Because I cook nearly all of my meals, I don’t eat too much processed foods in general. Nevertheless, those sneaky handfuls of cereal, granola, chocolate covered biscuits, snap pea crisps, and rice crackers manage to find their way into my diet. Oh, and of course, there’s always chocolate. Not all of these foods are inherently bad for me, but I seem to eat more than my fair share at a time. On a related note, I tend to eat a lot of processed foods by snacking mindlessly. Often times, I have an open bag of granola or box of cereal right next to my computer while I graze and type away. I usually start eating when I feel a bit hungry, but I never seem to find the “off” switch quick enough. Does anyone else know this feeling? For the coming week, I will focus on these two things. First, I will work on eating unprocessed foods for most of the day and give myself room for a piece or two of chocolate. Let’s face it, a day without chocolate is a day wasted. I learned that mantra from a Dove chocolate wrapper, and I find much merit in the statement. Second, I will snack on fresh fruits and nuts or home-cooked snacks and be more mindful of how my body feels when I am snacking. Most importantly, I should measure out my snacks before diving in. I plan to track my progress on the blog over the week so that you can see how I am doing. I make no guarantees that I will succeed, but I can promise that I will try my best! To kick off this week of my Cooking Cure journey, I decided to try out a muffin recipe. I recently saw a post about strawberry banana bread on Fiterazzi, and I was quite mesmerized by how beautiful the bread looked. I decided to adapt this recipe into muffins and added more fruity goodness to it. The result: “bangoberry muffins” – banana, mango, and strawberry muffins. I admit, the name is a bit cheesy, but it sounded alright in my head! I exercised quite a bit of self restraint to stop myself from eating the entire muffin before taking this shot: Then, I got a bit carried away with taking photos of these muffins . . .
