Sweet Potatoes. And more(een).

I bought some sweet potatoes yesterday. I like sweet potatoes. I read or heard somewhere that they’re a good fat burner food, but I’ve never verified that. I just like them. I can eat them if I have them with a meal that includes enough protein. They don’t seem to waken my sugar monster that way.

So yesterday, when I was at Sam’s Club, I bought a bag of them. I’ll put some in soup (see the link to the Against All Grain blog recipe in my Liebster Award post), bake some, and maybe use a few to make some kind of cake experiment.

I try not to bake things as substitutes for what I used to eat as an out of control sugarholic. I used to do that quite a bit and noticed it tended to work against me. So, in the interest of paying attention to how food makes me feel, I don’t consume a lot of baked goods even if they’re sweetened with bananas or other fruits

I did have a raisinable chocobanzo cupcake on Sunday. It was a protein packed, raisin sweetened chocolate cupcake made with garbanzo beans. It’s the type of thing I would put in the cookbook I’m considering as a future project. I thought it tasted pretty good and it was a good additional amount of protein to go with the delicious homemade turkey soup we had when we visited some friends last Sunday evening. The cupcake made me a little nervous because of the raisins, but the huge amount of protein in them were my “raison d’etre” for indulging.

Speaking of substitutes for things. When I was thinking about sweet potatoes, the song about poTAtoes/poTAHtoes popped into my head. From there, I thought about darn socks (tat toes). And from there, I remembered a comment someone made about types of expletives and their substitutions. His example of a substitute was, “Where in the USPS is that letter?” I thought it was funny, but perhaps you had to be there.

I was raised to not use offensive expletives or substitutes for them.  Not all expletives are offensive. The definition I got from a Google search:  a word or phrase used to fill out a sentence or a line of verse without adding to the sense. ) I’ve never really understood the point of offensive expletives or some of their substitutes. Perhaps with the way my mind works, using the substitutes would send my mind to the real thing, which wouldn’t be very helpful to my state of being. I’m not judging here, I’m just thinking about what my situation is. And giving you a peek into my thoughts! Hang on!

All of this got me thinking of expletive deleted and the relatively new phrases of gluten free, sugar free, dairy free. The phrase “expletive deleted” is a way to let a person know that an actual quote had “colorful” language that wasn’t fit to print. But the phrase calls to mind the idea of an offensive expletive. Perhaps it sends the reader into a wonder of what words were actually used? It’s a thought. Maybe not a good one.

But what does this have to do with gluten free, sugar free, dairy free labeling? When I first wanted to avoid gluten, sugars, and dairy, I looked for ways to have substitutes for the foods typically made with the offending ingredients. Too many times, the substitutes just made me think about the real thing. It’s hard to stop craving something when you’re constantly trying to think of ways to have it without having it.

I’ve found that making my food choices based on what makes me feel healthy gives me a thankfulness that I don’t have to eat what makes me feel unhealthy. Thinking beyond the taste to the aftertaste (mental fogginess, lack of impulse control, obesity, etc) helps me choose foods without the offensive (to me) ingredients. I’m happy there are labels that make the choices easier, but I’ve learned that foods that are just substitutes to give the illusion of having the original problem food cause problems for me.

Back to the raisinable chocobanzo cupcake. I liked the taste and texture of it. But most of all, I liked that it had a lot of protein. I needed the extra protein and it worked better than whipping out a packet of tuna. It was good enough for the other people to eat and, I think, enjoy. I suppose that cupcake could be considered a substitute for a chocolate fudge truffle delight cupcake with ganache frosting, but not for me. Just writing that made me feel a bit light-headed. I’m pretty sure my cupcake would be a severe and offensive disappointment for anyone wanting such a thing. Maybe not quite as severe as if I’d used carob instead of real cocoa powder, but pretty severe. Maybe even ugly severe.

I’m going to dare greatly and post this collection of thoughts. At least for a little while. While my writing and train of thought might seem to be a bit derailed here, it works for me. Exploring things, including foods and words, from different angles (including the try angle) has helped me in my quest to live with sugar addiction.  Creative writing satisfies me more than mindless eating. Maybe it’s because there’s an eat in creative? Or maybe not.

It’s lunch time. I think I’ll cook a sweet poTAto to go with my choice of protein. I’m not planning to go find some socks to darn.