Saturday, March 31, 2012


One more day of planning before I begin my challenge on Sunday, April 1.  I am working on the menu for Sunday and Monday, and the shopping lists to buy proteins and fresh greens tomorrow.  Breakfasts are simple, always a 16 oz glass of water with a squeeze of fresh lemon, coffee (black), sometimes I treat myself to real cream and a half teaspoon of dark brown sugar or molasses, but not every day.   Coffee with fresh ground cinnamon is nice.  I follow that with a small portion of protein and a starchy carbohydrate, peanut butter on one slice of toasted whole grain bread is my favorite.  I will alternate the peanut butter with some other protein like an egg, but the single slice of whole grain bread remains the same.  Mid morning is a snack of fruit either fresh or dry. My favorites are dried apricots and dried figs.  Apples are great as well.  Oranges are very high in sugar so I stay away from them, but grapefruit slices are refreshing especially on a hot day. And it has been very hot in SC lately!

Lunch is generally leftover protein from the evening before with lots of fresh, raw vegetables, a variety, not just lettuce and tomato.  I vary that with hard boiled eggs, egg salad, tuna salad and chicken salad.  I seldom have a starchy carb with lunch, because I find if I have a small portion at dinner, it keeps me from foraging later in the evening.  So having one at lunch as well is too many grains which are all on the acid side.    Mid afternoon snack is again a fruit, tomato, or some other veggie.  Sometimes I’ll have a handful of seeds or nuts. 

Dinner will be the most interesting and fulfilling including a small amount of starchy carbs such as brown rice, basmati rice, whole grain pasta, quinoa, or legumes  (all on the acid side) and root vegetables with skin on, such as carrots, potato, sweet potato.  Avoiding dairy except goat cheese, I have a separate fresh raw vegetable salad.  My entrée plate is covered with at least 50% side vegetable, 25% protein and carbs and 25% a blank canvas.  That gets me to the desired minimum 60% alkaline with the separate salad included.  All sauces, condiments, salad dressings are prepared by me, nothing from a bottle!

Throughout the day I will drink at least 6 16 oz glasses of water with lemon, before or with meals and in between.  If I snack it will be on dried, fresh fruit or nuts so I am not going to include snacks in the daily menus.  Wine (mildly acidic) with dinner will include a fresh squeeze of lemon (highly alkaline) as well.  And, no snack at night!    If I can consume all the foods before 7pm and retire at 10pm, I have no craving or hunger.  If I have to stay up past 10pm, it may be necessary to have a snack.  I will limit it to a 100 calorie snack, avoiding highly acidic foods such as chips, crackers, etc.  Popcorn is not bad, but best to retire at 10pm and avoid the dilemma all together.

Here is the first day menu.

Day 1 Sunday

Breakfast:   water with lemon, one slice of toasted whole wheat bread with peanut butter and some grapefruit wedges
Lunch:  water with lemon, chicken salad (boiled chicken breast, celery, spices, canola oil, cider vinegar and a dollop of Duke's mayonnaise) on mixed green salad of field greens, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, cucumbers, and clover sprouts,
Dinner:  water with lemon, one glass of red wine with lemon, 4 oz of thin sliced London Broil steak (seasoned with black pepper and garlic granules and either chargrilled or roasted rare), caramelized onions, peppery raisin cinnamon sauce, steamed broccoli with lemon,  half cup of brown rice with scallions, tomato, basil and goat cheese salad with balsamic vinegar and canola oil

Just a note about beef.  It is the most acid forming of all the proteins and should be avoided.  However, I happen to love steak so when I have it, it is no more than 4 oz and I will eat extra alkaline producing foods as well as limit the number of beef servings to two per week.  So, I chose beef to celebrate!

Buon Appetito,  Angela B.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012


Today I am going to start recording aches and pains as well as any other health issues I may have in preparation for comparison as I progress on the diet and weight loss.  As I have stated in an earlier post, one of my goals is to be pain free by day 57.  I am going to use a scale of 1 to 10 for pain level, 0 being none and 10 incapacitating.  I awoke this morning with pain 5 at the base of my right thumb, warm and redness.    My upper right arm and left knee feel very tight, not swollen or painful, but as I imagine a balloon would feel if it were stretched to capacity.   Both are sites of past injuries which were pronounced completely healed by physicians, except for the fact that my left knee at its straightest is bent 7 degrees.  I am wondering if more weight loss will help with that as well.  I have a nagging pain 6 in several places in my back, soft tissue between ribs on both sides and top left below neck, worse with movement.  I took 800 mg of Ibuprofen and stretched before starting my day.  Digger joined me as he does every morning while I perform various leg lifts, knee raises, ankle, shoulder, lower abdominal and hip exercises.  But unlike me, he takes his favorite yoga position throughout the entire routine.  It’s called dog napping!

My refrigerator is full of sauces I made using ingredients which are known to be alkaline producing and therefore, anti inflammatory.  The sauces are full of fresh berries, cinnamon, lemon, natural cider vinegar, ground pepper, fresh ground ginger, lime, cucumbers, pineapple, tomatoes, garlic, parsley, basil and chili peppers…all fresh, all unprocessed.  I am especially fond of salsas, from tomatoes (tomato salsa fresca), cucumber salsa, green herbs (salsa verde) and fruits (pineapple salsa).  The most difficult thing about these sauces is that you are very limited when it comes to sweet and salty.  I rely on small amounts of sea salt because without it, many flavors are too subtle, and for sweet I rely on methods more than anything.  For example, roasting pineapple first before using it, caramelizes the natural sugars and makes it taste sweeter without adding sugar, same with peppers and onions.  Since all processed foods are on the avoid acid producing side, no refined sugar is used for sweetening.  Sometimes I use a small amount of dark brown sugar with real molasses or just the molasses.  It is always offset by high alkaline producing ingredients in abundance.   For anyone joining me in this challenge, if you want the recipes, just ask!

Although this blog is focused on food, as I am most of the day, remember that inflammation is also caused by life’s stresses including lack of sleep.  So, with 3 days before I start, I say

Buon Sonno e Buon Appetito!  Angela B.



Tuesday, March 27, 2012


For most people, how one approaches food is a very important part of their lives.  I know of only one person who eats because she has to.  She sometimes forgets to eat until long past mealtimes, often makes a meal of yogurt and cereal and doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about the family preparation of food and gathering for holiday celebrations at the dining room table.  The rest of my community is like me, using food as a community organizer, for family celebrations and an emotional stabilizer.   In my house when growing up, pasta, cheese and meatballs were the go to foods that made you feel happy when sad, calm when agitated and at peace when all around you was mayhem.   The best food ever, was the fresh made Italian loaf dunked in the bubbling pot of tomato sauce.   One can see how it is a daunting challenge to change that behavior. 

But, I am absolutely certain that those are foods that are responsible for all adult onset chronic disease, joint pain and swelling, heart disease, muscle aches and pain and the fastest growing one of all, adult onset diabetes.  And, by the way, I think it is time to change the name as it is turning up more and more in teens. 

I am fortunate to have a loving husband and loyal companion (that’s Digger, my Rottie mix, not my husband, although he is very loyal as well) in my life, but this lifestyle change would be far easier if I were a hermit.  Because my husband and Digger aren’t participating in this change of diet, it means there will be temptations surrounding me at all times.  I opened the refrigerator this morning and my eyes immediately settled on two crème brulees left from the weekend, a bowl of fettucini alfredo and bacon.   Kickoff to this challenge is in 4 days.  Wow, this is going to be tougher than I thought!    Buon Appetito, Angela B

Monday, March 26, 2012

I went grocery shopping today to stock up on staples and to buy ingredients for various sauces I will make (I refer to them as food from the farmacy sauces) that will add flavor and texture and much interest to the meals as well as increase the proportion of alkaline producing foods.  It is difficult to switch from eating meals heavy with meat and grain foods such as bread and pasta, the usual stars of the plate, to meals featuring smaller amounts of meat and grain foods with larger portions of anti inflammatory ingredients including fruits, nuts and vegetables in order to reach the right proportion of alkaline to acid producing ingredients.  So I have created sauces made from blueberries, raisins, tomatoes, fruits and fresh herbs such as blueberry ginger bbq sauce, peppery raise sauce, fresh tomato salsa, corn salsa, pineapple salsa and salsa verde or pesto to add to the center of the plate protein.    All processed foods, including sauces such as bottled tartar sauce, bottled jams, chutneys and salsas are ALL acid producing, so I will make my own from scratch using fresh or fresh frozen ingredients. 

I stocked up on these alkaline producing ingredients today in preparation:  lemons, limes, natural apple cider vinegar, fresh berries, pineapple, chilli peppers (poblanos and jalapenos), fresh cilantro, fresh parsley, fresh basil, garlic, raisins, frozen fresh whole kernel corn, cashews, almonds and sunflower seeds (all unsalted), ginger root, sea salt, cinnamon, cumin, chilli pepper powder, coarse ground black pepper, garlic granules, canola and EVOO, and fresh tomatoes.   In preparation for the eight weeks of feasting on anti aging cuisine, tomorrow, I am going to make the sauces that will add the zest to the center of the plate proteins. 

Buon Appetito,
Angela B

Sunday, March 25, 2012


If you are reading this journal, I assume that you have the same interest as I have in the benefits
of eating foods that keep us young.  Sounds simple, but it is not.  The aging process is the replication of cells.   Cellular aging was once described to me in this way.   Think of your favorite photograph, a self portrait of you at your best.  Now make a photocopy.  You can see that it is not exactly as perfect as the original.  Now take the copy and make another copy.  You can see this one is even less perfect than the second one.  The sharpness dulls, the contrasts lessen.  Now take that copy and make another copy and so forth and so on.  That is what happens to our cells as they replicate.  So, you can see that if we cause them to become damaged or imperfect, as they replicate, the damage and imperfections are magnified time and again.   That is why at fourteen years old we are well and physically fit eating a diet of hamburgers and fries, but at forty years old, not so much.   

I am a writer of songs, screenplays, poems and novels.  And, although I have never been published or produced, it is not that I am not good at it, it is that I choose to live a life which excludes networking and living within the culture of similar writers, producers and others.  So, as a substitute I have turned my creativity to food and with a dollop of scientific inquiry I have arrived at a place in my life where I long to share what secrets I have learned to the benefit and longevity of mankind.  Oh, I am also a chef!

In the next 57 days I am going to eat my way to the best health I can be.   I have started and stopped this journey a number of times, having a specific goal, but never quite making it, as life often happens to interfere.  I have in the last four years, shed 40 pounds, rid myself of joint pain and  swollen fingers and feet,  reduced my glucose from 109 to 85, lowered my cholesterol to normal levels, reversed hypothyroidism, and eliminated those pesky so called “age” related symptoms such as short term memory loss, dry skin and hair loss.   Now I am going to attempt the last lap.   My final goals are simple, using the anti aging gastronomy that I have developed, I am going to lose the last 15 pounds and be totally free from all pain.

Four years ago my medical history described me as pre obese, pre diabetic, pre hypertensive, pre high cholesterol, pre hypothyroid and pre…    I was suffering from symptoms of non specific origin (although my physicians were quick to assign labels such as adult onset diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, hypothyroidism, adult onset asthma, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and pseudo gout ), symptoms that included swelling in knees, fingers and ankles, and muscle pain that “moved” from neck to upper back, lower back, hips, knees, and ribs.  I had extreme fatigue, chronic sinusitis, hair loss, dry skin, occasional short term memory loss (searching for forgotten words), prone to skin infections that sometimes abscessed and my weight had ballooned out of control.  I had none of these problems in my past history.  Always the skeptic, I rejected my physician’s offer of pharmaceuticals and glib assessment that my symptoms were due to my age.  And luckily took the advice of my wise and learned chiropractor who gently but persistently advocated for nutrition as a remedy.   I thank God every day that I decided to listen to my chiropractor and put my trust in food.  Her advice started me on a path to wellness

Assuming that my chiropractor was correct when she suggested that my symptoms were the result of an inflammatory process, I read everything I could find on the internet and at the library, on the relationship between pain and inflammation until I was convinced that inflammation was, in fact, the reason for my ill health.  Next, I read everything I could on the relationship between food and inflammation, food and pain, food and arthritis, food and diabetes, food and cellular aging.  I knew that if I was going to feel well again, the remedy had to be at the cellular level. 

 It didn’t take long to see the connection between my years of feasting on the western diet of meat and bread, meat and pasta, pasta and cheese and cheese and bread and my burgeoning weight, but it didn’t explain why the downward spiral of my health now and not at a younger age until I understood the process of cell replication that I have already explained.    I was convinced that my adult onset symptoms were in fact the result of years of consuming inflammatory foods even when I thought I was “dieting”.   Based on the philosophy that foods that are alkaline producing are anti inflammatory and those that are acid producing are inflammatory, I embarked on a dietary change that lead to the successes I have already described.  Now it is time for the final leg of my journey to be as well as I can be.

Acid and alkaline producing should not be confused with acidic such as a lemon is acidic.  The ph is determined by burning (similar to metabolizing) so it is not something you can assume, but can only get from a scientific table of tested foods.  You want to keep your body on the alkaline side to avoid inflammation.    The difficult part is creating interesting, flavorful, and feel good meals without the use of many of our favorites from our western diet.  For example, a hamburger patty and bun is 100% highly acidic.  Spaghetti and meatballs is 100% highly acidic as is pizza with pepperoni.   I was raised in an Italian/Scottish household where pasta of some kind was served almost every day unless we were eating beef and barley soup.  What is the food group with the highest acidic forming rating?  Grains!  What is the meat with the highest acidic forming rating?  Beef!  This created a challenge for me. 

The meals do not have to be 100% alkaline producing to have a profound effect.  I found that as long as I maintained a proportion of at least 60% of the meal to be alkaline forming, I was successful.   Most of the time, the plate was 75% alkaline and the rest slightly acidic.  It is not a matter of either or, but how alkaline or acidic producing as well.  For example, lemon and watercress are extremely high alkaline producing, while blueberries are alkaline producing but not as high as lemons.  So, knowing that, there are little tricks to having your cake and eating it too, so to speak.  If I want to have a glass of red wine which is acidic, I add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and throw in the lemon too. 

Starting Saturday, March 31, I will post the meals the night before.  The following evening I will post the next day’s meals with a journal entry of how the day went, weigh in, and any personal health issues that I might have.   It would be fun if there are some of you who could join me and share your experiences as well.     Buon Appetito!  Angela B.