FAAN's Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward a Cure.

People are constantly feeling sorry for me with my food sensitivities, but I figure I have it easy compared to a lot of people. I can at least be around the things I can't eat. I may end up being really sick if I get a little gluten, soy, dairy or egg, but I don't generally have to live in fear that I could die from them.

A lot of people aren't so lucky.

As I've been working toward better health, one of the things I've wanted to do is join a fundraising walk, but I hadn't decided which one and didn't really want to do my first one alone. Ultimately, I'd like to jog/run in one, but I'm not ready for that quite yet. Just this past week, with an email I got from my sister-in-law, I got my answer.

I am participating in the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network’s (FAAN’s) Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward A Cure. The event will raise funds to find a cure for food allergy and to educate others. FAAN’s mission is to raise public awareness, to provide advocacy and education, and to advance research on behalf of all those affected by food allergies and anaphylaxis. Please support my fundraising efforts with a donation. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference in the lives of the estimated 12 million Americans with food allergies and their families. You can make your secure credit card donation by selecting the Support Me button. Any amount helps me reach my fundraising goal. I greatly appreciate your support!

I'm walking on Team Megan
This is Megan, my niece. She is severely allergic to peanuts, most tree nuts and sunflower seeds. I'm walking with her, other members of our family, and friends to help support funds for research to find a cure for this disease that affects her every day of her life.

If you would like to donate, walk with us, or volunteer with FAAN, please visit my fundraising page. If you are not in the Raleigh area, you can check out other locations from the link on the upper right of my page.

Dance your way to the hospital?

Ok, I admit it. My latest guilty pleasure reality show is Oxygen channel's "Dance Your A** Off". Basically, it's The Biggest Loser meets Dancing with The Stars. There is no voting from the public on this show. If there were we would perhaps find out that I'm the only one watching. Or maybe I'd find out that I'm not completely alone (I already know I'm not - but I wont sell her out for all the internet to see.) The % of body weight lost + dance score average= score for the week. The bottom scorer (or last night the 2 bottom scorers) goes home.

The show has been encouraging healthful eating while exercising...and actually having fun doing it. The contestants (who, have really great lofts to live in while on the show) are even having to learn to cook for themselves so they'll know what to do when they get home. There are two cabinets of food: "eat" (filled with good healthful choices) and "cheat" (full of junkfood) so that they have to learn to deal with making choices. Except for the occasional meltdown of a contestant during the week(one of my favorites involved a screaming girl throwing all the "cheat" food in a garbage bag while others followed her down the hall asking "where are you going with that?") the show has actually been surprisingly uplifting.

But last night while watching, I couldn't help myself from yelling at the television a little bit. Ok, maybe a lot. One of the women, Pinky, has been in the bottom two for weight loss every week. BTW, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how beautiful Pinky is, and how much I love to watch her dance. This is a competition, so she is understandably upset by her low weight loss(although 8+ pounds in 4 weeks is a healthy rate). So, they are going to "help" her to get higher scores. They cut her daily calorie intake to less than 1000 calories! She's an overweight woman so she would require more than average to function anyway. She is working out on the treadmill and practicing dance steps for hours EVERY day and they cut her down to under 1000 calories!?! I know these are nutritionists and doctors that control the diet. I further know that I am neither a nutritionist nor a doctor, but this seems foolish to me. I'm afraid that one day soon she's going to be passing out on the floor. Maybe she's got some kind of thyroid thing, maybe her body is holding on to everything it's got before they take more calories away from her, maybe she just doesn't lose weight all that quickly. I know she wants to win the competition, but she wont get high dance scores for being carried out on a stretcher.

I'm obviously no expert on weight loss as it's been a continuous struggle for me, but I have learned a thing or two about nutrition and health in my years of reading and cooking to figure out which diet is best for me. I hesitate to use the word "diet" because most of us use it in a very restrictive sense. I don't mean it like that. I mean it in the broad sense of the word - the foods that I eat. Sure, I'd like to continue to lose weight, but it makes me mad to know there are still people out there that think no price is too high to lose it. NEWSFLASH: you can be unhealthy at a "normal" weight. As a reminder to myself and to anybody who might happen to be reading this: get enough rest, eat a well-balanced diet, and get regular exercise. If anybody ever tells you to do something crazy so you can be a certain size, ignore them! And...if you ever hear me going off the deep-end w/fad diets or ultra low calorie plans, you have my permission to slap me. For those of you who have known me for years, this offer is not retroactive.

Good luck to Pinky!

Look over your shoulder, Hummus: there's a new dip in town.

Now, don't you worry, my precious hummus hasn't been completely replaced. But recently I've had my first exposure to salsa verde. I tried it first on Amy's organic black bean tamale frozen meal. I still have to let it sink in that I found a frozen dinner that I can walk in, purchase, heat up and eat. Homemade is still better, but sometimes convenience is a beautiful thing.

I then purchased some from Bonnie at B and B naturals. If you are in the N Raleigh/Wake Forest area, I highly recommend it. Her hummus is good too and I hear the naan is fantastic (not gf, and I'm not sure about its veganness). It's just not all that convenient for me to buy it from her. But by the time I finished the container I bought from her, I was hooked. Lo, and behold, there is a recipe for it in my trusty Veganomicon. And it's fantastic. I didn't change a thing. If you haven't had it yet, try it. It's good w/black beans. I love it on a taco salad or on pinto bean tacos. And it's fabulous with the chickpea pizza from my last post. Pretty soon I'll may just be eating it with a spoon.

If you haven't tried it yet and can't buy it from Bonnie, go get some tomatillos and make it...now!

The most cooked item in my kitchen: Chickpea "pizza"

It's official. I have a new kitchen addiction: the chickpea pizza from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I'm not sure why it's called a pizza because the recipe doesn't call for any toppings, but maybe I just don't know the definition for pizza. It's basically a flat-bread made from chickpea flour, water and spices.

I've been eating it several times a week for the last month or so. The only adjustment I've made is to cut the olive oil to 1/2 tsp. Usually, I cut it in the little points like the directions say and eat it with fresh cut vegetables and hummus. Or sometimes with salsa verde.

But tonight I decided it was test time. Could this flat bread hold up for a sandwich? It did!

Because I was seasoning the other items, I left the spices out of the chickpea pizza this time. For a moment I had the thought that I could have too much garlic. Yeah, what was I thinkin'?

Spread on a little guacamole (1/4 ripe avocado, juice of 1/2 a small lime, about 1/2 tsp crushed garlic and salt to taste).

Load on the stir-fried vegetables (Saute 1/2 small red onion in 1 tsp olive oil for about five minutes, add about 1 clove crushed garlic let saute another minute. Add 1/2 large zucchini and 1/4 yellow bell pepper. The oil will cook out pretty quickly so I added water by the tbsp to release the water from the zucchini. I used 2 tbsp of water, but if you want your vegetables softer you might need more. Cook until vegetables are the texture you want. I left mine a little crispy - mostly because I was hungry. Stir in cumin and pepper to taste).

FOLD (this is usually quite a feat w/gluten free flat breads) the bread over the vegetables and eat. The only messiness came from vegetables falling out because I had too many in there. The outside layer of the flatbread cracked a little, but overall it held up beautifully.

BTW, I've been counting "points" lately to help myself with portion control. This sandwich cooked w/the reduced olive oil as noted above, including guacamole, is 8 points. The chickpea pizza alone w/the reduced olive oil is 5 points. I don't know how long I'll do this. It may be just a jump start and it may be something that sticks around for a while. While I'm doing it, does anybody care about the point info, or should I just skip it?