Hey y’all! Welcome to the series Weekly Eating.
Here is where I’ll talk about the week’s meal plan versus reality, what we ate for the week, and how we did budget-wise. I hope it gives readers a behind-the-scenes look into our life through the lens of food, and it’s also a way to keep us on track with meal planning and grocery budgeting.
Feel free to share your wins and lessons in the comments below!
So, last weekend was a delight. Friday night I went to Legends in Raleigh for my first drag show in a long time. It was very entertaining, with a huge crowd and many talented ‘ladies’. There were some people there promo-ing a new drink, and we got free really soft tshirts. It was a suuuper late night though.
Therefore I was glad that our brunch with Steve wasn’t too early. We went to True Flavors diner in Durham. The wait was insane, I guess I underestimated how serious a thing brunch is in the South. We walked around and checked out the plaza while we waited, and picked up a few yeasts to try in our next winemaking adventure.
And the food was worth the wait. Everyone swooned over theirs, regardless of whether it was chicken and waffles or a skillet meal. There were also plenty of leftovers, so the portion sizes were quite generous. And the coffee milkshake is far more filling than you may give it credit for.
ALSO of note, the boy sprung it on me Saturday night that he wanted to do an elimination diet. We had discussed it before, to try to see if any of his ongoing allergies is food related. So we are doing a Whole30, sort of.
The goal is not so much to just make it through 30 days without sugar and grains (sidenote, WTF cutting out whole grains and legumes, two of the healthiest food groups on the planet?!?) but to eat as few typical allergen producing foods as possible for 3 weeks, then to slowly reintroduce one at a time.
Grains, dairy, alcohol, soy, corn, legumes, and sugar are gone.
Meats, all vegetables, any fruit, nuts, seeds, are totally fine.
I spent all of Sunday grocery shopping and meal prepping and creating Whole30 compliant condiments (ketchup, mayo, Ranch, Italian, cashew cream) and snacks.
And to kick it off, our first dinner was filet mignon with garlic rosemary potatoes and asparagus. Not feeling deprived yet!
Monday:
Breakfast – fruit smoothie
Snack – apricot almond energy balls
Lunch – was a crazzzzzzy day and I ended up stuck away from my desk so I didn’t have my lunch on me. But the cafeteria surprisingly provided. A plain baked potato w hot sauce, relish, salt & pepper, and a side salad with plain vinegar s+p.
Dinner – pumpkin chili: literally just thawed some pumpkin puree from the fall, mixed with a can of whole tomatoes I smushed up and 1lb ground turkey. Added some chili powder and dash of garlic salt, and it was really tasty. I had mine over another plain baked potato.
Snack – whole apple sliced thin with 2 tbsp almond butter drizzled over it and raisins on top. This is an AMAZING snack FYI.
The boy demolished 90% of a 3lb bag of clementines. By himself.
Tuesday:
Noticing at this point that I am constantly hungry. Like, my stomach can be stretch-out-full and I’m still hungry.
Breakfast – scrambled quail eggs with potatoes, radishes, peppers, onions, cabbage, yellow squash, and spinach
Lunch – leftover brunch; duck with eggs and roasted veggies and potatoes
Snack – dried apricots and pistachios
Dinner – Lemon pepper salmon with mashed potatoes and green beans almondine. Can you tell the difference in portions between myself and the boy haha
Wednesday:
Breakfast – fruit smoothie
Snack – apple
Lunch – 3 oz leftover salmon mixed with Whole30 mayo, avocado, and cucumber in lettuce wraps; roasted cauliflower; grapes, almonds
Snack – energy balls
Dinner – Slow cooker beef roast with rainbow carrots and potatoes.
The boy decided to make ghetto gyros (get-yos is what he’s calling them) and I put my beef over a huge salad with romaine, avocado, cucumber, cabbage, carrots, and raisins with Whole30 Ranch.
Feel pretty full. For about 30 minutes. Then starving again.
Snack – pineapple cubes
Also got a stack of ALL the Whole30 books from a friend who has done it 3 times. Gonna binge read all week now.
Thursday:
Wake up starving.
Breakfast – Giant 5 egg omelet with peppers, onions, and mushrooms that I split w the boy and black coffee
Lunch – leftover pot roast and carrots/potatoes, pineapple
Snack – matcha energy ball, clementine, pistachios
Dinner – Chicken breasts and baked potato/sweet potato with avocado, cashew cream, salsa, frozen mixed vegetables, homemade purple sauerkraut
Read almost all of “It Starts With Food” already. NOT convinced at all on their reasoning or ‘science’ for omitting grains/legumes and there are no citations… Same for their pseudoscience claims about soy and phytoestrogens.
Friday:
Woke up with terrible allergies, itchy nose/face, congestion. Pretty sure it’s just spring time and not the diet, though it does claim to help decrease inflammation
Breakfast – egg and lunchmeat sandwich with potato “toast” = slice potatoes thinly, then cook in toaster by popping them down 4-5 times until cooked
Lunch – Enormous salad of romaine, spinch, purple cabbage, rainbow carrots, cucumber, avocado, walnuts, and dried apricots with plain vinegar
Had to put my fork down and come back to it a few times, because I got nauseated at the thought of another bite of lettuce or cucumber…
Snack – Sliced apple with 2 tbsp almond butter and raisins, a banana, dried green beans
Dinner – ground turkey fajitas; mine was over a salad while the boys was wrapped in steamed cabbage leaves
The Weekend
Big plans this weekend! I’ve got a new greenhouse to assemble, a brooder to prep for this coming week’s chicks (hopefully!) and a new coop to build. Pleeeeeeease let the weather cooperate.
Food Total: $32.13 + $67.83
Weekly Produce Box = Eat the Uglies again, plus a blemished apple stock up box. This is the biggest head of cabbage I’ve ever seen! And I’m gonna make some Instant Pot applesauce for next week snacks.
We also took a trip to ALDI to stock up on some things to get us through Week 1 of Whole30. I will be eating a million percent more meat than usual, since they took away my grains and legumes, and am a little nervous about it, but willing to give it a try.
I made a meal plan using plenty of produce and frozen items we had at home, with a few additions for the boy’s convenience. He has very busy workdays which means very little time for food, and I’d prefer he eat lunchmeat rolls or drumsticks than skip lunch.
| Meats | $16.21 | Dairy | $3.18 | Staples | $17.22 | Fruit/Veg | $29.89 |
| chicken drumsticks | 3.34 | dozen eggs x2 | 3.18 | tomato paste 3 | 1.17 | riced cauliflower | 1.89 |
| salmon 1lb | 6.39 | fresh hot salsa | 4.89 | steam cali mix veg | 0.99 | ||
| roast beef lunchmeat | 3.99 | garlic 3 heads | 0.79 | romaine 3 | 1.99 | ||
| turkey lunchmeat | 2.49 | grapeseed oil | 3.99 | hashbrowns | 1.65 | ||
| 100% juice x2 | 6.38 | 3pk bolored peppers | 1.99 | ||||
| green grapes 1.5lb | 2.69 | ||||||
| Mandarins 3lb | 2.69 | ||||||
| Gala apples 3lb | 1.69 | ||||||
| avocados 15 | 10.47 | ||||||
| baby bellas | 0.99 | ||||||
| radishes | 0.59 | ||||||
| bananas 2 bunches | 2.26 |
Lessons Learned
Whole30 is an AMAZING idea if your diet is shit right now.
If you are eating the “SAD” (Standard American Diet) containing oodles of refined grains and sugars, and minimal produce, you should probably do a Whole30. It will make your health better. Anything that causes you to drop sugar, junk food, and eat more produce will.
However.
For someone who already has a great relationship with and respect for food, especially where it comes from and how high quality it is, eats a wide variety of vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds, and also knows the actual scientific evidence of the effect of high levels of animal product consumption on human health?
Not so great.
So, I don’t think I will complete this Whole30 journey after all.
I have no suspicions about food allergies, and I have no underlying psychological issues with my relationship with any food or food group, save popcorn. And I may legitimately follow through on 30 days without that.
Also for health reasons I’m going to stay on the no sugar and no alcohol bandwagon. No dairy is easy too, since I use it minimally in my usual life. I will keep cooking Whole30 for the boy, since he is doing this for the elimination and figure-out-allergies reason.