As if going vegan wasn’t challenging enough, now I realize I
have to completely eliminate all fat from Kory’s diet, which takes it to a
whole new level of challenging.
I just read a book about reversing heart disease, and the
author, Dr. Esselstyn, did a 12-year study on heart patients that were so bad
they were just sent home to die. They
had had too many by-pass operations, too many stents and were on too many drugs
and there was nothing more the cardiologists could do for them. He figured they were perfect bait for his
theory that the western diet is what is killing Americans, and if we all went
back to a plant based, fat-free diet, we could save ourselves.
So, he made them follow his strict guidelines – no added oil
whatsoever. They got one tablespoon of
flax oil a day and that was it. The rest
of the oil came by way of vegetables, but nothing added. He means business. But the fact of the matter is, twenty years
later, every single one of those patients were still alive. One guy was even 67 when he started! So the thought of keeping Kory healthy and
alive for another 20 years isn’t a bad idea, it’s just bad to think about what
we have to endure to get us there.
I can’t believe how much added fat is even in bread! It’s been tough to stop and read the labels
on absolutely everything I buy. Only
this week have I realized that I just have to make everything from scratch in
order to keep up with this challenge.
I’m sure I’ll get used to it. There
certainly is a lot of trial and error with the old taste buds, but so far my
freezer is stocked up with fat-free vegetable soup, fat-free lentil soup and
fat-free black beans and rice. He won’t
go hungry for a few weeks anyway.
We’re still eating smoothies for breakfast, soups and salads
for lunch and my repertoire of dinners is slowly expanding. I made stuffed red peppers the other night
that weren’t bad, but need a little more umph the next time I make them. Tonight we’re having homemade pizza. I made the dough myself so I’m sure there’s
no oil in it and I slow baked some sweet onions and blended them up for the
“sauce”. I roasted red peppers and
asparagus and will add shitake mushroom and artichoke hearts. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. It’s taken me all morning just to prep for
it.
I’m also using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
book because it’s so easy to make up a bunch of dough and leave it in the frig
until I’m ready to bake it. Fresh bread
every day is a good thing, and the more simple pleasures I can make for Kory, the
more he’ll hopefully forget about all the things he can’t ever eat again.
It’s so wonderful that even though our bodies clog up with
the food we eat, we can unclog them with food as well – or so this doctor
says. Kory’s a good test case since he’s
been exercising every day on the elliptical machine and he still gets a little
bit of angina in his arm, so he’ll for sure know when that goes away. According to the book, he should see results
in three to six weeks. Our bodies can
heal themselves quickly.
So my life has been consumed this week with what I can make
for Kory to eat. I’ve been reading
books, checking out websites, copying recipes.
I wake up in the night and think about it. He’s had two scouting events this week with
Kaleb and both of them were over meal times and I knew the scouts were stopping
to eat in restaurants that wouldn’t offer fat-free meals (do any?). I packed Kory’s salad and soups to-go and sent
him on his way, knowing we’ve got to make this work in all circumstances. I can only take one day at a time though,
otherwise I get stressed out.
So the only other thing that happened this week was Kaleb’s
big Destination Imagination tournament.
I had two teams of five boys competing against each other. They were the only ones in their category at
their age group, so I knew one would be a winner. If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have said
Kaleb’s team would win, but a lot happened in one week and his team actually
lost. He was devastated and cried
buckets all through the award’s ceremony.
It wasn’t his fault, as the structure one of his team members built fell
apart way too early in the game. I’m
sure they all learned many lessons from that disaster, but the other team, the
real underdogs, came through perfectly and did very well. I was proud of them all, but the day sure
turned out differently than I expected.
Kaleb has a hard time losing anything so I told him until he
starts to learn to be a good looser, he’ll probably keep on losing. He can’t be happy for the winner, either,
which breaks my heart. He kept trying to
sabotage the other team to keep them from winning, but this is why I teach this
class – to give him opportunities to learn teamwork, because he isn’t learning
it anywhere else. Ugh. It was a tough week with him, as the other
team is now going on to the state competition at the end of the month, and he’s
not. Life’s good, but sometimes, tough.
(Since I've been obsessed with food lately I decided to post photos of the "Sandwich Art" Kory makes for Kaleb's lunch everyday. Clever man.)
