I am not a huge fan of new year's resolutions. As someone who has been running for a long time, I see the number of people out running increase after January 1 and then fall off after people get bored or tired or both. I do think it's good to set goals and for me January is the usual time I set goals because my birthday is in December: I'm coming into a new individual year and an overall new year. But I do then at any point during the year when I feel the need to make a change or move my life forward because it doesn't matter when you set your goals, the key is sticking them.
And I believe one of the hardest parts about setting goals regarding eating is finding healthy food that tastes good. I've been trying to eat well since I was in junior high– this was the middle 1980s and we didn't have the access to the food we do now. We also didn't have the knowledge. For instance, everything would say that you need to eat salad. That was great and I was happy to do that but no one told me to add some protein to my salad (in those days "salad" meant all vegetables) so I wouldn't have a headache at the end of the school day when I went out for track practice.
After a few days of that, there was no more healthy eating; I needed protein I wasn't getting. Today I would add hard-boiled eggs and nuts.
But I also didn't understand why I would attend a conference and want to sleep during the keynote: orange juice and bagels are not exactly the best breakfast to keep people awake (but they are cheap!). I finally started bringing my own blender and making smoothies. It wasn't worth the exhaustion I felt when I didn't get a good breakfast.
Now we talk more about eating proteins that will fill us up and keep us full for a number of hours. We have access to whole grains rather than simple carbohydrates. And we are encouraged to eat more greens.
There are lots of good happenings in the eating world but I'm sure many people don't think that tofu is one of them. I would agree– the one time I made tofu I didn't get it. The white substance had no flavor and left me hungry.
I decided to give tofu a chance again with this recipe from the Martha Stewart Clean Slate Cookbook (one of several that I've tried already). I made it Saturday for lunch and while I did things slightly differently: used chile powder instead of turmeric, no cojita cheese, and onions instead of scallions, it was quite tasty. I liked the spice off the chiles and the chile powder. The tofu wasn't too bad either because it had been blended with several other spices. We also had strawberries as a side.
However, I was hungry about two hours later. In the future I would find something to pair it with to help stave off my hungry and I would add more black beans. While I agree it is important to eat every few hours, often our lifestyles don't allow us to do that. The less I think about food, the better off I am.
Give tofu a chance in the new year.
The tofu scramble recipe is here.