I think part of the deal is the diet I have developed over the last fifteen years or so, which is pretty simple. I don't eat any food during the day. Nada. Nothing. I know, strange. But I'm not hungry during the day. Why eat if I'm not hungry?
These days I wake up with my morning dose of Immunocal followed by a couple cups of coffee. Then I drink water or tea all day, essentially fasting and flushing my digestive system. Every day. If I get a little hungry in the afternoon I might have a piece of fruit or a pretzel. Then I'll have a reasonable and healthy dinner and, after that, Sugar Land. Brazen. Unabashed. Glorious. Sugar Land.
There is nothing reasonable in my Sugar Land.
I can consume the equivalent of a lot of sugar. Every night. Like, I might start with a piece or two of cake. Big pieces too. Then maybe I'll have a piece of pie, fourteen Oreos and a bowl of home made lactose free ice cream. Topped off with a Baby Ruth candy bar.
Every single night.
Zoom.
I think another part of the non-diabetic equation is the fact I donate blood on a regular basis. They maintain it saves lives, which is great I suppose, but I do it for personal reasons. First of all, they're always really nice to you. I think they have to be, it must be a rule or something. I mean, they do want your blood.
Then they check your blood pressure, for FREE! Then, as long as you're healthy and everything checks out, like you haven't been sharing needles with mad cows in Botswana they stick this enormous needle in your arm and suck out a pint of red gold.
Then the most important part of the personal process begins. Your circulatory system begins what I call the "Corpuscle Hustle", working like crazy to replace that pint and essentially adding fresh new goo to the old. There are a number of health benefits to donating, although staving off diabetes doesn't appear to be one of them.
I suppose consuming all that sugar can't be too healthy. But the way I see it I should have drank myself to death a couple decades ago. Times two or three! So all this is BONUS time. And why on earth shouldn't I enjoy a little sugar during bonus time?
Speaking of enjoying sugar, here's a song called "Sugar" by Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds. Turn it up!
Sometimes it's a chore, figuring out this addiction. Making sure I'm covered. I mean, we live in the country. It's not like if I get a sugar whim I can hop in the car and be hip deep in a bathtub of tapioca pudding in five minutes. Sugar Land takes preparation.
Generally speaking, I mostly like to home make my addiction. That way I know what ingredients are going in. Plus, I make a pretty decent cake. Pie. Pastry. Pudding. I've got a screaming Tiramasu recipe, lactose free too. You'd never know the difference.
But every once in a while I don't have time to create or bake. In the kitchen that is. I also don't bake much during the summer. So then I am forced, like every other substance abuser out there, to seek my subversive pleasure on the streets. Fortunately I can find my substance in just about any dang grocery store or market on the planet. It's that available. No back alley dark dope dealings for me, my dope is right there on main street. Just like my last dope was.
This dope makes me happy too, just like my last dope did. But this dope is a heck of a lot easier on my constitution. Plus I can legally Snicker while driving.
So there I was, at this grocery store in another town. I'd never been there before, but I needed to get this, that and the other thing and it was a convenient stop. While meandering through the large chain store, I remembered there was only a small piece of pie left from the last couple nights. That wouldn't even get the train started on the way to Big Rock Candy Mountain. I needed reinforcements.
But the reinforcement needed to have the right volume and content. We were only going to be home for two more nights, so I didn't want to get a major deal, like an entire sheet cake. And I needed some variety. I can't do the same thing four nights in a row, like an entire sheet cake. Not without some other sweet input. It's imperative to mix it up. Little bit of this. Little bit of that.
I wandered by the cookie aisle. Nothing I really liked was on sale. Next door was the candy aisle, same thing. Why is all the good stuff hardly ever on sale?
Then I found the bakery department.
"Hmmh. Let's see. There's some individual pieces of cake over there. I could get two of those. Or, hey! What about a pie? Nah, a pie would be too much. But not if I rubbed some of the filling on my belly. Then it could be the right amount. Messy. But the right amount. Healthy too. There's fruit in there somewhere."
My mind scares me some times.
"A whole cake's too much volume. Half would spoil. But they're only $8.99. We're gonna be gone for two days. Maybe three. Hey, there's doughnuts over there. Wow. They're pretty good sized. Bigger than our local doughnut shop makes. That's some generous icing too. Those look good. I could get a few of those. Rub one on my belly. Let's see, how much are they? Seventy nine cents each? I could get like six of them. That could cover two nights. With the leftover pie tonight. And ice cream."
"Or, let's see, how much were those pieces of cake? OK, those would be a little more than the six doughnuts. Maybe I should just get a strudel. Those look OK. Right volume too. How much were those pies again? $10.99? AUFKM? I can make a better one for half that. Man, those doughnuts look good. Six dollars for a dozen? I'd never eat that many. But $6.00 is less than the two pieces of cake. Put together. Hell, it's even less than a whole cake. But I could never eat all of them. Could I? I'd have to, they wouldn't last four days until we came back. They'd be hard as a rock."
"I could eat maybe eight over two days. Considering the size, seven would be ideal. How much were they again? Seventy-nine cents? Times seven? Might as well get a dozen. It's only forty-seven cents more. That means I'll be paying less than ten cents each for the remaining five. So who cares if I don't eat them all?"
It's a blessing, And a curse. My mind, that is.
And so, mentally and possibly physically drooling I went on merry jaunt down doughnut lane. A dozen big beauties were cast unto my basket. Two of them were MASSIVE. Almost the size of Alabama. A fritter and an apple filled something or other. And the icing, ooh, the icing. Gobs of pretty icing. Lucky me.
My little dalliance with doughnuts began at an early age, as it should with any human child. My earliest remembrance was getting a couple on Friday nights to have for breakfast the next morning.
That was back when my parents first separated, when I was eight. Every Friday night Ma would take my older brother and I out to dinner at a local shopping mall's food court. Inexpensive international cuisine at it's finest. I think there were six different food outlets. Mexican, Italian, Chinese, German, American and Swedish. Or Kurd. I have no idea. I was eight.
We would individually choose our no where near gourmet cuisine and then meet up at a table in the big, open dining area. After dinner we would mosey over to the candy and bakery shop, where the all encompassing aroma of fresh made caramel corn was always emanating from. There we'd get a little dessert and some doughnuts for breakfast. Then we'd go grocery shopping.
That was our Friday night ritual for a couple very dark childhood years. Saturday morning doughnuts were a bright little break from Pop Tarts, oatmeal and gruel. Wonderful, frivolous, soft, warm and fuzzy objects of sweet doughy delight.
Mmmh, doughnuts.
Around the age of fifteen, when beer entered my consciousness, my dalliance with doughnuts diminished. I was getting plenty of calories and sugar from hops and barley. But then five years later my Dad and I we're heading back to the office after donating blood. Lo and behold, a Winchell's Doughnut Shop appeared.
And I said, "I don't think I've had a doughnut in about five years."
Dear old Dad pulled in and we walked out with a couple dozen doughnuts in tow. The nurses tell you to increase your food intake after donating, so we were just following instructions. Plus there were two other people back at the ranch, so it wasn't like we were being gluttons or anything. Although I think I ate six on the five minute ride back to the office. I ate another few there. The love affair was back. After I threw up, of course.
Mmmh, doughnuts.
Besides offering my gastronomic pleasure center unparalleled satisfaction, nay, jubilation, doughnuts have also played an important role throughout my life with a particular stressful, physical and hectic life event, moving. A box of doughnuts on the disorganized and cluttered kitchen counter will always ensure a safe and mostly break free move. I say mostly because if friends and beer are involved all bets are off.
Doughnut Nods:
When we were moving back to Nevada County from Oregon we discovered The Jelly Doughnut in Grants Pass, Oregon. The rows of bright, sugar sweet glorious doughy treasures beckoned like a siren's call would to a fat man in a Winnebago. Generous icing once again played a role in my selection, and I was helpless as they sashayed seductively, softly and sweetly beckoning to me. I left with a dozen then too. Just for me.
If you are ever in Portland, Oregon, you simply MUST give Voodoo Doughnuts a look. They are by far the most creative doughnut outlet I have ever had occasion to visit. Their selection is eclectic, endless and also quite yummy. They bust the mold of traditional doughnut-dom, venturing into a veritable fairy land of doughy delight.
Closer to home there's Sun's Donuts in Marysville, Ca. They offer up some truly appealing wonders of enticement. They must be doing something right, they've been there over twenty-five years.
Daily Donut, our local shop in Grass Valley is OK. I mean, they're the only game in town so if I need a fix, well, that's where I gotta go. But I've had better. Like in Grant's Pass. Or Portland.
Then there's Krispy Kreme, which has made an indelible impression upon my taste buds and tummy. What's not to love about Krispy Kreme, except maybe an expanding waste line? It's probably a good thing the closest one is about forty miles away.
Brief Doughnut History:
Doughnuts date back to the mid 19th century,when the crazy Dutch were making olykoeks, or “oil cakes.” These early doughnuts were simply balls of cake
fried in pork fat until golden brown. Because the center of the cake did
not cook as fast as the outside, the cakes were sometimes stuffed with
fruit, nuts, or other fillings that did not require cooking. Hence dough nut.
Doughnuts, of course, have no significant nutritional value. Unless, of course, we're talking jelly filled. Cause, you know, there's fruit in there somewhere. Or cream filled. Cause there's dairy in there. I don't think there's much fiber and there probably shouldn't be. A whole wheat doughnut does not sound good.
Neither do plain cake doughnuts. Why bother? If you're going in you might as well get all lathered up, right? I'm getting the biggest one with the most icing. Period.
That kind of goes along with my old cocaine rules of engagement:
1-NEVER turn down free cocaine. Unless, you know, you're over 60.
2-ALWAYS take the BIGGEST line. Don't be shy.
3-NEVER get too serious. Contrary to how you may feel after inhaling a rail of Colombian exuberance, you will NOT solve the world's problems from the living room sofa while you are higher than a kite.
People don't eat doughnuts when they're looking for a healthy alternative. They usually don't do cocaine for health reasons either. They're eating a doughnut because it takes them for a ride on the sugar train to Big Rock Candy Mountain. And fills their tummy with joy. Same thing with cocaine. Coincidence? I don't think so.
In the end I took down eight and a half of that batch. My lovely wife had a half. Three got tossed. But not before I scraped the icing off. With my tongue.
Immunocal News
Here are a couple of articles regarding glutathione and diabetes: Health Central, Diabetes Journals.
Just in case you want to boost your glutathione levels due to massive sugar intake like me, here's a link to my Immunocal site, Dave's Immunocal Site. Because, as we're all slowly becoming aware, Immunocal is scientifically proven to raise glutathione levels in the body.
The
research and discovery of glutathione`s importance, and the process to
manufacture it within the body for proper circulation is relatively
recent. Its awareness has straddled both alternative and mainstream
medicine. Glutathione`s importance as an essential antioxidant is
indisputable. The health ramifications for just this one single agent,
internally promoted by proper precursors, are comprehensive and
encompassing.
Our ability to produce and maintain a high level of
glutathione is critical to recovery from nearly all chronic illness --
and to preventing disease and maintaining optimal health and
performance.
- See more at: http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/1071/101589/glutathione/#sthash.ePDz8eJU.dpuf
The
research and discovery of glutathione`s importance, and the process to
manufacture it within the body for proper circulation is relatively
recent. Its awareness has straddled both alternative and mainstream
medicine. Glutathione`s importance as an essential antioxidant is
indisputable. The health ramifications for just this one single agent,
internally promoted by proper precursors, are comprehensive and
encompassing.
Our ability to produce and maintain a high level of
glutathione is critical to recovery from nearly all chronic illness --
and to preventing disease and maintaining optimal health and
performance.
- See more at: http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/1071/101589/glutathione/#sthash.ePDz8eJU.dpufDrought
As of this date our little homestead has received just over 33 inches of rain so far, compared to the 32 inches we received in each of the last two years.. Both water tanks were filled many inches ago. We now have a little over 4,200 gallons of rain water stored.
Average annual rainfall for our neck of the woods is 56 inches. Let's hope we keep up the pace we're on!
Adventure
Yeah, I know. This post was about doughnuts, can you believe it? I promise the next post will be a little more adventurous. "My Quest for Moby Trout" or "My Search for the Moby Grail" should be forthcoming shortly. Another upcoming excursion will also be on tap for a couple posts, as will "Stairway to Oblivion" or "Why The Hell Am I Doing This?"
Hope you're enjoying a wild, wet and/or snowy winter!
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