{"id":9324,"date":"2013-03-21T04:02:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T04:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9324"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:55","slug":"the-food-which-perishes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9324","title":{"rendered":"The Food which Perishes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am paying the price for mentioning a new diet book to my wife.\u00a0 I saw Dr. J.J. Virgin touting her book on Rachel Ray’s TV show\u00a0one day in December when I was visiting my mom after her fall.\u00a0 At the time, Melissa was trying to avoid gluten.\u00a0 She had experienced a phantom pain in her side for a couple of years and, more recently, mysterious swelling in her leg and foot and we suspected gluten could be the culprit.<\/span>The “Virgin Diet” takes what Melissa was testing with gluten and expands it to 7 different types of food – and eliminates them all at once!\u00a0 The author maintains that even beyond the easy-to-spot food allergies that many Americans develop, there are many more food “intolerances” that are more subtle and long-term and, therefore, more difficult to link to the offending food.\u00a0 The solution?\u00a0 A grand experiment where one eliminates wheat, soy, dairy, sugar, corn, peanuts, and\u00a0eggs from the diet for three weeks and then slowly and methodically reintroduces those foods one at a time.\u00a0 With the system clear of any offending foods, when the those foods\u00a0are reintroduced, the symptoms of any intolerances should be more pronounced and then easily tied back to the trigger ingredient.\u00a0 <\/span>I say I am “paying” for introducing this book because, like the good husband I am, I agreed to do\u00a0the diet with Melissa for moral support.\u00a0 I didn’t start with\u00a0any glaring physical symptoms which might be food related, but after almost two weeks of this diet, I have to note that I am feeling generally more alert and awake.\u00a0 (I also have to note that I HAVE cheated in tiny, tiny ways … now and then.)<\/span>So once you eliminate wheat, soy, dairy, corn, sugar, peanuts and eggs, what’s left?? <\/span>Spinach. Blackberries. Salmon. Sweet potatoes. Grass. Acorns. Twigs.<\/span>Actually, there are a lot of good foods left over – the main hassle is that so much of what we absentmindedly pop into our mouths or into our recipes is processed with one or more of those ingredients.\u00a0 So substitutions get made and cooking gets simplified.<\/span>Out: Milk.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In: Almond milk or coconut milk.<\/span>Out: Butter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In: Butter ghee.<\/span>Out: Chocolate candy of all sorts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In: ?? (C’mon, there’s no substitute for chocolate! Thus, the occasional cheating!)<\/span>Out: Breakfast foods of all types.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In: “Green” shakes.<\/span>The green shakes start with water, coconut milk, green pea protein (because whey and soy proteins are off limit), a banana and a big handful of spinach.\u00a0 And they look like this:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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But only at first.\u00a0 Then they get a big handful of frozen blueberries or blackberries and they end up looking more like this:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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And they actually taste pretty good.\u00a0 You can’t really see or taste the spinach if it’s blended well.<\/span>And beyond breakfast, we’ve been eating pretty well too.\u00a0 Melissa is such a good cook that it didn’t take her long to figure out how to compensate for a rather limited list of possible ingredients.\u00a0 It’s a challenge when every menu item that is cheese-based, bread-based, egg-based or corn-based is out!\u00a0 But here’s a typical meal from a\u00a0few days ago:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n

That’s a beautiful piece of grilled salmon which\u00a0was marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, thyme, rosemary and onion.\u00a0 Fresh guacamole.\u00a0 And grilled asparagus.\u00a0 My fish was all sad and lonely without it’s usual partners (either soy-based teriyaki sauce or dairy-based tartar sauce), so it was happy to find the guacamole … which was\u00a0mourning the loss of\u00a0its corn chips!\u00a0 It turned into a lovely new relationship.\u00a0 <\/span>Our kids have tolerated the changes in diet pretty well.\u00a0 We do\u00a0still serve\u00a0them some items that are off limit to us: chips and biscuits and brownies and such.\u00a0 BUT after reading about the link between dairy and complexion issues, Melissa decided to experiment a little on the kids as well.\u00a0 They have been completely off dairy for two weeks now.\u00a0 No ice cream, no\u00a0breakfast cereal, no mac and cheese, no Parmesan on the spaghetti.\u00a0 <\/span>It’s slowly killing them.<\/span>BUT the Drama Queen’s face is now as smooth as a china doll’s!\u00a0 Until we eliminated it, we had no idea how much dairy we were consuming.\u00a0 We plan to add some back in after another week or so, but at greatly reduced quantities.<\/span>So this blog (according to the heading on the page) is supposed to be about us making progress toward the mission field … What’s this\u00a0diet stuff\u00a0have to do with ministry in Haiti?<\/span>Well, a couple of things.\u00a0 For one, with all the stresses we anticipate once we hit the field, we want to make sure we are physically fit.\u00a0 In two weeks time, I have lost 7 pounds and Melissa has lost 10.\u00a0 And we’re feeling great.\u00a0 AND the mystery inflammation and swelling has disappeared from Melissa’s leg.\u00a0 (The verdict is still out on her side pain.)<\/span>Furthermore, the kind of cooking we are doing now is good practice for cooking in Haiti.\u00a0 Even if we could get all the processed foods we are used to here, they’d be priced way beyond our budget.\u00a0 And the kids better get used to not having an abundance of dairy products to consume.\u00a0 Ice cream is a rare and special treat in Haiti.\u00a0 And the price of cheese is astronomical.\u00a0 <\/span>And finally, this diet is reminding me of what I normally experience during a Lenten fast – and so it’s reteaching me some of the same spiritual lessons:\u00a0 That we are blessed with an abundance of food while so many people around this world would rejoice over a bowl of oatmeal mush.\u00a0 That our bodies are temples and we are to be good stewards of the temple God has given us.\u00a0 “You have been bought for a price, therefore glorify God in your body.” And finally, that there are parallels between the body and the soul.\u00a0 When we feed the body junk when it’s craving protein and vitamins, we end up lethargic.\u00a0 And doesn’t the same thing happen when we feed junk to our souls?\u00a0 <\/span>John 6:27 – “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”<\/span><\/span>John 6:35 – Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am paying the price for mentioning a new diet book to my wife.\u00a0 I saw Dr. J.J. Virgin touting her book on Rachel Ray’s TV show\u00a0one day in December when I was visiting my mom after her fall.\u00a0 At the time, Melissa was trying to avoid gluten.\u00a0 She had experienced a phantom pain in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9328,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9324\/revisions\/9328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}