Forty Plants Challenge: Week Eight

Last Updated on July 13, 2019

Week eight was a challenging week due to insomnia, but I continue with my quest to consume as many phytonutrients as possible for gut health. Consistently waking up in the middle of the night and needing several hours to fall back asleep is causing me to eat too little during the day, typically only eating brunch and dinner.

So, in case the insomnia is connected to not eating enough and not due to the current treatment regime we’re doing, I decided on Friday night that I would get up and eat something in the middle of the night every time I wake up and can’t go back to sleep quickly to see if that would help. It’s hard to get the phytonutrients you need for gut health if you aren’t eating enough.

The new treatment of consuming large amounts of phytonutrients for gut health, which is connected with this diet and the testing and work with my practitioner that I posted about in my initial post in this series, has completely eliminated all of my pain and restored me to normal functioning with everything except the insomnia and still having to keep a casual eye towards not eating too much histamine. We will see if it has had any effect on my periods during my next cycle.

But I have returned to functioning well, no brain fog, no pain, and all of the other symptoms have left me. I can now leave the house, do housework, parent well, do my job and I have resumed living normally again.

But I have returned to functioning well, no brain fog, no pain, and all of the other symptoms have left me. I can now leave the house, do housework, parent well, do my job and I have resumed living normally again. Click To Tweet

I will continue the treatment plan carefully, knowing that my long-term adherence to consuming large amounts of phytonutrients for gut health is what will permanently change the landscape of my gut and keep it where we need it. This doesn’t mean it’s time to slack off on eating 40 plants. It means that it is time to double down and make sure I stay on the path, to keep such wonderful results going!

Sunday

After a 1:30am bedtime on Saturday night thanks to the winter homeschool formal plus having overnight guests as a result of the formal, we all slept through breakfast and had a huge brunch.

Bacon, toast, scrambled eggs, hot chocolate, pumpkin butter, strawberry preserves, coffee and more. That gave me white rice and brown rice in the toast, pumpkin in the pumpkin butter, cocoa and coconut in the hot chocolate.

Dinner was kinda forgotten in between naps.

Monday

Still dealing with insmonia on top of a messed up sleep schedule, a very late breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal with peanut butter.

Dinner was Indian Butter Chicken over rice that I boiled instead of cooking as usual, to reduce the amount of arsenic in it. The results were good, and I will continue to use this method with white and brown rice to reduce the amount of arsenic we are exposed to.

The recipe calls for garam masala, and that is a spice mix I don’t keep on hand. I used this recipe to make some.

For a snack, I had a few gluten-free pretzels and some chocolate chips.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning began with a cookie bar. We had made them the night before so the kids could eat something in the car on the way to school, and then they called a snow day. Because I slept in, I didn’t eat until noon.

For ‘linner’ we had cornbread muffins, vegan sour cream and taco soup. For the soup, I used frozen instead of canned corn, freshly cooked black, kidney and pinto beans instead of canned (and I doubled the amount of beans). I used my homemade taco seasoning mix and I skipped the ranch mix.

For the cornbread muffins, we used a mix from Bob’s Red Mill. As we are still working on using up items from the pantry, the mixes are a couple of months from expiration, so it was time for them to go.

This gave me corn, rice, cashews, black beans, pinto beans, green chilies, tomato, onion, green pepper, chilies and garlic. I put black olives on top. I would have also put cilantro on top, but we are out.

I had trouble falling asleep, I couldn’t get warm thanks to the polar blast weather, so I got up and had a big spoonful of peanut butter to warm me up. That helped me warm up. I didn’t get enough food during the day.

Wednesday

I had leftover taco soup and cornbread muffins for both lunch and dinner.

Thursday

Breakfast was chocolate chip pumpkin muffins from the freezer. These contained pumpkin, white rice and red apple.

Dinner was scrambled eggs and hash browns with a lot of freshly cracked black pepper. During the meal, I encountered what I thought was a piece of eggshell. Turns out, it was a piece of the cast iron pan!

Friday

Friday morning started with a nice Buddha Bowl for brunch. A base of cooked teff. Left to right: walnuts, finely shredded coconut, fruit compote and a mixture of almond milk yogurt and black chia seeds. Drizzled with peanut butter mixed with almond milk and sprinkled with carob powder.

The fruit compote is cherry, strawberry, blueberry, prunes, dates and cranberries.

For dinner, we had Mexican. I made chicken taquitos. It contained corn, green chilies, cumin, garlic, onion and red chilies.

The sour cream was made with cashews. We followed this recipe as written, and we like it. This recipe is our go to sour cream replacement.

The Mexican rice contained white rice, tomato, garlic, onion and red chilies. It was loosely based on this recipe.

The creamy pinto beans contained pinto beans, onion, garlic, cumin, and red chilies. I adapted this recipe and did not mash the beans. The potato masher was MIA. I used a little bit of bacon grease instead of the vegetable oil.

The cheese sauce contained nutritional yeast, garlic, onion, cumin, chilies, and turmeric. I followed this recipe, my first time trying it. I give it three out of five stars.

The salad is sunflower seeds, black olives, and the standard spinach and Spring mix that I purchase weekly. The dressing is cumin and lime. That gave me lime, cumin. The Spring greens contained spinach, green leaf lettuce, mizuna, tango lettuce, green oak lettuce, red leaf lettuce and chard greens.

I had some dark chocolate and a few pieces of ginger for a snack.

Saturday

I was up at 3am with insomnia, so I ate leftover taquitos, cold, out of hand while standiing in front of the fridge. I was finally able to go back to sleep about 7am.

For breakfast at 11am, I had leftovers from Friday’s Buddha bowl. Teff, fruit compote, peanut butter drizzle and walnuts.

For lunch at 3pm, I had leftover Mexican rice and creamy pinto beans, heated up and wrapped in a corn shell. The kids liked this well enough that this will likely become a standard, fast lunch as both the pre-made rice and the beans can be frozen. So I will make huge batches of each to freeze, put in ziplock bags containing one-meal portions, and freeze.

For dinner, we had Hoppin John. It contained black-eyed peas, carrot, celery, and onion, over rice.

I had several pieces of ginger as a snack.

Final Tally

1. White rice
2. Brown rice
3. Pumpkin
4. Cocoa
5. Coconut
6. Oat
7. Peanut
8. Corn
9. Cashew
10. Black beans
11. Pinto beans
12. Kidney beans
13. Green chilies
14. Tomato
15. Onion
16. Green pepper
17. Red chilies
18. Garlic
19. Black olives
20. Red apple
21. Walnuts
22. Cherry
23. Strawberry
24. Blueberry
25. Prune (plum)
26. Dates
27. Cranberries
28. Black chia seeds
29. Almond
30. Teff
31. Carob
32. White potato
33. Black pepper
34. Cumin
35. Lime
36. Sunflower seeds
37. Spinach
38. Green leaf lettuce
39. Mizuna
40. Tango lettuce
41. Green oak lettuce
42. Red leaf lettuce
43. Chard greens
44. Black-Eyed Peas
45. Celery

Photo credits- wsilver,  Robert Couse-Baker, Damian Gadal, and John Morgan on Flicker.