A "Perfect Day" of Food

Y'all know I'm a sucker for a meal plan, right? Or a set of food rules I can follow. I have to be careful not to let meal plans and food rules push me into a weird orthorexic place though. But I've become much more flexible with rules these days. I can make them, I can break them. No biggie. But I do find meal plans fascinating and a lot of fun!

Lately, I've been all about Dr. Fuhrman's GBOMBS prescription, which says you should aim to eat greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, and seeds daily. I did that pretty much daily for about two months, and it really forced me to fill my diet with more nutritious foods. Most of those things were in my diet anyway, but I've found mushrooms pretty hard to get into my meals EVERY day. And then I stumbled onto a blog post on No Meat Athlete called 7 Foods Worth Eating Every Single Day (and How to Make Sure You Actually Do It).

No Meat Athlete author/blogger/podcaster Matt Frazier uses Fuhrman's idea as a base, but his seven foods are slightly different (and mushrooms become a weekly thing). Matt suggest berries and other fruits; leafy greens & cruciferous vegetables; flax seeds & other nuts & seeds; onions & garlic; beans; turmeric; and green tea. Some of those are the same! But green tea, turmeric, and the focus on flax is different from the GBOMBS plan. I already drink iced green tea every morning with my breakfast. I'm working on getting more flax in my diet. And as a runner, I know I need daily turmeric to combat inflammation, so this seemed like a fun thing to try.

I downloaded Matt's free e-book — The 7 Daily Foods Cheat Sheet (and 3 Meals That Make It Easy) — which contains a prescription for a "perfect day," in which you manage to eat all of the seven foods in a very healthy set of meals (smoothie, salad, green/grain/bean bowl). And today, I decided to give it a try!

My breakfast was a Triple Berry Smoothie with chickpeas (!!!), almond milk, almond butter, frozen mixed berries, banana, matcha green tea powder, wheatgrass powder, flax seed, and chia seed. The peas/beans were a suggestion in the e-book, and I used those in place of my usual protein powder. Made for a yummy, thick and creamy smoothie (and you couldn't taste them).

My morning snack was supposed to be fruit and nut butter, so I opted for an Anjou Pear with Soynut Butter.

Lunch was big ole salad with nut-based dressing. I made the I Can't Believe It's Not Cashew Ranch from the No Meat Athlete Cookbook to top this salad of romaine, chickpeas, cooked beets, carrots, bell pepper, cauliflower, cucumber, white onion, scallion, toasted sunflower seed, dried cranberries, and a few slices of turmeric root. The turmeric was a little weird in the salad, but I felt good about eating it.

My afternoon snack was hummus with either whole grain crackers or veggies. I had a lot of veggies at lunch, so I decided on a Rice Cake with Engine 2 Jalapeno Cilantro Hummus.

After work, while prepping dinner, I had a glass of red wine. Not in the perfect day plan, but hey, remember what I said about being flexible? That's important! And I figure wine is basically health food anyway, right? Antioxidants!

Dinner was a Grain/Green/Bean Bowl! I love bowls with a nice sauce, so this was a real treat. It had a base of I Heart Keenwah toasted quinoa with steamed kale and pinto beans. That was all topped with a tahini-nooch sauce that I whipped up. YUM!

Matt's 7 Daily Foods e-book also suggests some weekly foods, like mushrooms, tomatoes, avocados, and even dark chocolate! Don't mind if I do! I had a bit of Chocolita Moontime Rose raw dark chocolate after dinner — because it's good for me!

I'm excited to keep working these 7 daily foods in going forward. Guess now I'm doing GGBOBST?