Okay this is not a post about me going on a diet. This is a post about my diet--generally what I eat in a day. I seem to have alarmed both my MoM and my aunt in the last week.  Here's how it worked: they read what I was posting on my living with leva series and a single recipe on polenta and assumed that I wasn't eating a well balanced diet.  I know how it happened. In one post, living with leva, I was focusing more on the cost of each meal rather than what was in each dish I was making and in the other instance, I was focusing solely on the new recipe I had decided to make based on a NYT food blog.

In this case, two things happened.  First, when I write a blog post I try to give it some focus and some coherence. Gasp. I try not to ramble. Although sometimes I am better at this then other times. And second, a blog post is only ever a single snap-shot of my life, of what interests me at a specific moment.  It is contained within time and context (money in the living with leva post and a new recipe within the polenta post).  What it comes down to is that as a writer you have to make choices. Not every idea I have, silly thing I do or bizarre conversation I have makes it onto my blog.  It's like a peep show. You get to see a fair amount of my life, you get a glimpse into my day but I also get to retain some degree of privacy.

So for those of you interested in peeping some more. Now's your chance to read about my diet.<!--more-->

Breakfast: Oatmeal (homemade from whole grains and cinnamon), a banana, about a cup of milk and a cup or three of coffee.

Lunch (at school five days a week): soup or salad, a main dish of some sort and a slice of bread. On the weekends, I usually eat leftovers.

Dinner: takes a lot of different shapes.  Basically time, energy and groceries dictate what I am going to eat but usually it's something like:
<ul>
	<li>Pasta, tomatoes and assorted veggies.</li>
	<li>Lentils loaded up with veggies served over rice.</li>
	<li>Stir fried veggies, egg and rice.</li>
	<li>Homemade pizza with a variety of veggies and cheese.</li>
	<li>Cornbread and soup.</li>
	<li>The raw veggie plate with cheese and almonds.</li>
	<li>Yellow pea dahl with bread.</li>
</ul>
Once in a while, I really go out on a limb and make breakfast for dinner--pancakes, banana bread and french toast are three of my breakfast for dinner standbys.  They are tasty and fun.

As for the catch-all: veggies. I am sure you're wondering what I mean by this.  Well, I eat a lot of different veggies.  Here's what I usually have on hand: mushrooms, onions, carrots, potatoes, zucchini and peppers--either red or green. I also have canned tomatoes and frozen spinach, green beans and brussel sprouts.  Other veggies come and go depending on the season and the quality--pumpkin, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, eggplant and the list goes on and on.  The one vegetable I dislike? Green peas both fresh and frozen.

I also have a snack or two when I get home from work but before I eat dinner. Usually this is a handful of either almonds, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, cashews or walnuts and either a small bowl of yogurt and/or an apple/orange or another fruit.

So what's the point of all of this? Just to prove to my MoM and aunt that I am eating my fruits and veggies? Nope.  I think it gets at something bigger than this.  For me, it's about a philosophy of sorts--a food manifesto? I don't think so but I think that my philosophy is this: integrate veggies into the dishes that you love.  I hardly ever eat a side of veggies just as veggies.  They are a serious part of my main meal.  I mean, it's hard for me to even think of something that sounds less appealing than a side of frozen spinach. Thought of this makes my skin crawl--mushy, dark green, amorphous frozen spinach. But spinach soup? great. Spinach and scrambled eggs? that sounds good.

The other thing you may notice if you were at my house poking around is this: I have very, very few processed foods in my cupboards and freezer.  There's no frozen pizza, no boxes of macaroni and cheese, no granola bars, no surgery cereal, no bags of cookies or chips.  It's just not my thing--sure I'll eat potato chips or pretzel sticks if I am at a party but they just aren't the kind of snacks or treats I keep at home. I do have a weak spot for chocolate so I usually have a bar of dark chocolate that I can break a piece off of to nibble after dinner.

Am I a perfect eater? Far from it. Do I eat an average American diet? Nope.  Should I exercise more and drink less coffee? Probably.