Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Nick vs. the LID in a game of Roshambo.

Some of my friends with more discerning palettes than I, have made the suggestion that I use this LID diet as an opportunity to travel down culinary roads that were previously unknown to me. That I should finally end the feud between my sense of taste and the produce aisle. I told them i would think about it. And I did.


For about a second.



Then I put on my best Rex Kwon Do pants and roundhouse kicked that notion in the face!!




Starla would have been proud of me.

Anyway, I really did consider eating more veggies and if I ever have to repeat this whole process, I might actually go through with it. However, there are a couple of things that stand in my way. The first is the fact that I don't really like many of them, the second is that I don't know the first thing about preparing them. Also, I promised an LID junk food blog.




As a fat guy, you know i loves me some junk food. It has been said that I have yet to meet a partially hydrogenated processed food stuff that I didn't like. If you have been reading this blog though, you already know that the LID will not suffer such fare as it tends to be crammed to the brim with potentially iodized salt/sea salt or soy and dairy and pretty much everything else I'm not allowed to eat. If you are a newly diagnosed Thyca patient, then chances are you will have to do this diet at some point. Don't freak out though, seriously, you're above that. Instead, I'm gonna show you some stuff that I have found that has made my life over the last 19 days a little easier.

After what seemed like my 27th pound of trail mix, I decided that the the "salty, crunchy" button in my brain wasn't being pushed. Like any good junkfoodie, my first instinct went to potato chips. Since I was already in full on LID mode, I decided that I was going to have to make them on my own. It made sense (to my increasingly hypo brain) and the core ingredients are LID safe, so why not? Well...it didn't work out like I hoped. Long story short, I only succeeded in making flat round french fries and narrowly avoiding 3rd degree burns after my pot of hot oil boiled over. The end result was still deep fried potatoes (or sweet potatoes in this case) and they were tasty but didn't keep well.

Later that week, after one of my many blood tests, I found myself walking around Sprouts. For those of you who don't have a Sprouts, it's kind of like Whole Foods, only the people watching isn't nearly as good and I feel like I can shop there without being a self-conscious tool bag. I didn't think I would ever find a pre-processed potato chip that was LID safe, but as luck would have it I did find these:



Photobucket










Overall, they aren't too bad. A little bland maybe, but doable. It occurred to me that I could apply my own iodine free salt later on and that would perk them up a bit. It wasn't until much later that I realized I could season the chips however I wanted. My current favorite is salt and chipotle pepper powder. I may never buy normal potato chips again. I am Bob Ross and these chips are my own crunchy little blank flavor canvases.





Photobucket


Screw the trees, I'm making happy little chips!



There are going to be times that you want to switch it up though, and if you live anywhere south of the mason-dixon line and west of the mississippi river, tortilla chips are arguably the more important chip. They are indeed, the ultimate vehicle for the topping of your choice. For whatever reason though, I had it in my head that tortilla chips are a flour product, (wrong) so I was delighted to find out that they are in fact, made of corn. After scouring the chip aisle I found these:


Photobucket


Photobucket

I should mention that this particular brand of chips is very local to me here. They are produced about 15 miles away from where I live and I don't know how widely distributed they are. However, should you be able to buy these chips, you should do it. I bought two big bags for around 5 bucks. Seriously, only jerks who hate money and use it to set fire to orphans wouldn't buy these.

As much as I like these particular chips, it annoys me that I cant bathe them in my favorite chip dressing, queso. (that's cheese dip for you folks in places that get snow) I'm sure some of you are asking why I don't just season them like the chips above or pair them with a freshly made salt free salsa or something like that. I would respond by saying that my brain is mostly mush and just the simple act of existing is tiring at times to me now. To remedy this situation my wife and I emptied about half a bag onto a baking sheet, juiced a lemon lime all over them and then dashed them with kosher salt. Bake them until things start to get brown and crispy on the edges, and you have an awesome little snack. My point here is these chips are legal to eat on the LID right out of the bag. I find that after a quick toasting I dont really need anything else, but if you are on the LID (and also if you aren't) feel free to top them however you want.


Photobucket


So good I forgot to snap a pic until they were almost all eaten



Happy that I had the stuff to meet my chip quota, I made my way to the front of the store and stumbled upon a snack-ish food that i had not really ever considered, sesame sticks. They look like something you might put on or in an asian style salad or something like that, or as my friend put it, "looks like a bag of turds." (Yup, those are my friends.) I turned my attention to the labels and found an unsalted variety that fit my prerequisites and was cheap enough to take a gamble on. As it turns out they were pretty good, though they give me heart burn if I'm not careful with them. Again I took License to ill season these to my tastes, that being No Salt Tony Chachere's. I snapped a pic of the sesame label for you:

Photobucket


These little things really are quite decent (if you like turd shaped sesame) and I plan on trying out the flavored versions as a football gameday food this fall. A pound of this stuff goes a really long way, and at $4.00 per lb its hard to beat.

So at this point you are probably saying, "Wow Nick, thats awesome that you have spent so much time on a food that provides so many empty calories! But, I'm bored with chips. What other kinds of junkfood alternatives have you wasted invested time and money in?"

Im glad you asked.

Again, if you have to be on the LID it can be quite easy to read the "what not to eat" part of the diet and get hung up on it. I know i did for awhile but thats because "going hypo" makes you a tad bit, um, testy. (Read: assholish) When I decided to read the "allowed foods" part I discovered that on can have diet colas! Which is good because I live smack dab in the middle of Dr. Pepper country and I do enjoy one from time to time. Be mindful of colas or dark sodas (or "pop" for you yanks)because even though you can have them, the diet prefers you to have ones without caramel coloring in them. You can also have candy (as long as there is no Red Dye #3 in it) such as gummy bears or marshmallows. So if you are a candy person, have fun with that.

I have to admit to being a bit bummed out when I read that I was not supposed to have chocolate, but my homie and fellow Thyca superstar Radioactive Girl dropped a little tip on me. She said that if I could find a substance called "pareve" that I could indeed have chocolate. Being the uneducated gentile that I am, I admit that i thought that pareve or parev (both seem to be acceptable spellings) was a kosher chocolate of some kind. This is not necessarily true. Pareve seems to be a label for a certain class of kosher foods. They contain neither meat nor dairy. It was with no small amount of excitment that I found this on the kosher part of the shelf at my local mega grocery store.

After eating one of these delectable little cookies, I imagined that a Kit Kat and one of those really cheap sugar wafer cookies (the kind that you probably only had at your grandmas house) had a sordid love affair that was both passionate and yet doomed to fail. It would never work between the two confections. On was a fairly major celebrity, the other spent its time attracting ants in the bargain bin of the local drug store. I have to think both parents were a little dismayed when they discovered they were having a child. In the end they decided to turn the kid loose to fend for itself and what we ended up with is what happens when we let children name themselves. A really sweet kid with a really stupid name.

Photobucket
Never let a child name itself




So there you have it. Those are some of the things that I have been eating to help keep my stomach sane while the rest of my brain and body go on walkabout. There have been a whole list of other foods that i have enjoyed and I'll be sure to share all of that with you once I see the light at the end of this particular tunnel.

speaking of, by the time you read this i should know whether all this worked, or was for naught. I had my blood test to measure my TSH level today and i should know by tomorrow if I am all set for my RAI treatment. Ill be sure to keep everyone updated on that. Thanks again for reading and supporting me. I greatly appreciate all the comments Iv'e been getting on here and in person when I see people.

It's at this point I want to say thanks again to Radioactive girl for her support and advice. If you are a Thyca patient/survivor or even if you aren't, you owe it to yourselves to become familiar with her story. You can read her blog HERE.

By the way, in case you missed it at the top, this is what Roshambo means.

Your move LID.



[EDITORS NOTE: feel free to click the text links that are embedded in the text. The are meant to help explain something I feel might need clarification. They are not ads.]

5 comments:

  1. Nick, I love that you have found a good outlet for your LID/Thyca journey, and the fact that it keeps all your supporters entertained as well as informed makes it all the better. You have a true talent as a writer a side of you I didn't know existed but am proud to see and excited to watch grow. Jen and I are always here for you guys if you need anything.

    Roman

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Roman, I really appreciate that! Its been a nice outlet, and if i can help a fellow thyca person out than all the better. hopefully we can get together after i'm finished glowing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1) You're very welcome, and thanks for pimping my blog.

    2) Um, of course we have queso in the North. I'm offended that you think we don't. Who would want to live without it?

    3) Those El Milagro people make LID safe tortillas too. I know it's too late for you to go to the store now but maybe your wife can?

    ReplyDelete
  4. RG, im happy that the mexican food restaurants in your neck of the woods are more enlightened. When i lived in detroit....nevermind. I was living in Detroit. Enough said. And yes the El Milagro folks are wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nice post and great photos as well. I do learned something new today. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete