The Cons of Whole Food Eating

There are very few drawbacks to eating whole, fresh food. Daily, I am grateful for having access to fresh food and for making the time to prepare it. Last night, however, I suffered (a little) by my lifestyle choice.

We were away on the weekend, and came back home with a box full of fresh garden produce from my parents' place. Between that and our already full fridge, garden and freezer, there was no need to go shopping for groceries.

Or so I thought.

In an effort to stop spending money on lunches out, my hubby has started making sandwiches. This has put a sudden strain on our dwindling bread supplies (I usually buy about five loaves of Christies' multigrain bread at a time and freeze it). I came home at 10PM, starving, after a night of juggling a birthday party, volleyball practice and my preschool AGM to discover that after hubby finished making his lunch for the next day, we had one slice of bread remaining and virtually no milk in the fridge.

I had to find something to eat without taxing our limited options for breakfast food—not enough milk for cereal, not enough bread for toast, and so on.

"What can I eat?" I said, half to myself.
"Chips?" offered hubby.

While that may tempt me at times, I really needed something with substance, and there was nothing to eat that didn't require bread to put it on (salami, tomatoes, cheese...would have all made a great sandwich...but no bread). I didn't want to make soup at 10PM, and I wanted more than fruit. I needed protein!

My 10PM snack ended up being a can of sardines in tomato sauce on soda crackers, followed by a nectarine and a bit of yogurt. Probably a healthier snack than my usual toast and peanut butter or a bowl of cereal, after all, but for a short while, I was cursing my whole food lifestyle and wishing I had...I don't even know...something salty and satisfying that I could throw in the microwave.

Except we don't even own a microwave.

Breakfast solutions ended up being pretty satisfying after all—I whipped up our favourite batch of banana pancakes, although that didn't happen quite fast enough to ward off crazy behaviour in my two boys. Hungry kids in the morning are hard to manoeuvre around when they're fighting, screaming, and crying.

But that's all behind me now. We're now restocked with bread and milk, as well as all the fixings I need to make a sweet dinner party tomorrow night for my good friend the interior designer who consulted with us on our kitchen finishes. She hasn't seen the final results, which as of yesterday are now 100% complete. Photos to come, after I pick up the mess of toys, shoes and volleyball gear that are currently scattered everywhere.