Local or Organic?

I've mentioned in a few other posts that I am taking a class this semester called Contemporary Food Movements. As a vegetarian and self proclaimed foodie I love the topics that we study in this course, however much of the reading does cause a certain amount of indignation.

Today I read an article about corporation organic food. Many organic companies that began as grass roots and local have been bought by large corporations that continue the homegrown story in order to sell products. For instance, Kashi is actually owned by Kellogs, Cascadian Farms by Gerneral Mills, Horizon Organic by Dean's and Odwalla by none other that Coca Cola.

Personally, I don't think this information will change the way I shop though it may cause a bit of guilt knowing that the family farm story on my box of cereal is a straight lie.

For lunch I wanted to try a little something new with my salad

Spinach, raw tofu, cucus,mushrooms,apple, raisins and walnuts with white wine vin and garlic salt. Delicious! I also had a chewy kashi bar... ironically.

And got some great mail today!! 26 oz of almond butter (I was NOT about to go a whole month without it, sorry) and the new and my first Clean Eating magazine... I love today.

Due to my mail, snack was a given

And for dinner I made a ROCKING sandwich. Whole wheat pita with hummus, string cheese, tomato sauce, green olives and italian seasoning.

Like a Mediterranean pita pizza pocket, so good! Plus some steamed broc on the side.

Currently enjoying some PB toast and raisins and maybe a handful of cereal for dessert, see you tomorrow beautiful people!

Peace!

Caitlin

What's more important to you, local or organic?

April Goals

This is what I've been seeing out of my window this whole month so far =(

It's ok though, I just pretend I'm this guy =)

I know I'm a little late on April goals but the first Monday of the month is a pretty legit time too!

1) Do not get Injured: I've been having some shin pain recently and this morning woke up and something is off about my hip. I'm not sure what's going on with me but I am not going to prolong any kind of potential injury.

2) Keep up the Yoga: I've been doing really well making it to class once a week, I want to keep it up!

3)Post more workouts: Fairly self explanatory, I want to share more of how I gym with you all!

4) Listen to my body: Way too much mindless late night snacking for not reason has ensued over the past few weeks, I'm want to break the habit like yesterday.

5)USE FOOD!!!: The semester is almost over and I could feed the whole campus... help!

This morning due to my healing cold and hip I could have run but did not. I started but realized it would have just been a super slow, boring 3 miles and I wasn't trying to further any pain on junk miles.

Instead I hit up the ET for 34 minutes (5 miles). I put it on random and did reverse intervals every other song. I normally don't spend more than 15 minutes on the ET... how do you people do it?! It was a great tough workout but I was BORED TO DEATH!

I then did 40 minutes of full body weights and core, I went lighter high reps today except for dead-lifts... 20 LBS IN EACH HAND BABY!

Breakfast... I'm officially out of Barney butter *too many tears*

In this mix

1/3 cup oats

1 packet carnation instant breakfast (I thought I'd experiment because it tastes more chocolaty than protein powder... I like both!)

~3/4 cup skim milk

1 heaping tbsp chia seeds

1 truvia packet

topped with banana, dried cherries and ground flax

Barney butter, chia, chocolate goodness <3 <3

Plus the elixir of life. Off to pack lunch and homework!

Peace!

Caitlin

How has your April been so far?

What's your fave salad combo? I need some lunch inspiration...

Want to come help me eat all of my food before the semester ends?

My throat hurts

And I swear if I get sick there will be tears. I need some sleepy sleep so I'm sorry for the speedy recap!

Lunch was a salad with a serving of barley, sweet peas, black eyes peas, 1/2 a big tomato and 1/2 a cucumber topped with superfruit berry vin plus a strawberry chobani repackaged for no chance of bursting. Oh and bio exam studying =)

With a nice view from the science center

Snacking on some butter crunch cashews. pretzels and dried cherries (had more than pictured... trust)

Someday I will have DINNER for dinner I promise but my eggs actually expired yesterday and for me redundancy trumps wasting food. I did put a spin on my omelet. I mixed the eggs with cinnamon and stevia and then stuffed it with macadamia nut and cashew butter.

    

And topped it with microwaved frozen bloobs and banana slices with some baked sweet potato slices on the side. I've been way snacky again tonight... once again my hunger seems to wait until I get back to my room in the evening, if anyone has a solution please let me know!

Peace!

Caitlin

How often do you get sick? Um... never, that's why I'm so upset

Let's talk Politics

Don't worry we won't get too in depth... I don't want any hate mail or anything! I've never talked politics before basically because that's not what the blog is about ,but, fun fact about me is I am very interested in them and grew up in a somewhat political family.

We would watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report every night during dinner! I also spent my Halloween weekend on a whirlwind trip to DC to go the the Rally to Restore Sanity!

I've mentioned before that I go to school in Wisconsin and if you are familiar with what is going on at the WI capital you can imagine that it has spread to a tiny, liberal arts, hippie campus like mine. Given my new found dislike of Scott Walker and my love of activism you can imagine how dumb excited I was to be standing right outside of my dorm, on my campus of merely 1250 students, roughly three feet from this person..

Reverend Jesse Jackson.... I DIED.

I sadly didn't get to meet or talk to him but I probably would have fainted anyway, I was nervous taking pictures! He was here with the Autonomous Solidarity Organization and WI senator Tim Cullen to promote voting to stop the bill that is currently being passed in WI.

ASO Speaker

For lunch I packed a salad with 1/2 a bag of spinach, a red pepper, 1/2 an avocado, salsa, the rest of my chili-lime white bean dip and nooch. Plus two pieces of Ezekiel sesame bread.

I was SUPER snacky this afternoon

I had this bowl x3 plus some more not plated *by the way I'm having NO issue making it through my twelve bags of pretzels... I'm already down to 10, if the addiction is wrong I don't want to be right!*

Plus a peanut butter chocolate protein bar

plus a zillion handfuls of butter cashews and dark chocolate almonds (flavored nuts are too dangerous)

I took a break and shockingly actually got somewhat hungry for dinner though not starving so I made some scrambled egg whites with cheese, fruit and a sprouted grain english muffin with smart balance and fruit spread.

Followed by a few handfuls of trail mix

(what is WITH me and the snack food!?)

I'm off to attempt at some homework but more likely fall asleep =)

Peace!

Caitlin

Are there any celebrities or political figures you have met or would love to meet?

What's your latest snacking addiction? PRETZELS AND NUT BUTTER... though that's not new =)

Bad Blogger Update

I'm so sorry I've left you guys hanging for the past few posts! I had an emotional and tired day yesterday and just had to pick some things to not do. I do love you all very much and it won't happen again!

Here's what my life has looked like

A long power walk yesterday morning that ended at walgreens and sale on nuts and dried fruit= dream come true

I also got another bag of cherries

Salad with vegan burger, spinach and tomatoes topped with dijon. A brown rice wrap with avocado and chili-lime white bean dip for lunch yesterday.

Burt's Bees new tinted lip balm... great color and texture, love it!

Post yoga class breakfast for dinner. French toast made with torn up pita and coconut extract mixed with the eggs (so good!) Topped with almond butter and fruit spread, frozen peaches and strawberries on the side.

A few to many of these amazing new cookie find for dessert. Organic dark chocolate oreos, crack ... heaven

Throwing away an entire newly open chobani tub that said it expired April 7... clearly a lie, just rude.

a 3 mile run and 30 minutes of lifting followed by

Last night: oats, lemon tea, vanilla protein powder, chia seeds, two scoops yogurt ( I had another tub)

Topped with strawberries

In my almost gone MaraNatha almond butter jar =(.

These were amazing, I highly recommend making oats with tea for flavoring! For hot oats just put the tea bag in while cooking them, for overnight use the tea as your liquid or part of your liquid.

whew that was long! I will give you a project new nutrition update tonight!

Peace!

Caitlin

Tell me about your Sunday!

What's your favorite way to flavor oats?

Full Day

Did you see my post this morning? I hope it provided some kind of insight for some of you out there! I didn't post breakfast this morning because I normally eat while I post but today I had a breakfast "date"! That's in quotes because really I was meeting with my bio group to finish a paper we have due tomorrow.

I did have a pita with PB2 and fruit spread before hitting an interval bike workout. 10 min. warmup, 50 min. intervals, 10 min cool down.

I thought about packing some yogurt and cereal in an almost empty PB jar but instead I challenged myself with something I really wanted! We met at my schools coffee shop so I got

Whole wheat bagel topped with butter and cinnamon and a small iced skim latte for protein

Yes that is a checker board on the table

Yes I go to a tiny liberal arts hippie school... I love it =)

Surprisingly the bagel kept me way fuller than even nut butter does! Maybe it has something to do with all of the crack butter toffee almonds that made there way into my mouth last night.

For lunch I packed a small spinach salad with strawberries, cucumbers, a big scoop of cottage cheese and wheat germ.

The star of the show though was these cinnamon roasted chickpeas with almond butter! Last night I roasted 1/2 a can of chickpeas in cinnamon and topped them with about a tablespoon of almond butter when they were still hot. I put them in the fridge overnight and had an amazing lunch treat!

Snack was the rest of my hummus =( mixed with a little nooch and baby carrots.

Dinner was an omelette. I can't believe I made it until Thursday without an omelette! It was actually just two eggs and some garlic, for whatever reason i haven't been feeling cheese lately.

With roasted broccoli and sesame toast with almond and peanut butter (you know I can't choose) and honey.

For dessert I had a fun bowl of PB2, quaker squares some banana and dark chocolate.

I also had two more spoons of nut butter and a little more cereal.

Quote of the day taken from a facebook status of one of PerMa's friends:

"Keep walking towards it"

Peace!

Caitlin

What are you currently walk towards? The status of recovered =)

What's your favorite non-dessert dessert food? Cereal or nut butter! Or both!

Weather=Cravings

The weather today has been absolute crap. It's been raining 98% of the day, it's as dark as when I went to bed last night and the wind nearly blew me away. It was 60 degrees yesterday... I hate the midwest = /.

Good thing I got veggies in at lunch with a big salad. Spinach, baby carrots, hard boiled eggs and peas (my new favorite salad thing) plus a brown rice wrap.

Weather craving #1 was a large cafe au lait from my school coffee shop

Chobani topped with craving #2- chocolate cherry granola

And for dinner there literally only one thing that was going to hit the spot. Pancakes. But unfortunately somehow they ended up tiny =(

Compared to a tablespoon

So I went nut butter crazy plus 1/2 banana from this morning, honey, fruit spread and a piece of pumpkin bread. I also had a little bowl of frozen peach slices for some nutrients.

I was actually still hungry after this so I had this plate and another handful of butter toffee almonds.

I've also had a piece of toast with PB2 and some dark chocolate and I'm getting hungry again! I really think I need to eat more earlier in the day, I have had MAJOR snack attacks the past few nights! I'm going to try and start bigger lunches and afternoon snacks and see what happens.

Peace!

Caitlin

How do you deal with crap-tastic weather?

When do you eat the majority of your calories for the day? Or do you feel you spread them evenly? I try to spread them evenly but I feel like my lunch is always too small just because I'm normally in a hurry.

Personal Catch-Up

Do you ever feel like your life is as much work as your work/ school life? My afternoon class was canceled today giving me an extra two hours. Instead of relaxing I celebrated the fact that I could finally catch up with things in MY life instead of school. I did things like

E-mail my grandparents and some friends

wash my hair/shave my legs

Read your blogs (finally!)

Update my iTunes

Paint my nails

and even some homework that's not due for a while so I wasn't stressing

About 30 minutes after breakfast I had this (granola crisps and PB)

Then 45 minutes later I was starving but I couldn't eat my lunch because I had some stuff to do so right before I left I made an almond butter and jelly wrap to go.

I was into seeing people celebrating before noon =). There was also a guy with a beer at 8:30 this morning... in the gym... lifting weights, I laughed out loud.

For lunch I broke the eat your colors rule to honor the holiday! I had a huge salad with spinach, asparagus, cucumber, broccoli, lima beans, sweet peas, snap peas and avocado. Dressed in dijon, white wine vin and garlic salt. It was a very good salad!

One thing I had to do this morning required me to go to the dining hall where I found fresh made, vegan, gluten free chocolate chip cookies! I totally had to grab one to go with lunch. It was delicious! A great soft texture, sweetened (at least partly) with honey and I even detected some banana. Points for my school!

Snack plate

I had more crackers and raisins than this, the crackers were dipped in cream cheese right out of the container

With dips on the side

I've also had

a big handful of cereal, more strawberries

A few handfuls of butter toffee almonds (does anyone know if I can make these? They are too good to not have around 100% of the time)

some cashews

while I had the peanut butter out some sweet potato chips made their way into it as did the rest of my pretzels (can we talk about how I killed a 3/4 pound bag of pretzels from Sunday until today... no shame)

One of my cookies from last night

Told you I've been eating a lot!

Dinner was vegan "cheesy" Mediterranean lentils (recipe posted tomorrow!) with sweet potatoes roasted with evoo, apple cider vinegar cinnamon and paprika and cucumbers with more hummus.

Peace!

Caitlin

What would you do with two extra hours?

How was your holiday?