Day 6

Funny thing about sugar. It's in everything! And unless it's naturally in a fruit or vegetable I'm eating, I can't have it. That means no ketchup. Who knew there was sugar in all that tomatoey goodness? I love me some ketchup too. Especially on burgers. Which we had last night.

I was already skeptical of these burgers since I was forgoing my usual high-calorie, and I'm sure high-sugar content, golden potato bun for a sprouted grain Ezekiel bun. Now I have no idea what sprouted grain means, and I've read about it twice. I just know that it's an approved bread I can eat while eating clean. And I gotta have my bread. Anyway, back to being skeptical.

I was skeptical of these burgers because the bun, which comes frozen for sprouted grain reasons, seemed a bit dense as I remove it from the bag to let it thaw. I had a flashback to the previous day's attempt to make a clean cornbread to go with dinner. The result was a dense mess of tasteless, grainy yuck. Michael said it looked like something Toby (Our cat. God rest his soul.) threw up. And he was right. (Michael then threatened to start his own blog about his experience with my eating clean.) But I was pleasantly surprised at how good the bun was. I toasted it for a minute and it was delightful, though I'd be lying if I told you it did not cut the roof of my mouth up. (Maybe less toasting next time?)

So while the bun exceeded expectations, the burger did not. Now to be fair to the burger, it was a perfectly good bison burger. It was just not the burger I am used to enjoying. You know, the greasy burger with cheese and sometimes bacon, slathered with mayo and ketchup. Makes my mouth water just writing about it. Not that I indulged in these a lot, but you see what this burger was up against. But, in all honesty, I enjoyed the heck out of my mayo and ketchupless (mustard only!) burger. It was just what I needed after days of eating all things green. Though I'm going to need to find a good alternative to ketchup because the sweet potato fries accompanying the burger needed some dipping sauce. And there's not much better for fry dipping than ketchup. Well, maybe, mayo but I digress.

This morning at church the sermon was about changing the way we think about things in order to change the way we feel about things. Think about it. Our way of thinking is what causes us to feel certain things and our feelings lead us to act in a certain way. We can't change our actions, or even our feelings, until we change our way of thinking. That's what this journey is about for me. I'm hoping that I can change the way I think about food, so that my feelings and actions will change as well. I hope to look at food as fuel for my body and, in turn, to make the right choices as to what that best fuel is. Will I never eat another sweet thing or fried thing or chicken tikka masala with garlic naan again. Heck no! But I want to learn to make these the exception, not the rule. I'm not there yet. Not even close. But I'm finding as I open my mind up to try new things (recipes, etc...) I am pleasantly surprised by them. (Clean cornbread excluded!)