Thursday, October 26, 2006

Red Meat

I do live in the land of churrascos. Men carrying meat around on big sticks is hardly a cave-woman fantasy around here. And I do eat red meat a couple of times a week. Beans too. Lots of milk. Spinach makes a nice appearance, as do tomatoes and hoardes of garlic.

The problem isn't in the food per se...it's in the quantity. I'm living the single nightmare. The other day, I bought a pack of frozen chicken because it was dirt cheap. But now I don't know what to do with it. Defrosting the whole thing means a week of chicken for breakfast, lunch and dinner and still throwing out a significant amount when it goes bad in the icebox that masquerades as a refrigerator. Chopping off chunks is easier said than done...and then you worry about frostbite...freezerburn...same thing.

It is much harder than it sounds to cook for one. And so I end up eating a lot of...um...bananas. Chocolate milk. Bread and butter. Small insects. (It's the tropics.) I feel bad when I waste food. And I can't seem to retrain myself to not cook for a small army, so I end up eating a lot more carry-out rice and beans than I originally expected when I moved here.

I will be trying your suggestions, especially the vitamin C part. I am beginning to develop a taste for fresh squeezed orange juice and acerola smoothies. One acerola is the size of a Bing cherry and yet contains up to 4.5% vitamin C. A peeled orange is 0.05%. So basically, the tiny fruit packs seriously more bang than a whole bag of oranges...and they say it helps with anemia. So I'll be trying it. But I still think there must be some link between rheumatoid arthritis and anemia and as soon as I'm done here, I'm going to google it...

[Google died on me at this point last night and I performed the stated search...]

Vindicated!!! I don’t know how I missed it before, but anemia is a symptom that tags along with rheumatoid arthritis...so I'm not going to be trying to combat it simply by stuffing my face with meat!!!

4 comments:

Ellen said...

jenna- i ate a bug the other day on purpose. its not that strange, you dont have to justify it. ive had major chocolate cravings, too. something to do with africans eating plenty of oil and potatoes but not much of... well anything sweet. Except they have tea the way anna and chris like it.

--jenna said...

i don't really eat bugs. that was exaggeration. :)

yeah, when you don't get sweet stuff with the meal, it really makes the chocolate gene go crazy, huh???

miss you, sis!

Anonymous said...

no, i said STAY AWAY from dairy, as it is said to inhibit the absorption of iron. chocolate has iron, doesn't it?!

Mark&Britt said...

Hi Jenna :) Just wanted to say hello! Mark and I love you!!!
~Britta