3331 What I had for lunch

As I noted in September, I decided to lose weight (my 20 blogging pounds) by paying attention to food triggers that made me more hungry. I've lost 17 lbs. and lots of inches where I blog. I've learned to eat to love some foods I'd almost never eaten before, like greens and peppers. Collard greens, turnip greens, bell peppers--red, yellow and orange, and lots of onions. The greens are high in anti-oxidants which help fight all kinds of degenerative diseases and contains trace minerals and calcium. Collard greens (1 cup) have 118.9% of the daily value for vitamin A and 57.6% of vitamin C. But turnip greens are even better with 158.3% of vitamin A and 65.8% of vitamin C. If you have thyroid or gallbladder problems (which I don't) you might want to be cautious about greens, according to The World's Healthiest Foods.

It's awfully hard for one person to eat a bunch of greens before they would go bad, so here's my trick: I lightly saute them with onions in a small amount of olive oil and put them in small individual packages for lunch and freeze them. I don't like those dull, limp, gray blobs you see on steam tables, so these stay bright green.

Today I quickly grilled with a touch of olive oil about 1/2 cup of frozen organic sweet corn with one of my packages of turnip greens and onions, and about a fourth of a red pepper--maybe 1/4 cup. The corn adds a touch of sweetness to the turnip greens which aren't as mild as the collard greens. The mild peppers add color and crunch, and are also excellent sources of C and A. If I were eating a cup, it would be even higher than the greens. My, it was so colorful. Just a pleasure to eat with my book.

With lunch, I was reading The Trouble with Africa, by Robert Calderisi, a Canadian who has worked in Africa since 1975. Africa has received some $600 billion in aid since 1960, yet it has actually gotten poorer since then. It's no longer useful to point fingers at colonialism or slavery, the Africans themselves are making a mess of things, and foreign aid seems to be part of the problem.

For dessert I had fresh pineapple. . . and a Christmas cookie.