My diet (and my life) have gotten complicated. I hope to write more about that soon. Basically, I have been having allergic-type reactions to many foods I have previously been able to eat, and my diet is very restricted right now.
To go along with that, I have a complicated medicine routine. My newest medicine has to be taken 4 times a day, on an empty stomach. So I have a schedule of medications that begins when I wake up and goes throughout the day until I go to sleep, and requires me to deconflict one of my medicines from all the other medicines (and food), and requires that I take the new medication on an empty stomach (no food from 2 hours prior to 30 minutes after). Yeah…
So I wake up, take the empty stomach med, wait 30 minutes, take another med, and eat breakfast, so that 1 hour later I can take my next med. Did I mention I’m not a morning person, and don’t function very well when I first wake up?
The LAST thing I feel like doing half an hour after waking up is hassling with breakfast.
I used to eat several hours after waking up, when I had the capacity to deal with making food. But now when I eat is dictated by my medicine schedule. And what I eat is dictated by my allergic-type reactions.
Currently, I am having a drink for breakfast that we jokingly call “Green Slime.” (You would probably call it green juice, or a green smoothie.) We call it green slime because it looks like duckweed:
The recipe comes from one of the low histamine chef Yasmina Ykelenstam‘s cookbooks – she calls it green lemonade, although the recipe includes no lemons. It’s mostly green vegetables, with apples as sweetener. I also add chia seeds, for fiber and protein.
We first tried making green slime in the blender. It’s do-able, but I don’t recommend it – for 2 reasons. First, it’s hard on the blender motor. Second, the consistency is like applesauce, which can be unpleasant to drink if you’re squeamish about textures.
Having determined that I liked green slime in theory, and would likely be drinking more juices, we bought a juicer. I prefer a minimalist kitchen, and try not to buy extraneous kitchen tools, but this has proven to be a very useful device. [And the slime is now a juice consistency, rather than an applesauce one.] But I digress…
Because of my health condition, I need to eat very fresh foods. So I can’t make green slime the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight. Thus, every morning, veggies and fruit need to be chopped and processed through the juicer. Working a knife within 1/2 hour of waking is not a good idea when you’re as out-of-it as I am in the morning.
It is highly probable that, left to my own devices, I would starve or die of malnourishment.
Fortunately for me, I am not left to my own devices. Spousal Unit wakes up hours earlier than I do (for reasons that are completely inexplicable to me), and is gracious enough to prepare green slime for me every morning, even though Spousal Unit does not drink slime.
Each morning I take my first medicine, wait 30 minutes, take my second medicine, and then stagger out to the kitchen. I open the refrigerator door and find a glass of green slime waiting for me.
Which means that Spousal Unit has cut up the fruit and veg, fed it through the juicer, poured the green slime into a glass, added chia seeds, stirred, and left the juice for me – every morning.
And all I have to do is drink it. And then take my next medicine an hour later. Totally do-able (most days).
And this is why I say “love is green slime.” Thank you, Spousal Unit!