Getting too set in my ways? Opinons sought.

[Dietrich]

A while back I was faced with a very limited amount of cash, and almost 3 weeks to feed myself with it. Something totally unfor$een had happened, so I decided to see it through. Some of the habits I formed that month have stuck with me to this day. I am curious to read any feedback you might have (although I'm not interested in getting into a raw vs. cooked grains sort of conversation. I eat what I eat, for reasons I am comfortable with).

 

Anyhow, I always have organic steel-cut oats in my cupboard. This is the basis of most of my concoctions. Oats have replaced pasta for me. I have brown rice occasionally.

 

I will almost always cook the oats along with organic green lentils. These two things are close to each other at the bulk food place where I shop. They are quite cheap too!

 

Ok, oats and lentils. My co-workers think this is bizarre. Oats to them are for breakfast, with sweet toppings... IF they eat oats at all!

 

I will also add garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, various beans, other veggies at times, and my favourite... Avocado! I now eat several avocados a week, usually stirred into the warm oats (after they cool a bit). The avocado turns into a sauce, almost. I don't cook it. Maybe the heat from the oats does, a bit. But I don't add avocado when the oats are too hot.

 

Seems bland? Many people tell me this. But I live alone. I love oats and the other things I've listed, and I combine them in various ways.

 

These things combine to make my "big" meals. Before biking to work in the afternoon, I tend to eat a lot of other fruit too. I also buy bananas when the local store wraps 'em up and prices them at 89 cents or 99 cents for 6 or 8 bananas, just because they have brown flecks on them. I put them in the freezer in a plastic bowl with a lid, broken into chunks. Apples and bananas and water in the blender... drink it down. Yum!

 

Spinach or kale are other regulars for me. I can even put them into the fruit blender-drink.

 

I drink green tea a lot. A Lot. Fairly weak tea though. Gunpowder, loose-leaf.

 

I'm curious what folks here think of this combination. I'm probably lacking something, but if I buy all of these items/ingredients throughout the month, and combine them in various ways, I'm pretty happy.

 

The 'mainstream' online newspapers that I look at seem to always have contrary opinions from day to day, regarding what we should be eating. I like to think that the things I eat (one, maybe two ingredients IF they even require ingredient lists) are pretty basic, healthy and they entertain me. I'm waiting for someone (elsewhere, not so much here) to start preaching about gluten or the fat content of avocados (who cares?) or the latest fad, or my supposed lack of protein (I doubt it).

 

My food habits evolved from a time when I was almost broke. There have been some changes, but I can still eat well for the price of what some people pay for their monthly soda pop and chips.

 

Anyhow, thanks for reading.

[stcalico]

Well, your nutrition does not sound that bad to me. I would push for more variety in your grain and protein choices - just safer that way. I eat some strange combinations too that I would never serve to guests (like salsa mixed in rice).

 

I suspect that you are making veganism a pretty hard sell to your co-workers tho. lol.

 

The only other thing I would note is to remember that tea inhibits iron absorption.. and the iron in veggies already doesn't absorb all that well.

[xdarthveganx]

Salsa mixed in rice is strange now? Don't tell all those people making Mexican cuisine

[HorseSense]

I think if that's your tastes than go with it. It is your body not anyone else's and it knows what it wants. Your combinations sound nutritionally great (the lentils are powerhouses) if that's what you like for taste. Though I'm no expert. I would just make sure I'm getting B12 somewhere.