Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Tecate, Mexico


My experience in Tecate, Mexico proved to be an easy, sugar-free week. The food provided at Rancho La Paloma was plentiful, and there was always something sugar-free, though here is what I was tempted with daily:

Breakfast: donuts, sugary cereals, cake muffins, Mexican yogurts
(I ate hard boiled eggs and fruit)
Snack Time: packaged cookies, crackers with cheese, fruit snacks, Gatorade
(I ate some sugar-free Odwalla bars that I brought from home)
Lunch: Oreos!, chocolate chip cookies
(I ate tuna sandwiches and fruit)
Dinner: for dessert every night there were a variety of Mexican ice creams, and one night a local restaurant came to cook dinner and they brought home made churros which they fried right there for us! All I could do was enjoy everyone else eating them.
(I ate extra portions of beans, rice, radishes and salsa at dinner.)

Building houses in the heat of the day led me to drink excess amounts of water and never did I crave sugar. It was strange to go through the lunch food line and look at all the melting Oreos. Overall, there was no time for food cravings. We were there with a team of great people to build homes for the poor and that's what we did. Our group built 5 houses in 3 days! The houses were donated to 5 poor families and they were given keys to their house on the third day. It was such an amazing experience. The "houses" they had been living in were shacks built with pieces of garbage and broken doors and hanging sheets. They lived on dirt floors. Garbage was everywhere, all over the hillside, coming out of their house, and scattered about by scavenger dogs who live off of the garbage. We were forbidden to feed the dogs there for some reason, but I fell in love with a red dog who looked EXACTLY like Santa's-Little-Helper from the Simpson's. He was red, and all ribs and hip bones. Every time he slowly lowered himself to the ground to lay down, his back legs and hips would clink against the jagged rock. He was flea bitten, scabbed over everywhere, and had runny, sad, but deep eyes. I fed him protein bars and tried desperately to figure out how to argue with the US border patrol to let me take him with me.

3 comments:

Annie said...

Well done on you! Your alternative food choices were downright inspiring. I am a sugar addict still trying to find that open door to enjoying sugary foods responsibly. It's just not happening. Thanks for what you are doing!

E said...

Way to go in Mexico! The melting oreos were definitely hard to resist .. especially in the late afternoon when the exhaustion was really setting in!

There was a plethora of good food too, I suppose ...

It was GREAT building houses with you! We're going to have to have a reunion :)

Rissa said...

Hi!

Thanks for stopping by my blog! I took a look at yours, as well, and I am very, very impressed, excited, and encouraged! Oh, and add excited to the list! :)

I have been considering the idea of taking refined sugar out of my diet for some time. It's always seemed like it would be quite a bit of work - but honestly, I think I'm finally ready.

To answer your question, I have loved knowing that Jack (my son) is eating such pure foods. I've almost always made his baby food (except for a few times when we used organic baby food from jars) and I LOVE how varied his diet is! He's also a very healthy baby, which I attribute to nursing (of course) and his food-related (and drink-related! No juice!) diet. So yes, it's going very well!

I read a few of your posts to my husband tonight and I asked him if he'd be willing to go sugar-free, and you know what he said? "Okay. What do I have to give up?" I actually thought he'd be against it. But honestly, it makes sense. It will set a great example for our son and future children, and I have no doubt that we will FEEL better.

I'm really grateful for your inspiration! So thank you!

And about "The Business of Being Born," I'm dying to watch it! I read about it in some of Mothering Magazine's e-newsletters and I have been meaning to get around to it for some time now. I haven't heard any reviews on it, so it's good to hear that you liked it. I'll definitely check it out.

:)