A week on the 100 meter diet - Day 2

I started day 2 off with four goat milk pancakes topped with 100 meter maple syrup and a small glass of milk. The great thing about pancakes is that they freeze very well and they only take a minute or so in the microwave to warm up. A great time saver.

You may recall that I made 4 jars of maple syrup this past spring. I'm currently working through jar number 2 and I expect to have enough syrup to last me until the end of the diet. Making the syrup was a lot of effort but I'm glad I did.

For lunch I had some leftover bow tie egg noodles with tomato sauce. Normally I'll bring a little extra food for lunch but this serving was big enough all on it's own.

This is the last of my bow tie egg noodles. I made several batches a few months ago but I didn't really like them much. They take far to much time to make and they don't cook well in the middle. I've figured out that they taste much better the day after you cook them since they get a little more time to soften up.

Two more goat chops were on my dinner menu, as well as some butternut squash and some pickled zucchini. The pickled zucchini recipe turned out really nice and it adds a certain tangy sweetness to the meal.

For dessert I had more of my anglefood cake. I like to freeze the egg whites that I have left over from making egg noodles. Once I have 1.5 cups saved up .... Presto .... I have an anglefood cake! I love how that works out.

For my night time snack I finished the remaining crackers and two goat yogurts ... Mmmm.

A week on the 100 meter diet - Day 1

A common question that I get from people is "What do you eat on your diet?"

So, for this week, I'm going to keep notes on everything I have so you can get an idea about what it's like being on the 100 meter diet. I'll start with yesterday (Sunday), here's what I ate:

Breakfast: Goat milk yogurt and two slices of zucchini bread.

I wasn't much of a yogurt fan before I started the 100 meter diet. But now I have at least one yogurt a day, either for breakfast or for a late night snack. I absolutely love it. I usually make 6 jars (1 litre) every 2 or 3 days.

Unfortunately, zucchini bread doesn't last long around here because I eat it up so quickly. It's a great anytime snack.

Lunch: Toasted fried egg sandwich and a large glass of goat milk.

I knew a simple sandwich wasn't going to hold me over until dinner so I made some crackers in the afternoon, for a snack. I found the recipe in a magazine months ago but hadn't found the time to give it a try. It was easy to make and they really tasted quite nice.

I wish I had some cheese already made to go with the crackers. No such luck this time.

Dinner: Two goat chops, baby potatoes, pickled beats and pickled yellow zucchinis. For dessert, a couple of slices of fresh angle food cake.

Now, I don't eat this fancy
everyday but whenever I have goat meat I try to make it a little extra special. I cooked six goat chops on the BBQ so you'll be seeing a variation of this meal on Monday and again on Tuesday. That's pretty typical for this diet. I try to start off the work week with a couple of meals already made. It takes the stress out of trying to figure out what to have when I walk in the door.

In the evening, my snack was another yogurt and a few more crackers. Those crackers aren't going to last very long at this rate :)

I'll admit that this doesn't sound like a lot of food but it's more than enough for the new me. The old me could have finished off everything in one meal sitting. Crazy but true.

10 Years Ago ....

Back at the end of 1999 my wife and I lived in town, in a small one bedroom apartment. We were expecting our first child while actively looking to buy a home where we would be happy to raise our future children. We were eager to share our lives and dreams with our children but we would have to wait a few more months until we actually became parents.

We had so much to share, however, that we simply couldn't wait ... so we decided to write our future kids a letter that described our lives without them and gave them a glimpse into the type of home we hoped to provide for them in the future. We addressed the letter to "Baby" and mailed it to our apartment. Once delivered, the letter quickly went into our memory box and there it stayed, sealed, for over ten years.

We've been waiting for the right moment to give the kids the letter and over this past weekend that moment finally arrived. During dinner, on Saturday night, we were talking about all the work that needs to be done around the house before the snow arrives. It was then that Michael asked us the simple question "Why did you pick this house to live in anyway?". Instantly I thought ... this is the moment ... they're ready to read the letter! I told them that Mom and Dad had answered that very question 10 years ago .... before we even bought this house. That peaked their interest so we quickly dug out the letter and opened it up to read to the kids.

We found two notes in the envelop, one written by me before we bought our house and one written by my wife, after we bought the house.

In my note I spoke of the upcoming Y2K scare, the price of gas, and where we both worked at that time. When it came to our future home I simply said "We are looking for a house but we haven't found anything we like yet. Right now we would like a country property with about 5 acres or more with a pond and a fireplace. We'll have to wait and see what turns up."

In my wife's note, written two months after mine, she describes the home we bought by saying "It will be the only home you know for many years to come. It has two ponds, a fireplace, a double garage and 4.5 acres of land. It will be perfect for you and your future siblings to run around and grow up. You'll love it! We take possession of the house 8 days before your due date. It will be a very busy time :)"



All three of our children were born in this very house, with Michael being the first, born exactly one week after we moved in. They are growing up with lots of space to explore and with many wildlife creatures to learn about. We wanted them to be connected to the house and to the property where they live and I believe we've accomplished that.

I also believe that now is a good time to write another letter to our future selves, this time as a family. I would like the kids to write a letter in their own words and describe what it's like growing up in our family and how they want to live their lives in the future. I think they'll appreciate looking back and reading the letters in 10 years time, just as we have enjoyed looking back to the year 1999.

It's a great family bonding experience .... why don't you give it a try too?

Survivor

One of our weekly family rituals is watching Survivor on Wednesday night. We enjoy the challenges and the struggles the players have to contend with in order to survive 39 days in the game. The show is a topic of discussion around our dinner table as well. We often talk about the game, the alliances and how we might do things differently.

Last night, the reward challenge was a cage containing three chickens. Two hens and one rooster. A very good reward indeed. The winning team took the cage back to their camp and quickly decided to eat one of the chickens for dinner. We all agreed that that was a reasonable decision because the rooster really doesn't have a role to play since there isn't enough time to hatch out any chicks during the show. After all, the game is called Survivor not Sustainability.

When the team selected the chicken to butcher we all started screaming "Stop! Not the hen! Somebody tell them they grabbed the hen!". Apparently nobody on the winning team could tell the difference between a rooster and a hen. We we're stunned.

As the kids got ready for bed the topic of discussion was "When do you think they'll figure out they ate the hen?". In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. They'll miss out on a few extra eggs between now and the end of the show but it won't have a significant impact on their diet. Someone will likely figure it out, and once they do, they'll regret having eaten the hen first.

Thanksgiving weekend

We had our Thanksgiving celebration this past weekend and I was happy to leave my diet at home for the day. It was great to taste brussel sprouts, carrots and turnips again. Everything was so delicious it was hard to decide where to start but I was up to the challenge. I even had a nice piece of pumpkin pie with whipped cream ... Mmm. My taste buds were thankful.

Before we packed up to head home, my sister-in-law gave me this 'barn art' to take back to our homestead. When we were in B.C., back in May, we visited an organic vegetable farm where the out buildings were decorated with interesting odds and ends. I imagined that each item had a story behind it. Well this is my first piece for my barn art collection and I really like. I've always thought we could use a tractor around the farm and this one is the perfect size. Thanks Jen!

After I hung the barn art we got busy working outside planting some fruit trees on our property. We've been tallking about planting some trees for a few years now so we're happy that it finally happened. We planted a sour cherry, two pears and two apple trees. They should start producing next year, if all goes well. It took about three hours to get them in the ground but, as usual, it will be worth the effort when we dig into our first 100 meter apple pie next year.

I couldn't help thinking "Why didn't we do this sooner"? Oh well, at least they're in the ground now!

Nobel Prize for Medicine

The Nobel prizes are being announced this week and the prize for medicine was announced on Monday. The prize was awarded to Robert Edwards, a British scientist, who introduced in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to the world. The first IVF baby was born on 25 July, 1978, and since then more than 4 million babies owe their existence, in part, to IVF.

That's a lot of babies.

Now, if the human race was on the brink of extinction, due to infertility, I would agree that Mr. Edwards would have deserved significant recognition. However, that is not the case. The current estimate for the global human population is just below 7 billion people.

That's a lot of people.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love kids. When I see a newborn baby I can't help feeling hope and happiness for the future. Maybe, just maybe, this newborn will change the world for the better. But when I think of 4 million babies I can't help picturing 4 million new future consumers with hungry mouths to feed.

Our economy and industrial food model welcomes, and expects, continual growth in the human population. It needs more people to sell products to ... from that perspective IVF is a wonderful breakthrough. But if you are of the belief that this model is unsustainable, which is what I believe, the results of the IVF breakthrough are simply adding to the problem of over population.

More and more people are talking about developing green technologies and reducing global warming and I think that's excellent. But I believe that the root of these issues comes from over population. We will never be able to effectively deal with these global issues until we deal with the concept of a sustainable world population. There are simply way too many people on the planet.

As a society, I don't believe we're ready to talk about over population yet. But one day, whether we like it or not, the issue will need to be addressed. Until then, I hope that more and more parents focus on raising children with values that are based on sustainable living and not consumerism. By doing so we will be giving our children a better foundation from which to make some really difficult decisions.

It's a tough topic, I know. But it's a topic we need to be thinking and talking about.

Creamy ricotta egg noodles

I took a stroll through the garden before dinner last night, hoping to find something edible this late in the season. I came across some baby yellow zucchinis that inspired me to make a creamy noodle dish.

I put a cup of goat cream in a sauce pan and turned the heat to low. Next I added the ricotta cheese that we made last weekend with salt and freshly cracked pepper corns to taste. Once the ricotta blended with the cream I added the baby zucchini medallions to soften for a few minutes. The final step was to add the cooked egg noodles, mix everything together and let it sit for a few minutes before serving.

It was a surprisingly tasty meal. Slightly tangy and very creamy. The zucchini added a nice texture and flavour. I'm going to have to take a stroll in the garden more often ... I don't want to miss any of these treasures!