Vegan Until 6:00 8:00!

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I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. Even hearing a group of people discuss their resolutions makes me uneasy. Resolving to give up things you love in their entirety is a path to two guaranteed outcomes: failure and unhappiness. Those are two things that I don't want to start off the new year with.

Most people will mistake my new food trend as a resolution. Timing is everything. It's not a resolution. It's merely a response to a month of excess which tops all the previous Decembers of my life. I simply found after a month-long Christmas celebration that I felt repulsed by the idea of consuming another ounce of butter, cream, beef, or otherwise fatty cooking. This usually sneaks up on me around the beginning of January but this year it reached dizzying new heights.

I recalled something Mark Bittman had talked about which I remembered as "Vegan Until 5" which was a method of remaining vegan until dinner. It turns out he actually referred to this practice as "vegan till 6." Whatever you call it, the practice remains the same: nothing but fruit, vegetables, grains, and legumes until dinner.

The practice is shockingly easy, particularly when your body is begging for a reprieve from a month's worth of dietary excess. Most people scoff and say things like, "Nate, you are skinny!" "Why would you be concerned about fat intake?" "Never trust a skinny chef!" "Whatsamatta? You no a-like a-my mama's lasagna?"

This reaction is understandable. However, this is not a diet, nor is it a means of losing weight. It's also not a political statement, a passing off of processed foods, or an attempt to save the world from the devastating affects of cow farts. It's just a sort of "necessary cleanse" to get my gastrointestinal tract to stop hating me and put me back on its Christmas card list.

With that being said today I survived on a hummus, avocado, and spinach sandwich; tea; and my old favorite the peanut butter and jelly.



For dinner tonight I started it off healthy with this salad of baby spinach, golden berries -- an ancient berry with copious amounts of antioxidants and riboflavinoids (who can say no to riboflavinoids?) -- raw almonds, blueberries, red onion, grape tomatoes, lemon, and olive oil.



The main course: a pizza with baby spinach, ricotta, roasted butternut squash, and fresh sage leaves.

And just in case I was feeling a little too virtuous for my fairly healthy day I finished it all off with a tall glass of eggnog!

Hey, that stuff isn't going to go good just sitting in the fridge!

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