These posts are definitely no longer weekly, and I can only accept full responsibility for that. I’ve also been a little more lax with my diet – as my demand for stuffed crust pizza rather than regular pizza last night demonstrated – BUT I’m still fighting the fat; 221 pounds and counting. In fairness to my decision concerning the pizza, I had stinged out on lunch to accommodate it and had it not been for the garlic bread starter I would have been okay for my lower limit. As is, the extravagance was within my middle bracket so I didn’t go over. Not quite. I’ll admit it was close, but I started this diet with the plan not to restrict myself too greatly.
As part of that arrangement, my plan to have a BBQ every weekend until September is completely okay. Now, I appreciate that BBQ food is not what is classically referred to as ‘healthy eating’ but – BUT – I understand you can apply salad to it. It also helps that I’ve gotten far too used to eating smaller portions and now when I stuff myself to bursting it amounts to about 3 slices of stuffed crust pizza and 2 slices of garlic bread. (Yes, with cheese. Of course with cheese.) This means I can’t eat that much at BBQ’s before getting full, so I am satisfied with what I eat while not actually eating too much. Bonus? I think so.
The other thing that is helping is that I’m really looking into different types of meat you can BBQ. Last weekend the BBQ was hosted my a South African friend and his girlfriend. They’d put a lot of effort into getting some interesting food for the event, although I think part of that was Rogan’s goal of proving the South African version of anything is better than any other. The end result of this was that I tried Kudu – if you google it you’ll find it looks rather like a large stag crossed with an elk. It tastes delicious, and a quick bit of research showed it was a lot less calorific than beef or pork. I understand that this is because Kudu are delicious and as a result have been forced to evolve to constantly escape predators, meaning they have little fat on them. Scientific? Loosely, but I’m going with it.
A little more work found that basically anything else that is an animal is less calorific than beef – even pork, but by the narrowest of margins. Ostrich, venison, elk, moose, buffalo and even badger carry less calories than everybody’s favourite bovine. This is fine with me; I’m not a massive beef fan. I am, however, upset that sausages are about as bad unless they come from the very expensive end of the market. Bacon is pretty okay, proving that God is good and has some measure of mercy and meaning I can keep eating it without feeling bad. I’m still going to eat sausages, but I will be avoiding beef even more than normal.
It has also encouraged me to return to the quest I started while I was living in America; I will eat one of every animal on the planet. Including fish, despite my strongly held believe they are foul and should not be served as food except to people who never want to speak to again.
This is quite a daunting goal. There are a plethora of different animals on the planet, and I understand that I am not actually allowed to eat some of them due to them being ‘endangered’. I assume animals only become ‘endangered’ because they are extremely tasty, so like all things people are 100% prohibited from doing the internationally recognised legal imperative not to eat them makes me want to do so even more. Pandas are probably going to be the most difficult – they are endangered, not native to any European country, large, dangerous, disease ridden but also insanely cute when they’re small and more defenceless. I may eventually hire a mercenary killer to hunt one down for me, but I’ll still feel guilty. Gorilla may also cause problems; I don’t like the idea of having to hunt one down, as I’m pretty sure I will be ground to paste if it knows I’m trying to kill it.
The greatest thing about this quest? Aside from getting to eat an incredible amount of meat, of course. My stomach gets to make a connection with Noah’s Ark? I can claim to have eaten the contents of most zoos? No; it can fall within my diet. The potato is definitely not an animal – it barely qualifies as a vegetable and I suspect it could almost be described as a fungus. Since spuds are the only specific ban I’ve made myself, meat of any kind is definitely still on the menu. Which only highlights the importance of working a diet around you, not working yourself around a diet.
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