Happy New Year

Christmas is a joyful but chaotic time in this house.  Neither of us is in the slightest religious, but we (mainly me) love everything about Christmas.  Yes I could rail about the rampant consumerism, and if I let it affect me then no doubt I would.  But I am an expert at ignoring the parts I don't like and celebrating the parts that I do, so I always (so far, touch wood!) have a wonderful time.

This includes eating things unrestrainedly that I normally either avoid or restrict the rest of the year, particularly since I've been going a bit organic.  As I'm vegan and Dear Husband is not the best at reading labels, I didn't have any crisps this year (one of my weaknesses) because all the varieties he bought (and ended up eating) had lactose in the ingredients list.  Probably just as well, they're one of the worst things for you as far as I can make out, even being ruinous to your teeth!

As well as not eating crisps, I am pleased to report that I ate a lot of fresh fruit and veg, mostly organic as I did a huge shop at the organic farm place I get my regular supply from, up to and including fresh dates.

Of course I also ate a lot of things that ideally I wouldn't.  Bread sauce made with white bread, for example.  We only ever have this at Christmas and I *love* it!  I pick bay leaves from our tree in the garden and make it properly with clove-spiked onion and soya milk.  But yes, it has the dreaded white bread, so not great but as it is only once a year I'm going to let myself off.  We also wrap our nut loaf in pastry - JusRoll puff, again made with white flour.  Mea culpa.

Anyway, enough about Christmas.  I've been muddling along since, eating fairly chaotically and with some days being more like my old diet than my new.  But today has brought my first organic box of the year (the farm closes for an extended winter break) and this is going to get me back on track.

It is a wonderful box, and I've taken the trouble to weigh everything to document just what I got for my £9:

A huge 415g frilly lettuce
586g large tomatoes still on the vine
549g brussels sprouts
784g onions
615g spring greens
1197g potatoes
784g parsnips
1144g carrots

I make that over 6kgs of veg, which must equate to a conservative estimate of 1.5-2lbs per day once the inedible bits are discounted.  That has to easily be my 5 a day, right?  Especially as I'll be eating fruit as well.  I do know that ideally one should be eating twice as much "above ground" veg as "below ground" veg, but I'm not going to be that fussy.  Maybe later I will, but for now I am still happy to be eating lots of good foods and avoiding most of the bad ones.

The box is wonderfully economical, averaging 70p per pound for organic veg, delivered.  I think that would be hard to beat and I'm not even going to try.

I've  not been keeping a food diary, but I have taken photos of some of my meals as the mood has taken me, so here they are just to prove that I've not lost the plot totally over the last few weeks.