What's For Breakfast?

One of the most rewarding things that I experience as a blogger is hearing how people have made a change in their lives.  People going Primal, going grain-free or even just committing to eating more whole foods and less processed crap.  Any step forward is a great one and is an encouragement to me.

I write because I want to help people - hearing about results is what keeps me going!

I just received a question from a friend tonight via Facebook.  She asks: "I have a wheat belly, and I want to change my ways (slowly).  Do you have any easy to prepare breakfast ideas?"

An excellent question.  The reference is to the book Wheat Belly, by Dr. William Davis.  In it, the author makes the case that wheat is uniquely responsible for much of the health and overweight problems in the developed world, including the large amount of abdominal fat that so many people are carrying around these days.  A fascinating book, and one I plan to do a review on.

The problem is that wheat is extremely abundant in our diets.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with they typical breakfast.  Toast, cereal, pancakes, croissants, muffins, bagels, the list goes on and on for breakfast items that are just plain unhealthy.

My friend is looking to start cutting out wheat slowly.  This is a great idea.  I often recommend people start out with one meal at a time when making a dietary transition.  There's nothing wrong with going all out from the get-go, but it's not for everyone.

It's actually interesting that she asked me about breakfast specifically.  I actually have essentially given up eating breakfast since cutting grains out of my diet.  It's not because I don't know what to eat for breakfast, it's just that I'm not especially hungry most mornings and a cup of coffee is all I need to get me to lunch.  I basically wait until lunchtime to break my overnight fast.

Breakfast isn't hard to do grain-free.  Eggs come in handy here.  Not only are they a traditional breakfast item, but they're also super nutritious.  If frying or scrambling them is too much work in a hurried morning then they can be prepared in advance by hard boiling or by preparing in a recipe like this one.  I approve of adding a side of delicious bacon, of course.

On days when you don't feel like eggs, some fruit is a good option.  Those who are looking to lose weight will want to limit fruit intake to berries and other lower sugar containing fruit.

There's also no rule that the first meal of the day has to be any different in content than the other two.  Why not just have the leftovers from your lunch or dinner of the previous day?

Since I'm not a breakfast eater, I'm probably missing out on dozens of other options.  Can you help me help my friend?  What is your favorite grain-free breakfast?

Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

International Bacon Day!

I recently found out that today, the Saturday before Labor Day, is celebrated as International Bacon Day.  I figured what better day to get back into the habit of blogging regularly about bacon and all the other stuff I write about.  

Now, what should a guy who runs a blog called Bacon is Health Food do to celebrate a day like International Bacon Day?  This is something that I really wish I'd had a bit more time to ponder.  Essentially I've only had about twenty-four hours to make a game plan on this.

The very first thing I thought about was to finally make a Bacon Explosion.  After all, it just might be the greatest tribute to bacon out there.  However, I realized quickly there were a few problems with that plan.  

First (and most embarrassingly), I didn't have enough bacon.  Shocking as it may be, I had only one pound of bacon on hand on IBD eve, and the recipe calls for two.  This could have been overcome with a quick trip to the store, but there were bigger issues.  I didn't have any BBQ rub or quality BBQ sauce to use with the Explosion.  Again, not something that could not have been dealt with, but my little city is hardly a barbecue hotbed, and whatever I ended up getting wouldn't have measured up to what the Bacon Explosion really deserved. 

The real factor that derailed my Bacon Explosion plan was that I don't own a smoker.  Check out this quote from the BBQ Addicts page that addresses this:

"...BBQ Addicts in no way endorses the cooking of the Bacon Explosion in the oven. In fact, it kind of ticks us off a bit. It’s like putting ketchup on a steak...

They go on to list several other unfavorable combinations.  The steak-ketchup reference did it for me.  I can't imagine ever doing that to a steak.  I cannot in good conscience do the equivalent to something as awesome as the Bacon Explosion on this day of celebration.  I'd rather do something much smaller than risk that.
The lesson here is: know your bacon-related holidays and be prepared for them well in advance.

Bacon Day begins well.

So what am I doing to celebrate today?  I think it will work out pretty well.  So far I've started with a fantastic bacon-heavy brunch, pairing it with a single egg and some tomato from our garden.

I'm normally a two or three egg guy, but I felt the bacon needed to be the centerpiece of the meal on International Bacon Day.

What I'll be doing next is going to remain something of a surprise.  On my Facebook page, Heather Reese of My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream (a great blog, btw) pretty much called me out, and deservedly so.  So if you like the page you probably know what I'm going to attempt.  I plan on making a separate blog post about it of course, so I won't reveal it here.

I hope you are taking some action to celebrate or at least acknowledge International Bacon Day.  Make sure all your friends are aware of it at the very least.  Try a new bacon based recipe, or just take whatever you were planning to eat today and wrap it in some bacon!  There's almost no way that can turn out anything but more awesome.  Whatever you decide to do, share it with me in a comment - here or on Facebook, twitter, or Google+.

Happy Bacon Day!  Enjoy copious amounts of bacon, and other healthy foods!

An Awesome Week (Not For Bacon Though)

Last week was a fantastic time away.  As you may know from some of status updates on the Bacon Is Health Food Facebook Page, I was away at Camp all of last week.  I spent the week with about 60 kids (ages 8-10) at Jr. Camp of UB Youth Camps.

My oldest son is entering grade 5 this year, so is in his final year of eligibility for this camp.  He'll be in the Jr. High level next year.  He has Autism, so the main reason I was attending camp was to be his 1:1 support.  I absolutely love camp though, and I would have volunteered at one of the three weeks (Teen Camp going on now) even if he hadn't been attending.

This year I experienced something new.  In the past I had been a counselor or a handyman/janitor.  This year I was not only my son's support, I was also the nurse.

Sadly, I did not have an awesome first aid briefcase.

That's right.  The nurse.  Typically there is an actual nurse on staff each week of camp.  There were no volunteers for the middle week of camp this year though, so the duty fell to me.  I'm far from trained in nursing, but as a Youth Care Worker I have trained in CPR/First Aid every two years or more for the past 14 years and I regularly dispense medication.

I learned two lessons while being the nurse:

- Little kids are sexist.  On several occasions I got giggled at when kids asked me if I was the nurse.  I also got a few, "You're a boy, so shouldn't you be the doctor?" remarks.

- Being the camp nurse is a lot of work, even though I didn't have many serious injuries to deal with.  There were more sprained ankles than a usual week (and one turned out to be broken), but more of my time was spent running after kids who needed bandaids or splinters pulled or had gotten too much sun.  Other years I had seen the nurse running about looking harried but experiencing it firsthand gives me a whole new respect for the profession and the camp role in particular.  Luckily I avoided having to deliver the baby - that couple just drove themselves to the hospital without even waking me.  Probably a good move considering both my own kids came by c-section.

I've already been asked by a friend how well I was able to eat Primal at camp.  The short answer is not very.  Being a camp for little kids, pretty much every meal consists of stuff that little kids like to eat.  There's too much activity in the day for them - we need to feed them stuff that they'll eat enough of.  Unfortunately, that means a lot of processed carbs.  I suppose I could have packed a week's worth of food and taken it with me, but for cost and food storage space reasons, I didn't go that route.  I plan to write more about what I ate and how that affected me later this week.

Camp wasn't a total dietary loss though, there was bacon served on one day.  Unfortunately it was in short supply:

Maybe the most Primal/paleo meal of the week.  No seconds on bacon.

Luckily I was able to intercept a near disaster later in the morning of the bacon and eggs breakfast.  A staff member was about to throw out some of his bacon!  He was moving away from his seat and I asked "what are you doing with that?".  He answered that he was throwing it out because "it's just the fat".  This would have been an excellent time to engage in a discussion about the many health benefits of saturated fat and maybe debunking the lipid hypothesis of heart disease.  It was also an excellent time to snatch the bacon fat off his plate.  In a moment of weakness I chose the latter.  You know you would have done the same.

Have you ever volunteered at a summer camp?  In what role?  Are you by chance a male nurse, and if so, how do you deal with the stereotyping?  Leave me a comment below, I'd love to hear from you!

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net