Lack of Variety Makes a Diet Hard

Saturday, May 24, 2008

In Spain obesity is a fairly new issue. I know there has always been over weight people in every country of the world, but here it was never a wide spread health problem.

The Spanish diet is heavy on fish and olive oil. Rarely does a traditional Spanish recipe call for butter or cream, even frying they use olive oil. In fact the Mediterranean diet is considered one of the most healthy in the world.

This is a great thing! Well it's great unless you need to be on a calorie restricted diet. Because they are not used to the need of food that is light or sugar-free, they are considered specialty items. This means to buy some thing like tofu or ground turkey you need to travel, or buy an alternative of super lean cuts of beef and chicken from the butcher. In both cases your paying a premium price every time, if you can get it at all.

My only recourse in this matter is to do it myself. This means more investments I don't want to make. I need to find and purchase a meat grinder, an ice cream machine, a crock pot, a grill, and an oven. They are investments I can't afford to make, but can't afford not to.

The real down side is large upfront payments in a time when we have no income. The up side is we both enjoy to cook and they will pay for them selves over time. We can't afford to go off the diet, but we can't afford paying top dollar for meats, produce is costing enough as it is.

It's a hard decision to put out money when the wallet is tight, and it will take some deep consideration and bergen hunting to make this plausible. I will give updates as the week goes on, I need to start window shopping. If you have any suggestions on these items, please let me know. I'm quite open to on line shopping as well as going on foot to stores.