#WIAWRD 1

WIAW = What I Ate Wednesday
WIAWRD = What I Ate Wednesday Registered Dietitian

So now that we got the hip Twitter lingo out of the way, I was tagged to participate in #WIAWRD this week by Aaron Flores, a fellow RD whom I met through Dietitians for Professional Integrity. Like Aaron, I was hesitant to document and share my day's worth of food because I honor my cravings and have indulgences, just like everyone. But due to my profession, I was anxious that my colleagues and readers like you will be shocked by my imperfect food record and that I'd be seen as not walking the talk. Many seem to think I eat nothing but carrots and kale, sprinkle flax seed on everything, and have perfectly balanced intake every day. I don't mind going along with that assumption but that's not really who I am.

But here I am sharing my day's intake. It's less scary than I thought and I really enjoyed getting back to writing. Who knows how many times I've attempted to re-start my blog (4 and counting?) and ended up just going on another hiatus. I think this tag is what I need to help me resume blogging more regularly (let's hope!).

So here we go...

To start, I utterly forgot that I had to take photos for the blog until lunch time. So I have nothing to show for my breakfast except a written account of it.

[--] Mango and strawberry chia pudding yogurt with a sprinkle of cereal from Nature's Path. Here's an older post showing a similar rendition of today's breakfast. 

[--] My usual 8 oz. coffee with a splash of half and half and sugar in my trusty Zorjirushi Tuff Mug.  

Lunch:

I packed a light, portable lunch since I had to facilitate an on-site Lunch & Learn that was about 1 hour and 15 minutes drive away from my office. I had a PB and honey sandwich and 2 hard-boiled eggs but ended up only eating 1. 

The unexpected splurge was an iced latte with 1% milk from an independently owned coffee shop in Rancho Mirage called Koffi. Did I need another coffee today? No. But I wanted to satisfy the lover/supporter of well-crafted coffee in me. Plus 2 minutes after I bought this and started my drive back to Riverside, Backstreet Boys' "Quit Playing Games with My Heart" came on the radio. Oh, fellow children of the 90s, you know how exciting that is! Or maybe it's just me. Anyhow, I'm so glad I got to lip-sync to BSB while sipping on delicious coffee. 

Far From Being a SNAP

2 Bean & Yam Turkey Chili

My SNAP Challenge week has ended. True to its name, it was definitely not a snap and was most certainly a challenge.

With $63 (at $4.50 per person per day), I set out to shop for 2 people last Sunday. I typically shop at Sprouts Farmers Market and Trader Joe's and was able to get everything I needed from those 2 grocers. Before I set forth, I perused the weekly ad from Sprouts and planned my menu based on the produce on sale.

My week's total for 2 people: $61.30

Note: salt, pepper, spices, and vinegar weren't accounted for in the $63 budget.

Challenge Accepted

Image via Greater Boston Food Bank

$4.50. That's about how much I'd plunk down for a latte at a fancy coffee shop sometimes. But for this entire week, I'll have to use the same amount to feed myself for a whole day. Yikes. it's not because I lost a bet, but because I'm taking the SNAP Challenge with some fellow colleagues from the Hunger & Environmental Nutrition Group.

SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (often referred to as food stamps). We decided to take this challenge to gain a better understanding of the struggles of not having enough to eat, a real problem that millions of Americans face each day. Hunger often conjures up the image of an emaciated child in a 3rd world country but with the economic downturn and income gap increasingly widening, it's a real issue that is happening in our own backyard.

What's Poppin'?

After watching from the sidelines for 2 years, I've finally taken the Eating Rules' October Unprocessed Challenge! With that said, you might be expecting a quinoa-kale-wheatgrass mixture of sorts on a blog like mine. Well, surprise surprise... I have 3 recipes for homemade pops here instead!

Dessert is often times a store-bought item for me since a) I don't like (more accurately, I'm terrible at) baking, b) I like ice cream but haven't felt the urge to buy an ice-cream maker, and c) store-bought stuff is usually infinitely better than what I can whip up at home. But when I saw fellow blogger Carrie of Steps2Nutrition experiment with her new pop molds, it seemed simple enough where I won't be able to mess it up like baking a pie.

Multitasker

Multitasking- it's a valued trait. It's important to have whether you're a job seeker or a household cleaner product. In my job, I frequently advocate for finding items that can be used in multiple ways to eliminate "food clutter", i.e. endless jars of sauces and bottles of salad dressings in the fridge.

In a previous post, I shared the recipe for chia seed pudding which is intended to be a dessert. As I made it more often, it become a frequent fixture in the fridge. But there's only so much chia pudding a person can eat. One early morning while I was getting for work, a brilliant idea came to me- let's mix in the pudding into the yogurt!