it comes down to how much of each you’re eating.

Cassie – also a lovely mixture of foods. I was just telling one of my clients yesterday about the different ways you use flaxseeds – particularly in baking. Thank you for listing these – you’ve done well.

I had to go look at Ricki’s recipe for the croquettes and decided I have to give those a try. I like the sound of something savory with them! Here’s day three of my journal…

Breakfast: handful of almonds then a smoothie about an hour later (soymilk, strawberries, blueberries, barley flakes, hemp)
Lunch: mung bean/spinach dal, naan, cucumber and coconut salad (all leftovers from the night before)
Snack: rye crispbread with hummus and radishes, 1/2 mango
Dinner: DIY Sushi Cones, pickled daikon, sauteed bean sprouts, green tea

That’s 30 different foods for me with three of them showing up in more than one form (soy, sesame and mung beans).

Thursday: B: Ciabatta with baba ghanouj, vegemite. L:Tuna nicoise salad with green beans, potato, tomato, carrots. D: Pan fried tofu, black bean eggplants, cabbage saute with 2 kinds mushrooms, snow peas. Snacks: Banana, apple, vitaweets

Friday: B: Rye with vegemite, mushroom tomato. L: Tom yum soup with seafood, veggies and some rice vermicelli. D: Went out. Antipasto bits – olives, prosciutto, cheese with red wine.

Not a bad variety but seeing everyone else’s responses, am up to the challenge of trying some different grains and veggies.

Oh Kathryn, What a great idea!
I remember reading an article a while ago that talked about the number of different foods you ate each day, as well as the different colours of those foods. It is apparently much healthier to have a multi coloured diet rather than just consume a handful of tones.
With this in mind I often half heartedly count the number and colour (and the number of colours) of the food I eat (but normally only to convince myself that it is ok to have a second helping of dessert). With this in mind I think I will accept your challenge and blog about it, and no doubt be shocked by the results.
Thank you!
lili.

I’ve just posted my final Saturday list up above.

Cassie – I’m experimenting with freezing the croquettes at the moment. But I think they’d go really well with a savoury sauce – something with lots of garlic! Another lovely menu. I like your DIY sushi cone idea.

Sue – I think you’re going great guns. But I’m glad this is inspiring you to broaden your veg and grain horizons!

Lili – the rainbow idea is also a uesful concept. It’s something I often recommend to clients when choosing vegetables – to get them out of the rut of buying the same thing every week. I look forward to seeing your results. I think it’s interesting for all of us to re-focus on what we’re actually eating from time-to-time.

Thanks to everyone who’s left their food lists above – I really appreciate the sharing of information.

Hello Kathryn! Thanks very much for the link today :) As always I am drooling over your menus… I was wondering if you had a recipe for the spelt muffins with olives and fetta?

Shauna – a recipe? Considering how delicious they were that would be a good idea wouldn’t it? But I did my usual trick of taking an original recipe, adapting it to use the ingredients I had and not writing down what I was doing. Whoops.

My starting point was this recipe for cottage cheese muffins. From memory these were the tweaks:

• I used fetta instead of parmesan
• 3/4 cup of spelt flour instead of the wheat flour and almonds
• 1/4 cup olives instead of sun-dried tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon of dried oregano instead of basil
• zest of 1 lemon
• I also added about 2 tablespoons of walnuts – just because I had them and wanted to use them up
• I also made it into 12 muffins, instead of 9

They are delicious – and they can be frozen. Hope this makes sense! If I make them again soon I’ll write down the recipe and post it.