Enjoying Food Again.

Our society celebrates anything and everything with food. Birthday's is cake and ice cream, Easter is eggs, Thanksgiving turkey and all the fixings and Christmas ham and all the fixings, needless to say we like to eat. Now take it from my point of view a gluten free, oil free, nut free, vegan... who can't eat processed corn or soy, what do I eat on all these above mentioned holidays? Where can I go to get a quick meal? Certainly there is nothing I can eat at Taco Bell, KFC, McDonald's or Burger King. Shoot, I'd be lucky to find something to eat at Applebee's or Chili's restaurants. Eating for me has become a process, buy the vegetables, come home, cook the vegetables, eat them. Now the positive to all of this (I promise this isn't going to be a negative post :)), I have one of the healthiest diets of anyone I know. There are a few things that have helped me through this food grieving process as I've cut and cut and cut things from my diet in order to achieve a quality of living that I'm happy with. It's possible to feel like you are eating a normal meal. I'm sure you are probably thinking, "What on earth does that mean?". I made a spaghetti sauce today that was an adaptation of the McDougall's Maria Lucia sauce and their Fresh Tomato Garlic sauce. It was awesome! Included fresh tomatoes, canned quartered artichoke hearts, mushrooms, onions and spices and guess what I ate it over, half a roasted spaghetti squash. I had 2cups of spring mix topped with a fat free balsamic dressing on the side. It felt like a spaghetti dinner obviously without the bread and heavy pasta, and I'm full. None of that meal was convenient both the sauce and the squash took an hour to cook, but was worth every minute of that cook time to feel like I was eating a "normal" meal. I also realized that if people are willing to put the time and effort into meal preparation that eating the way I do isn't as hard as it sounds, it's just time consuming. Though I do have fast options when I don't have an hour to make an awesome meal like I had today. I can take these handy steam in the bag veggies and pop them in the microwave for 5 minutes (eat the whole bag without guilt) open a can of beans and or microwave a bag of brown rice, add liquid aminos and enjoy. I don't miss the grease that comes along with frying stuff in oil. I don't miss how it made my mouth feel. I used to love chips, ate one the other day and can't stomach them now. They taste like potatoes cooked in motor oil, and how nasty is that. I guess with any diet change comes preference changes, and taste bud changes. I'm happier, healthier and at the lowest weight I can ever remember being in my adult life. I hope I remain feeling this good and the weight continues to come off. I know years from now my body will thank me for the choices I am making now. So please, pass the beans and greens!