The Trouble With LSD

[stdesjardins]

The problem with the Low Starch Diet, at least the way I've been doing it, is that you need to go shopping about twice a week to stock up on fresh vegetables. I was too lazy to get outside this weekend, and there's no way I'm going outside now, with 17 degree temperatures, six inches of snow, and freezing rain/sleet forecast. If at all possible, I'm staying inside until Thursday.

Unfortunately, while I have plenty of fruit (fresh and canned), my vegetables are limited to an aging bunch of broccoli, some radishes, and a couple portobello mushrooms. A pound of tofu, five eggs, a little milk. No snack food. Sorbet, but no ice cream. All my canned and frozen goods, aside from the aforementioned sorbet and canned fruit, are high in starch. Normally I could go a while without shopping, but I haven't fully adjusted my pantry to the new diet.

My one hope is that delivery Chinese can enable me to hold out until I can nerve myself to go outdoors. Szechuan string beans and kung pao tofu both ought to be all right.

Comments

[rebbyribs.livejournal.com]

Maybe a few packages of frozen stir-fry veggies would be in order? They're not as nice as fresh veggies, but they're awfully easy to keep around, and not bad either.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

Yes, I definitely need to shop in the frozen foods aisle the next time I go to the grocery store. A couple canisters of raisins would probably also be a good idea.

[jilflirt.livejournal.com]

Becca beat me to it, but I was going to recommend the same thing. In a nutrition class I took, they said that frozen veggies were almost as good as fresh b/c they are flash frozen. Canned veggies however are not so good. Many preservatives and such.

[aka-tippi.livejournal.com]

"Szechuan string beans and kung pao tofu both ought to be all right."

Man that sounds really good.

[larksdream]

*waves* Hi you. I'm also doing a moderate-carb vegetarian diet, so I feel for ya! Do you like nuts? Those are low-starch and good for you (especially walnuts, full of yummy omega-3 fatty acids!). I've found that keeping hazelnuts, walnuts, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs around has helped tide me over the "ugh, I can't get to the store" periods.

Of course, when I first saw the subject line of this post, I thought you were repenting your recreational drug use. *g*

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

I definitely like nuts, but so far I haven't remembered to look up the list of what's good and what's bad before going to the store. (Cashews are bad and almonds are good, is all I remember offhand.) I have a bad tendency to let cheese sit in my refrigerator for weeks until it goes bad, which is one reason I hadn't stocked up on it. (Other reasons include not being able to eat it with crackers, and vaguely remembering cheese was on the "bad" list. Which turns out to be because it's dairy, not because it's starch.)

In any case, I haven't noticed any difference after a week on the diet, so I'll give it one more week before mostly giving up on it. At which point cans of beans and frozen pizza become viable options again.

I have almost no recreational drug history. The only illegal drugs I've ever done is a little beer when I was in college. And if you put all the beer I drank in college together, it wouldn't add up to a full bottle. I don't have any principled objection to trying the stuff out, but I am a little leery of messing with my brain, and I'm cowardly about possible going-to-jail consequences.

I noticed you were a CS student at UMCP. My sister's a CS professor at UMBC. Probably no interaction between the departments, though.

Re:

[larksdream]

(Cashews are bad and almonds are good, is all I remember offhand.)

If it's a matter of starches, both walnuts and hazelnuts should be okay (2 and 1 gram of carbs per quarter cup). Unfortunately, I once had a leftover bag of cooking almonds that I forced myself to finish (nuts are expensive!), and now the thought of choking down one more almond makes me ill. :P

When I make my weekly trip to the food co-op today I'm going to be looking for chickpea flour, which is apparently half as carby as wheat flour. Maybe if it doesn't taste too awful I can use it for pizza dough!

Probably no interaction between the departments, though.

Nope. For that matter, I hardly see any profs HERE who aren't in my specialty. Sometimes it's kind of alarming to notice new faculty at receptions and such, and be told, "Oh yeah, he got hired three years ago..."