I spend a lot of my time watching YouTube videos, and reading endless blog posts. With that comes the constant appearance of "What I eat in a Day" type videos, boasting meals of Avacado, Quinoa and some form of Coconut Oil included recipe. While these posts are good, I often read them and feel a sense of deflation when I realise my diet and lifestyle is far from the blogging stereotype... and do I care? For about 5 minutes - yes, it gets me down until I realise I LOVE FOOD. Seriously I am overweight for a reason - its well earned in my love of food.. so the thought of giving up any food group by choice makes me want to cry.
My concern is that I am a very strong person, I can stand and say I don't want that, but to teens and people who suffer with eating issues... are they being badly affected by the new food trends, seeing constant #cleaneating on instagram, showing you how your meals are inferior... So this post is here to make people feel better about their diets, maybe yours is as bad, or maybe your better, but either way no shaming or guilt trips here, just a view at what I eat, no trends, no fads. Just typical. And I hope it helps you see what I am trying to say...
I would also like to take this moment to say I have nothing against Vegans, or Healthy Eaters, what I have an issue with is them pushing their lifestyle and beliefs onto other people and demanding they believe the same as them. Vegan right now is a phase, its trendy to be this way, and yes everyones intentions are very good, but please do not expect others to be the same, please do not place guilt on others, do not be cruel or nasty. Everyone has a right to eat what they want and not be ashamed of anything.. there should be no fear of someone coming along saying "your wrong for eating that" your body.. eat whatever you want, your blog/IG/YouTube, post what you want!
BREAKFAST
Coffee. ASAP. Seriously I cannot function without one most days, while that cools I reach for a yoghurt. I am normally way too shattered to even consider heating anything or actually cooking something, so the chances of any omlettes before lunch time for me are 0.
This morning I had a chocolate flake yoghurt. Pretty standard for me, chocolate before 9am is totally allowed if you are mixing it in with yoghurt right?
For coffee I usually have one of these Nescafe Sachets. The coconut one is awesome, this is made with cow milk, it just has a coconut flavour, either way it tastes good.
To make me feel better I usually have an apple mid morning too, even out all the chocolate haha.
LUNCH
By 12 I am normally thinking I should be healthy. It always starts off well, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes. Then I throw in some ham to beef it up a bit, Boursin to make it taste better (cheese makes EVERYTHING taste better) and a generous helping of Thousand Island to make the whole thing edible. By the time its all in the bowl it tastes pretty awesome. Even if its now beyond healthy.
As for a drink I rarely drink water, I know I should but its just so flavourless. So I usually go for sparkling fruit water, or just diluting juice.
MID-AFTERNOON SNACK
Around 3 I tend to get hangry. And its always for something sweet. If we are out and about its usually an ice cream, but today we had our homemade ice lollies. This one is made from fresh orange juice and Haribo Fangtastics. They taste AWESOME. You can find more recipes here.
DINNER
Hello quick and easy. Cooking for just me seems pointless, so right now I am in love with ready meals. They are so easy, watch a YouTube video until they ping, and I don't end up with enough leftovers to do me a week. It just works for me right now, and this one is my favourite. Pasta mixed in a cheesy tomatoey almost lasagne type sauce with pepperoni... can't get much better than this for a micro meal!
PUDDING
At 7pm AJ goes into the shower and I clean the kitchen, I scrub down all my surfaces and wash and dry the dishes. I put AJ to bed, then I come to the kitchen and make a HUGE cup of tea. with loads of sweetners and cow milk. Nothing beats that moment. Peace, at last.
LATE NIGHT SNACK
Yeah, so I cant just stop there. At about 8.30-9.00 I get the munchies. ALWAYS. Recently the obsession has been with Candy Kitten... not because they are vegan or gluten free, but because they taste AMAZING. SO SO GOOD. I love the Sour Watermelon ones the best. I'm not going to lie either, most nights I will eat the full bag. Sometimes I can restrain myself, but typically the whole thing is gone while I am on twitter chats or binge watching netflix...So I did promise this post would be real, and it is. Honest and unedited. This is a very standard day for me, and I will not appologise for it. Sure my eating could be a lot better, but I just cannot be arsed spending a day a week meal prepping... but more importantly I cannot afford to live like that, I think people see a healthy Vegan lifestyle as a class thing now, as it is expensive... really expensive. (Like coconut yoghurt is £3.50 for 250g, compared to normal cow yoghurt at 45p for 250g. I think for £3.05 saving on yoghurt alone I would rather live with the guilt! #sorryvegans)
So let me know your thoughts on this whole phase at the moment? Do you love a "What I eat in a Day" posts? Do you live a super healthy clean lifestyle? If you havent already I would highly recommend checking out "Clean Eating's Dirty Secrets" It is available here on BBC3 iPlayer, a vlogger Grace Victory investigates eating trends, and I found it really interesting, and really goes into the new diet crazes going about. Well worth watching!
I would LOVE it if you could follow me on Bloglovin' (I follow back too)
Love this post! I think your food isn't that unhealthy really, it's all within moderation! But I love the honestly, you don't get that very often on blogs now days!
ReplyDeleteEverything looks yummy especially your lunch. I have nothing against Vegans either. I just strongly believe like you said, it's more of a trend now. Each day there's more and more of them online which might be good in a way because we're saving our planet, animals and stuff but.. Tbh everyone who isn't vegan is being kind of bullied by Vegans. That's something that really upsets me sometimes. Everyone has its own diet and we should all appreciate each others ways of eating..
ReplyDeleteYeah that is my main issue, I hate to see people being attacked over the way they eat to the point the don't want to post a picture of a ham sandwich.. its just gone too far! :) Enough is enough :)
DeleteI have so many issues with the so-called "Clean Eating" movement. It's very classist, racist, and ableist, and somewhat sexist to boot. It also has been found to massively contribute to eating disorders. There's a fantastic article from Vice from this May that gets into some of those aspects. Here it is if you want to have a look: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/ruby-tandoh-eat-clean-wellness
ReplyDeleteBut my issues personally are numerous enough to break them down in bullet-point style:
1- Cost: The average cost of all the ingredients so many youtubers and bloggers showcase are waaaaay out of the budget for the average person (in my case American with 3 passports...). Not only does it put pressure on people to go out and buy expensive foods they don’t have the money for, in many cases those foods are specific sponsored brands. I can make a perfectly healthy meal that costs a tenth of many of those meals, and lasts me for 3 days. It just doesn’t involve Kale, some form of fancy non-dairy milk, or having to make applesauce from scratch. It also adds insult to injury given that 48.1 MILLION Americans are food-insecure (source: http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/hunger-and-poverty/hunger-and-poverty-fact-sheet.html)
2- Time (and sexism): Assuming most people have the time to make 3 full, fancy-pants home cooked meals is just idiotic and mean-spirited. People who go to work or school full-time (or both, or even part-time) do not have the time to spend 3 hours a day cooking or a whole day of the week “prepping” meals. Additionally, that pressure is primarily placed on women, as part of what’s called the “second shift”, which is basically women having a full time job and then being expected to do all household work. Women face enough pressure and self-esteem issues about what they “have” to do, throwing this on the pile feels an awful lot like the straw that breaks the camels back.
3- Sourcing and Neocolonialism: A lot of these “superfood” ingredients are just normal, average ingredients in other areas of the world, but being market as “exotic” which is pretty racist. It’s also causing problems for locals in the regions where those foods are grown. Quinoa is THE major staple calorie in places where it’s grown like Bolivia. As demand has risen, so has price, and not enough is being produced so major food shortages are happening for people, especially those in the rural areas where it’s grown. It’s also led more people there to buy cheaper starch products, and an increase in obesity and attributed diseases like diabetes has already been noted, in addition to the malnutrition issues.
4- Sourcing and Environmentalism: Not a lot of clean eating types really know what it takes to product certain ingredients. For example, almonds require a ton of water to grow, and are being grown in many areas experiencing drought like parts of California. So all that almond flour or almond milk comes at a price that may actually be bigger than dairy.
5- Ableism: This is more of a personal thing as I currently have major spine issues so I cannot cook for myself. I’m a good cook and I miss it which is bad enough, but being told that I’m a “bad person” for not cooking is REALLY hard on days I am in too much pain to even get out of bed.
Sorry for the extra-long post. Just really passionate about this topic.
Thank you so much for taking the time to type up your comment, it really does mean a lot, and you know I feel the same way, it angers me over the price more than anything, saying we aren't good people unless we pay £££ for vegan alternatives, its shocking, and people should be able to eat what they want without being a victim!
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