7 Foods for 7 Days: Day 7

Broccoli.  Apples. Fried chicken.  Pizza. Nachos.  Garlic.  I miss them all!  It’s day 7 of 7 and I am hungry.  I am craving everything that I can’t have.  I don’t eat a lot of wheat bread any more, but above all else I want a simple dinner roll with butter slathered all over it.  Mmmmm…butter….

Almost there! No change for breakfast and lunch.  I will not miss peanuts. Peanut butter is different though.

For dinner I wanted to attempt to use all 7 ingredients, but I ran out of spinach!  I made a variation of Cuban Chicken.  I only made this recipe once and was disappointed in the preparation time to flavor ratio.  It took a lot of time to make a disappointingly bland meal.  My variation required cooking rice in chicken broth, using up leftover burnt turkey breast, cooking sweet potatoes  halfway in the microwave then slicing and frying in skillet, frying bananas in same skillet, layering everything in a bowl and then sprinkling with peanuts on the top.  And the husband’s response?  “Fried bananas!”

The husband's symbol for fried bananas

OK, so these are not the fried bananas at Tucano’s where this response originated from, but they were a sweet topping to bland rice, salty dry turkey, and the sweet potato

that I’m now having nightmares about. (I had a dream that I would never be able to eat sweet potatoes again and a horrible fear washed over me, but when I woke up I had no desire to eat sweet potatoes.  I’m tired of them!)  And that was the end to day 7 of 7 days of 7 foods.  We ate all the spinach, all the turkey, all the sweet potatoes, and we are down to one banana, half a bag of brown rice, and half a jar of peanuts.

On day 2, my sister the Pie Goddess asked “What is the point of all of this?  Is this another one of your crazy diets?”  Great question, Pie Goddess!  I responded with “No, this one actually has a point beyond the food itself.”  The husband said that the purpose of fasting is to get to a point that you no longer think of what you are fasting from, but you are able to think beyond it.  Enlightenment, anyone? I really appreciated his explanation.  I don’t know if this really counted as a fast and as you can see from my above cravings, I don’t think I’ve reached any kind of enlightenment or way of reaching beyond what I’m fasting from.

I think that Jen Hatmaker, the author of the book that inspired this journey, was able to focus more on God and His plan.  While I did find myself praying more and really thinking about the needs of others, I also found myself thinking about the 7 ingredients and how I could use them and feed my husband and myself without going crazy.  I think I may have focused too much on my own plan and not God’s, but I will make a conscious effort to pray more and plan less and see what happens.

I’m glad that I went on this journey.  I learned that I can make the most of just about anything.  I learned that I can be creative.  I learned not to take the things that I have for granted including any food that I have in my pantry.  I learned to embrace compassion and empathy while still remaining practical.  I learned that I’m not poor and that I need to stop using this word as I have been.  I learned that the body really is a temple and that we should care for it as best as we can, but I also learned that we shouldn’t be so restrictive that we forget to enjoy what we do have.  And to prove this point I may celebrate day 8 with a big bowl of ice cream!