In some recent tabloid Gary read that Billy Bob Thornton attributes his weight loss to his Raw food diet. It seems Gary celebrated his Ellen-free week by eating a steady diet of Starbucks and minibar treats, and he gained back a few pounds lost on the Gary Gulag diet. So he's on the lookout for a new overly strict diet. A Raw Food diet sounded like just the ticket.
Easy, he explained in the Starbucks, it's all food that is raw.
"Like, raw steak?" I asked.
"No, you just don't eat steak. I guess you could eat steak, but it's mainly vegetarian."
"Sushi?"
"Sure! Well, without the rice. Whatever that's called. Sashimi?"
"Why can't we eat the rice?"
"It's not raw. You can only eat food that have been heated under 98 degrees or something. That's why we can't have cheese and milk, because the homogenization process heats up the milk."
"So...no Starbucks. At least no cappuccino, because the milk is steamed, too."
"No." (Sadness.) "Oh, wait, we could have soy Starbucks!"
"But coffee is roasted."
"Damn." (Sadness.) "Oh, wait, we can use a French press."
"With green coffee beans." (Does your Starbucks have the Life of a Coffee Bean display? I had no idea.)
"Okay, so we'd drink tea. And I think we can have chocolate. We do have that tub of raw cookie dough in the fridge. And bananas! I could live on nothing but bananas! And I think you can have peanut butter!"
"How? Aren't peanuts roasted?"
"Damn!" (Sadness.) "Oh, wait! That's because they're leguuuuuuumes." (He said it just like that, like he was drunk.) "So, we could have macadamia nuts! And macadamia nut butter!"
"What would we eat it on? We can't have crackers."
"Why no crackers? Oh, yeah, raw foooooooood."
"Can we have butter with the vegetables? Like sweet corn and butter?"
"It's cold corn. Raw fooooooooood."
"So, tree nuts for protein. No raw eggs, because I'm allergic. Because there's no meat, except for Sashimi." And then we began to talk about the quake in Japan, and the radiation leak into the ocean, so that was it for sashimi.
Gary hasn't given up on the Raw Food diet. Instead, he has just made some modifications. First, if a food was never in a raw state, we can eat it, like Diet Rite White Grape Soda. There's no raw alternative to that. We don't have to wear each others blood around our necks like Billy Bob and Angelina. Now he's saying we just eat food that requires no preparation and in that respect, it is raw to us. Like we can't have frozen pizza, but we can have delivery.
I suppose the idea of eating regular food, but in smaller quantities and with a green salad and drinking a glass of water before meals never came up.
No, no. That would be far too simple for Gary and would involve no tortured or convoluted thought processes.
Sometimes, I really am glad not to be married anymore.
Posted by: Becs | July 19, 2007 at 05:09 AM
By the time I got to "we can't have frozen pizza but we can have delivery" I was cry-laughing so hard, someone rushed to my office to make sure I was okay.
Posted by: Christy | July 19, 2007 at 09:04 AM
So basically, you can get rid of your kitchen, because the stovetop, oven, and microwave would make it un-raw. Sounds like a mini-fridge in the corner of the living room is sufficient.
I think you should suggest the rainbow diet to him. One week of red foods. One week of orange foods (Hot Mom can help you plan the menu), one week of yellow foods, etc.
Posted by: Caroline | July 19, 2007 at 10:15 AM
Rationalization is everything in dieting!
Posted by: judibleu | July 19, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Dude, that's so my kind of diet.
We just go to the same Mexican restaurant almost every night. :)
Posted by: ajooja | July 19, 2007 at 12:07 PM
I did the raw food thing for about a day.
I fell off the wagon HARD with some BBQ beef ribs. And some mashed potatoes. which were boiled. definetly not raw. raw is too hard.
Posted by: melati | July 19, 2007 at 04:20 PM
I did the Raw thing for about two weeks. Very gassy. And I missed cooking. All raw people do is chop and blend and dehydrate. It's not very satisfying.
I did learn a lot about the movement though - and do you know, there actually is a community of people that eats only bananas.
Gary might get a kick out of Fit for Life, which my dad did for a few months. It's about when you eat what, and careful combining. Nothing but fruit before noon, then carbohydrates and vegetables till 4 pm and you can't eat carbohydrates and protein at the same meal...or something like that. My dad didn't last, but his boss got deathly skinny on it.
Posted by: | July 19, 2007 at 05:22 PM
Becs – Oh, Gary’s not that bad. I was looking forward to it, because it would be a game. A game I could win.
Christy – Oh, sure, cry-laugh at my pain.
Caroline – My Mom pointed out to Michael D_____, college sweetheart, that all the foods he liked were brown or beige.
judibleu – You know of course chocolate is a protein because it was a bean, and beans have protein.
ajooja – yeah, so it’s all raw to you. Plus, there is salsa and that’s all legitimately raw.
melati – Mmmmmm. I’m having SNOOTS Saturday. Pork snoots, not beef snoots.
- Yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff about enzymes on wikipedia. I think one of my friends tried Fit for Life. Of course, since Gary has epilepsy he might be turned off by the name.
Posted by: TheQueen | July 19, 2007 at 07:14 PM
"...Fit for Life. Of course, since Gary has epilepsy he might be turned off by the name."
(*more cry-lauging*)
You have to stop doing this to me, Ellen, my co-workers are beginning to think I need to be institutionalized.
Posted by: Christy | July 20, 2007 at 09:33 AM
Credit where credit is due, my friend. I called you from the car in the rain to relay a commercial when I heard a restaurant advertising that they serve snoots. Of course, while I support your quest for snoots, I will NOT join you while you eat them. I just can't watch that.
Posted by: Caroline | July 20, 2007 at 09:48 AM
Christy - epilepsy is a very serious disorder. You should be ashamed of laughing at Gary's pain. I think - Bwhwwahahahahaha! I can even type that with a staright face.
Caroline - Snoots are on for this weekend.
Posted by: TheQueen | July 20, 2007 at 10:32 PM