CrossFit Athletic Group

Here goes my lunch from earlier today:

Protein:

• Ham (5-6 oz.)

Carbohydrate:

• Lettuce
• Celery
• Carrots
• Canned corn
• Tomato
• Grapes

Fat

• Cashews

Cost: Roughly $2.83. 3 bucks at the most. The ham was $2.79 per pound, so this particular chunk was probably 90 cents; I used about 1/3 of the can of corn, 1/3 of the carrot shown, hand half a tomato - so say that was a dollar; the celery and lettuce probably came out to 50 cents; the grapes were probably 20 cents worth of the carton, and the cashews were probably 20 cents of the jar.

How did I eat it? Mixed it in a salad. Cashews and grapes on the side. (Also added less than an oz. of cheese.)

Notes. I am coming to realize that diets, themselves, aren't fads, and that is because they're all on the spectrum of telling us to do the same thing. What are fads are the words used to describe the diets. The most recent diet fad words I am aware of are "plant-based."

Take another look at the list above and point out which foods come from plants and which don't. In fact, it's already done for you; the ham comes from a pig, and everything listed under the carbs and fat category came from a plant. What is also worth pointing out is despite all of the plants listed there is most likely more protein in this meal than carbohydrate. So is it still plant based?

Imagine you are a food company person. Imagine you make a living off selling food to people. Imagine the more people buy your food, the more money you make. What would you call your food products?

Farmer: "Hey William, should we call our stuff Vegetarian?"

Marketing guy: "Eh, ya know Ed, that sounds kind of whimpy nowadays."

Farmer: "How about calling it Vegan?"

Marketing guy: "What kind of Lone Pine shit do you think we're on here Ed?"

Farmer: "Well for the love of parsnips Bill, all our stuff is based on plants, so we might as well just be generic and call it plant-based?"

Marketing guy: "Don't call me Bill you grade-school-diploma-waving yokel! I wear a suit and Rolex, not overalls and a... wait a minute... that might work: it's not lying, which is a good start... it doesn't have strict guidelines of an actual diet... there's nothing directly opposing meat... we can actually invent food-type products to sell for more money... I'll tell ya Ed, this might be genius. It could be vague enough that everyone might think they eat plant-based!

Look at this from a religion lens: Vegan/Vegetarian is Catholicism and Plant-based in Christianity.

How many of you reading this would call yourself Catholic? Yes, you got the sacraments when you had no idea what was going on, but do you still practice them? Do you follow all the rules you get tested on in school? Do you eat shrimp on Fridays in Lent hoping it is considered as fish?

How many of you would call yourself a Christian? Do you believe in God and Jesus? Do you believe in trying to do good for other people?

Which of the two do you think people today would be more likely to follow?

So what does this all mean? It means there is nothing wrong with having a fist-sized or more chunk of protein that came from an animal with every "plant-based" meal you eat (plant protein only counts if you're weird enough to count Eucharist as protein too). Saving enough room for meat, fish, or dairy would make your "plant-based" meal much more nutritious and filling. And, as I talked about in the previous post and contrary to popular belief, it can be done at a way lower cost than you would think.