jwoolman5 Member

Any bar (including Larabars) can easily be made mini... Just break in half or thirds or quarters and stash the remainder in a snack zip bag or any other container. I wrap them up in cheapie foldover sandwich bags and secure with a spring type clothes pin myself. If needed for travel, just knot a plastic bag with the…

I also recently discovered the joys of roasted mushrooms, which can be easily made even by kitchen-challenged me and will keep a couple of weeks in the fridge or up to 3 months in the freezer. Just wipe off the dirt, slice the mushrooms as you wish and any desired thickness (I like to cut vertically through cap and stem,…

Raw spinach: I will use it like lettuce in salads and sandwiches. Love all ages: baby, teen, mature. (In contrast, I only like baby kale.) The best way to store whole leaf greens like spinach or baby kale or the tasty "power greens" blend (baby spinach and kale, chard, mizuna) for me has been to transfer to a Rubbermaid…

Baby carrots (they are cut from big carrots and peeled by mechanical polishing). I know I will never get around to doing any peeling, so that's what I buy... And anything packaged by Mann. Mann's sugar snap peas are wonderful right out of the bag, every part is edible. Warning: they are addictively good. Anything else by…

Grape Nuts cereal, but not as a breakfast cereal. Add to casseroles. I used to cook up some pasta and then bake for a bit with grape nuts, oil, onion until the Grape Nuts were soft and then add some Parmesan. Anything else can also be added, of course. I would probably add beans/veg nowadays if I could ever remember to buy…

Zucchini and yellow summer squash, unpeeled, raw or cooked. Acorn squash. Butternut squash. Sweet potatoes. Oats made into crackers. Barley likewise. Pumpkin seeds, especially roasted so they pop up into little footballs. Peanuts, especially roasted in shell. Cashews. Macadamia nuts. Brazil nuts. Pistachios. Walnuts and…

Pomelo fruit - sort of a sweet grapefruit (it's an ancestor) but easy to peel. Pricey and rare in my local grocery store. Clementines (mandarins), nectarines, English cucumbers, watermelon, honeydew melon, Hami melon (like cantaloupe but much much better), orange or red sweet bell peppers, celery, cabbage. Spinach, baby…

Mann's sugar snap peas....

Did you try night splints? That's what finally worked for me. I didn't need to keep them tight, just some stretch on the calf overnight was enough for me.

Ages ago, I kept the cans of the two non-dairy Slimfast flavors on hand for when I was sick and when I had to get going on a job with a close deadline right away after waking up. It was enough to keep me going, required just opening a can and sticking a straw into it.... And I have trouble digesting many foods under…

I don't know how MFP does it, but on my food tracker (LoseIt, the free version) I use "create a food" almost always so practically all of the foods in my personal database are customized. I do this even for simple fruits and veg as well as the packaged foods (which often are not in the database anyway, allergies keep me…

Weight Watchers point systems seem rather obsolete now. Back when they started, it was helpful because the alternative was to look up everything in printed databases and do the math. But nowadays, it's really easier to just use a tracker that does all the lookup and math for you, so you just have to enter the amounts by…

Better count... One box of Ritz claimed 13 in a sleeve but they were always 14. I am not hereby admitting whether or not I ate a whole sleeve. Or two. I just like to count things.

I didn't realize that broken cookies have no calories, but will definitely make that addition to my food tracker. However, many people also don't know that any broken cookies found in a bag or tray have to be eaten immediately. This is the law. I believe it is for public health purposes. Not necessarily for personal health…

However, even I was once able to blend tofu til smooth to use for dips. Just add some lemon juice to sub for dairy sour cream. If needed, can add some oil. One recipe for tofu-based mayo suggested adding mustard powder. There are loads of recipes on the web these days, though. Nowadays, there are so many good eggless mayos…

If all else fails, you can buy marinated baked tofu. I got some packs at Meijer's: Nasoya, Teriyaki is great right out of the pack but I cut it up into blocks of about 7 grams protein each, wrapped in plastic sandwich bags (ties to seal), and froze. They're even good still frozen, but waiting to thaw a bit or letting them…

Are you measuring your blood sugar only after the meal, or also again a decent amount of time later? If it comes back down again reasonably well, it may not be as much of a problem as you think. Maybe a time test of your blood sugar levels to get your typical curve would be helpful if you haven't already done that. I…

2oz (56g) dry of any type of pasta (wheat or non-wheat) is likely to be 180 to 200 calories, so that 55 grams of mac&cheese was never going to be 50 calories....

Or just learn to ignore MFP's lectures.... I use another tracker that has a "feature" of telling me that on days when I eat Food X, my calories are higher or lower. The oh so helpful suggestions have included warning me that I eat more on days I eat Timer (a food I created as a time stamp, servings indicate time on 24 hr…

If you're not hungry and are hitting your macro goals (such as protein and fiber), you don't have to eat more just because you have had more exercise. Your body will let you know when you need more food. So unless something is way off with your natural appetite, just eat when you are hungry. I always get much hungrier…

Don't be afraid to eat a big salad at every meal... Also sliced raw veg and mushrooms are tasty sides. I like a pile of English cucumber slices and/or bell pepper strips and/or mushroom slices with a sandwich and also use a lot of greens inside the sandwich. Sometimes the filling is enough, wrapped in lettuce or the rest…

If the calories are a problem or like me you just have had enough of the banana halfway through-- you can eat half a banana or less at a time. I just slice the rest and freeze flat in a bag. It should last in the freezer a week or two. Then I can eat a few slices at a time or use it for nondairy ice cream or fruity shakes.

I use coconut oil for cooking and grilled sandwiches and such but if you can eat butter, the calories are the same. For one serving, just half a teaspoon of coconut oil is more than enough for cooking and so maybe just cutting back on the butter would also work for you. Experiment to see how much you really need. Nutiva…

Also you can make popsicles out of protein powder concoctions.

I like to add flavored protein powder to nondairy pudding or yoghurt. Brings the protein up to typical dairy version levels. Works fine in homemade nondairy ice cream type concoctions (such as made with chia or bananas) or thick frozen fruit shakes verging on soft serve ice cream. I like to also add some fat to frozen…

Not quite organized enough yet to use my microwave popper, but I do like the Lesser Evil bagged popcorn made with coconut oil and saIt. It seems just right to me, not too much oil. Living Intentions has an obscenely good vegan cheesy popcorn. They call it something like MCT Cheeze Please. The MCT is just for medium chain…

You also can easily make whole juice from the normal edible parts. Just cut up as you would to eat, add water or ice cubes, and blend. Also popsicles can be made from any juice, commercial or otherwise. A vitamix or blendtec does a great job pulverizing even hard seeds in raspberries and blackberries. There's a Ninja that…

Another thought is to go super simple. At least it's not much work, and taste buds really wake up fast so you don't need added components so much. You'll have to adapt to your own needs, but: When first dealing with food allergies, I followed a simple rotation scheme with most meals using only one or two foods (eating…

If you can eat some nuts and seeds, you might try grinding some together with nutritional yeast for a vegan version of Parmesan cheese. I'm sure there must be scads of homemade recipes (look for keywords like vegan Parmesan nuts seeds), but I've had the pricey commercial Parma! that is really good on everything (veg also).…

Cotton candy grapes are not artificial. They are a cross between two grape varieties and are not artificially infused with flavor. (There was/is an apple sold that tastes like grape, but that was done by infusing with grape juice.) These grapes are just normal hybrids, just as many fruits available today are, and are…