Good Eats at the Relay for Life

Hello friends.. just finished up my bee pollen-laced oatmeal breakfast and am ready to get my busy day going.  This weekend should be fun and very active - I'm a Team Captain (should I capitalize that?  ... I'm going to.. it makes me feel special.) in the Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society.  I'll be coordinating my small but mighty team in this 24-hour walk to raise some money (and have some fun while we're at it.)  My team includes myself, my brother, my Mom (who's flying in from Ohio to offer up some laps and help us out), and my friend Nancy from an ex-jobsite of mine from days gone by.  At this point, with the Relay starting tomorrow, I have an afternoon crammed with last-minute preparations and organization.

Apart from the fact that the weather report for the entirety of the 24 hours is 90 degrees F and 40% chance thunderstorms (eek.) my first priority was... FOOD!  Of course.  Though we'll be walking our butts off (at least one representative from the team needs to be walking the track at all times) and burning some extra calories, I didn't want us to use that as an excuse to go overboard and be cramming a bunch of junk into our systems all weekend.  So here's the general food list we have going..

Buzz Off!

BUZZ Buzzzz Buzzz buzzz... anyone else notice how it sounds like giant bees are in attendance at every World Cup game??  My house has recently been inundated in the bee-buzz-like bullhorns of international soccer as Ed has suddenly become obsessed with seeing every game in the series.  I like them too so I have no complaints - and I swear this wasn't meant to be a lame segue into today's post, merely a vignette into my nice day at home with Ed, but it inevitably is a nice introduction to my nutrition topic du jour, so I'm just gonna roll with it. 

Bee pollen!  ..What the hell?..  That's what I said anyway, when the fourth customer in two days had bee pollen questions for me in my store.  By Shopper #4 I knew where our bee pollen supplement selection was located, but not a whole hell of a lot about it and why Shoppers #1-4 were willing to spend $8 on it.  Then I kept coming across it as a supplement listed in many a meal plan on TheKitchenTable.  Interest officially piqued, I needed to see what was up.  So the other night, blissfully free of chemistry homework and gymtime over with, I attacked the internet for info on this hippie-hype-sounding "nutrient." 

As it turns out, I spent eight of my very own dollars on a jar of pollen granules one week ago, and have officially begun my 'Pollen Potential Testing Period'..

Eureka! Clean Eaters Community Discovered

Hello friends!  Wowzers Magee I have been a busy woman these past few weeks.  Sincere apologies for a boring blog!  But I've wrapped up my first leg of training for the new job in BumFrickNowheresville and now I'll be training at a store much much closer to home until my store opens in July.. hooray for the end of 1-hour-and-30-minute commutes at 5 am!  Along the way, I've been learning tons of new tidbits every day about organic and natural foods and about different lifestyles people live when it comes to food.

For example, we just had a big ol' seminar about the Raw revolution.. hmm.  I don't know about that one folks.  Though it is interesting that a fairly wide-known raw cafe is literally down the street from my apartment.  Ed and I scoped it out today on our way back from our daily pilgrimage to Starbucks - unfortunately, and cliche-ily, it was a small, smelly fragrant, pricy smoothie bar.. in kind of a rundown-type area.  Bummer!  I was willing to give it a whirl, just for the randomness of it, but I can make a $12 smoothie of carrot juice and dates at home for a bout 35 cents.  Sorry, pal.

Like this raw business, I keep coming across new topics that I'd love to have a write-up about.  For some reason I keep procrastinating my post on the weirdly interesting topic of chia seeds.. I will get to it!  But for now, it's time to move on because clearly, I'm not ch-ch-ch chia'ing it just yet.  Now, I am still a busy bee this evening, taking a break from studying up for a chemistry final.. (My life is that glamorous. Be jealous.) But I found another great motivational and info-packed website to keep the fire of my clean eating burning and I want to share..