Technical Difficulties
It figures that right after I write a post about how much I love my thermos , it would leak chai all over my school bag.
I now have chai soaked notebooks (somehow my planner was spared and thank goodness because my life depends on that thing) and a digital camera that won’t even turn on. Kill me now, or just send me a new camera. Any SLR will do.
And to make matter worse, I had considered this one of my better picture taking days, as in I had a lot of fun things to show you all. Luckily, my roommate has the same camera so I should be able to pop my memory card into her camera and get today’s pictures off. All is not lost…just almost all.
I’m off to do some online camera shopping!
Real Food
I think we can all agree that what we strive to eat here in the healthy living world is real food.
So what does that mean?
It means food that can be found in nature. It’s unprocessed and it’s simple. If you looked at the ingredient list of a real food it would be short and you would know exactly what the ingredients were and how to pronounce them.
You know what’s not real? Trans fat. You get trans fat through the process of hydrogenation which turns liquid oil into solid fat. This is huge for processed foods because hydrogenation increases shelf life. Guess what? It also increases your risk for cardiovascular disease, increases the amount of LDL or “bad” cholesterol in your body, decreases the amount of HDL or “good” cholesterol in your body and increases inflammation.
I don’t know about you but I’ve heard enough. No trans fat for this girl. By the way, companies are allowed to claim their product has 0 trans fat if it has .5 grams or less per serving but don’t be fooled, if the ingredient list contains the word “hydrogenated” there’s trans fat in the product.
So why am I getting all heated about trans fat? Besides the obvious, I’m frustrated because I constantly come across vegan recipes that call for some kind of Tofutti product and guess what the second ingredient is?
HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL
I’m frustrated because I look to the vegan cooking community for healthy/real food recipes and I find it problematic that many blogs promote the use of a product that contains trans fat. **Note that I don’t mean this to be an attack on ALL vegan food blogs. I have found SO many wonderful recipes that are both vegan and Tofutti-free**
So tell me, am I wrong to be upset or am I missing part of the story here? Enlighten me.
I think I’ve ranted enough for one day. How about some pictures of real food?
I’m supposed to be getting my blood drawn in the morning and we’re expecting lots of snow tonight. Getting to school is going to be a disaster…
Happy Tuesday!
Wiped Out
No, this isn’t a story about how I wiped out during my 5K this morning, although that wouldn’t be far-fetched considering it looked like this.
It started snowing Saturday afternoon and didn’t let up until after 2 AM! I didn’t even know it was supposed to snow.
Let’s rewind, shall we?
Saturday involved some studying, reading and coffee sipping at Starbucks. I walked there in just a light zip up jacket and was perfectly warm.
Then I hit up the grocery store and when I came back out it was snowing bean bag styrofoam balls <– that’s how Joey described it.
At that point I really wished I’d had a warmer jacket on. We warmed up with some soup and sandwiches at Panera. I really wish they had bigger water cups.
I got the black bean soup and the Mediterranean veggie sandwich, which comes on tomato basil bread that was SO soft I could hardly believe it.
Both were delicious and filling.
I also went to the free Saturday yoga class because my FAVORITE teacher was substituting for the regular teacher. It was everything I’d hoped it’d be and more. Sigh, there’s nothing like a good flowy yoga class.
Especially before a night out on the town.
It was my friend Claire’s birthday so we went out to dinner then hiked through the snow to the Denver bars. It was coming down HARD and my hair was soaked but it was worth it 🙂
Ignore the blur (it’s hard taking pictures at night, while walking in the snow) and focus on the look of pain on my face. I was so cold!
Running a race on 4 hours of sleep is not ideal, however.
I took pictures while Joey cleaned off the car.
And I was so glad I layered!
2 pairs of socks
2 long sleeved shirts
2 pairs of leggings, 1 pair of sweat pants, 1 zip up and one Northface jacket later and I looked like this.
And Joey showed up in his pajamas.
The course was plowed but it was still pretty icy and I was slipping and sliding but never actually fell, thank goodness! And for that reason I was fine with a 10:34 mile.
Mile 1: 10:34
Mile 2: 10:00
Mile 3: 9:17
Mile 3-3.2: 1:19 (7:37 pace!)
I think we finished in 31:11. We raced two girls in Steelers jerseys to the finish and won (although maybe it wasn’t a fair race since they didn’t know we were trying to beat them).
Yes, that’s me. And now I’m off to take a longgg nap and hopefully I don’t sleep through the Superbowl!
Have a good one 🙂
Lauren Loves Good Food 