Thank god I had time for breakfast today.
Eggs with zuccini and cheddar and a herbal chai
Then for lunch I polished off some of the left overs from the night before. I actually didn’t eat the whole plate, it was a little too much carb than I’m used to
Jacob brought back a piece of gluten free orange and almond cake, so I had a small bit. Delicious, but boy did I pay for it later. Sugar in the middle of the day (whether it be something sweet or just a sandwich) just gets dumped into your blood stream, causing a spike in your blood sugar. This makes you feel good, full of energy. But your body needs to get the sugar to your cells for energy production. So your pancreas has to work to make insulin to help transport the sugar out. Once the insulin has shunted the sugar out of your blood stream you feel a huge dip in your energy levels. It’s called the “after lunch slump” and you usually feel it at about 3pm. The way to stop it? Eat a low carb, vegetable based lunch with a bit of protein ie. a salad or soup with vegetables and meat, chicken, egg, tofu or lentils. This type of lunch breaks down slowly, keeping you fuller for longer. No blood sugar spikes.
I had a handful of nuts and fruits to cure my after lunch slump.
Raw nuts and rasins
After a day filled with sugar, I felt I needed something cleaner for dinner, but I was still craving some comfort food, sugar tends to do that to you. So I settled for a bowl of left over soup and a piece of toast with raw hummus.
Raw Hummus on sprouted spelt toast
I love chickpeas, in fact I love all legumes. But as humans we lack the correct enzyme to digest legumes so they are best sprouted so that we can get the most nutritional value from them. Sprouting is easy. After soaking the legumes, I often just use a glass baking tray covered with a tea towel and give the sprouts a light mist with filtered water once a day, but there are fancy sprouters that you can buy from health food stores, which are best for things like alfalfa. The glass tray works fine for this recipe.
Raw Hummus
1 cup organic chickpeas
1 organic spring onion
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
Salt to taste
juice of 1/2 a lemon (or one if it is small)
small handful of mint, coriander and parsley
1 tablespoon of organic unhulled tahini
A good drizzle of olive oil
Sprout chickpeas according to sprouter directions or follow my lead. Soak chickpeas overnight in filtered water. In the morning, rinse the chickpeas and place in a glass dish covered with a tea towel. It will take about 2 days for the chickpeas to start getting little tails. Mist them with water once a day (or more if they look a little dry) until they start to grow.
Put chickpeas into a food processor with all other ingredients and pulse together till a dip is formed. Taste the mix and tweek it with more lemon, salt or olive oil for your taste. Enjoy with raw veggies or on sprouted spelt and chia seed toast.