How Good Does It Get?

Better and Better . . .

The steam from the oatmeal fogged up my lens in the first image, nevertheless, piping hot oatmeal cooked with a handful of raisins layered over a bed of minced fresh organic Fuji apples, then laced with a sprinkling of brown sugar and a wee bit of half and half provides a high fiber breakfast that will please the fussiest of eaters. Don't shy away from the real thing, instant oatmeal is like eating shredded cardboard with about the same nutritional value -- less actually, because of the sodium and sugar content.

The oatmeal above is the old-fashioned Quaker Oats 5 minute variety. Better yet to cook up a pot of steel cut oats -- far healthier -- but if you're just starting out on the "I want to eat better" kick, the 5 minute variety is a good place to begin.

It's even better for you without added sugar but again, all things in moderation, a sprinkling of brown sugar and a dash of milk or cream will make it more palatable for a lot of folks and if that's what it takes to get started eating well, so be it.

On the eating raw front, I've been alternating a hot breakfast, as described above,with an all raw fruit meal as I had this morning. Diced fresh pineapple, a sliced apple and banana with a navel orange. The four pieces of fruit filled the same cereal bowl pictured above, and filled me as well.

The up side of the all fruit meal? No energy required for digestion. Fruit, with its high water content, slips in and out of the digestive cycle miraculously fast. No sluggish after effects like those following a heavy, cooked meal. All the body's energy resources go into the digestion process leaving us yawning, sluggish and feeling very lazy. Live food will give you the energy boost you need to jump start the morning. A little protein snack mid-morning (a couple of ounces of turkey, a few almonds or walnuts) will get you to lunch time with no hunger pangs and no urge to eat everything in sight when lunch does roll around. Try it and see.

****BOOK NOOK****

Someone asked if I'd stopped reading. Not likely. I tried several new releases this past month, but didn't get past the first 40 - 50 pages with some of them. Those that held my interest, I finished. Nothing particularly weighty, but plenty of reading enjoyment:

November Book List

Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn; Proof Positive - Philip Margolin; The Wrong Man - John Katzenbach; Home to Big Stone Gap - Adriana Trigiani; Hundred Dollar Baby - Robert B Parker.

Till next time . . . keep on cooking.