Have you ever heard that saying, never go food shopping while you are hungry? It is an oldie, but a goodie, and for those of us who suffer from (or are liberated by) food intolerances, that old saying is doubly important.
I have had a busy morning and by the time I got out to do my work shopping it was bang on lunchtime and my hungry tummy started to make very poor suggestions to my brain. Tummy, “we could have sushi, we haven’t had sushi for ages!” Brain, “we can’t have sushi, we cannot eat rice.” Tummy, “OO! We could have a burrito! We haven’t had a burrito in ages!” Brain, “a burrito also has rice and even if we left the rice out we couldn’t eat the bread and if we have a burrito without those things IT IS NOT A BURRITO!”
So I flew around the shops, ignoring rumbling tummy, who was making more and more outlandish suggestions as the clock ticked closer to 2pm, and so I got myself something instead that would be very quick to prepare when I got home and bolted to the car before I could buy something I would regret.
This was my lunch. Now before we get to the nuts and bolts of it I just want to say, people perceive dietary intolerance foods as expensive, and there is no doubt that they cost more than mainstream foods, but if it is a matter of our long term health then we need to be careful and selective in our food choices. And here, I would like to show you this -
This is what I used to make my lunch. The smoked salmon was $6, the seed crackers were $4 (have you tried these? They are very good and comparatively well priced, compared to some of the seed crackers out there), the avocado was $2 and we will add another $2 for the little bit of veg and the preserves I added. You could most certainly do this cheaper, ham instead of smoked salmon (I do like to use smoked salmon or ocean trout here though, it sneaks a bit more fish into my diet without me noticing), if you can eat rye or rice, you could replace the seed crackers with ryvitas or cruskit. But even with these more expensive ingredients, totalling $14, enough there for two, this lunch has cost me $7. The burrito or sushi that my sneaky tummy was trying to talk me into would have cost me twice that much, and even a pie at the bakery or a fast food burger would cost almost as much as my delicious and very nutritious lunch.
Halve the avocado and scoop the flesh out of one side and pop it in a bowl, set the other half aside for tomorrow. Finely dice the celery, spring onion and tomatoes (otherwise I will find them and pick them out), chop a teaspoon full of capers and half a dozen baby cornicons, tip all that in with the avocado, now smoosh it up until the avocado is mashed and it is all combined.
Spoon that onto your crackers, top with smoked salmon (or whatever protein you choose to add here instead), grind on some black pepper and enjoy. Take that tricky tummy!
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