New Eats

I've been in a massive food rut for the past couple of weeks.  It's been salad after salad after salad.  And while I absolutely love and adore massive amounts of veggies, I'm getting bored of the same meal.  So one of my coworkers told me about Bragg Liquid Aminos which he told me has a similar taste to soy sauce/tamari.  I decided to research the importance of amino acids in a healthy diet.  According to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the University of Arizona, amino acids are the building blocks of protein and proteins regulate almost all cellular activity (aka we could not live without protein).  Humans can only produce 10 of the 20 essential amino acids necessary for human life.  Therefore, humans must consume the other 10 essential amino acids EVERY SINGLE DAY from food because humans do not store amino acids.  Plants have all the necessary enzymes to produce all essential amino acids therefore the soybean based Bragg liquid is an excellent source of non animal meat amino acids.  With this knowledge, I marched off to Whole Foods and purchased a spray bottle of Bragg Liquid Aminos to create a fabulous stir fry with these other ingredients:

Tofu Shirataki Noodles, frozen stir fry vegetables, baby spinach, 1 serving lite firm tofu, and Bragg Liquid Aminos

Which became this:

I love me some aminos :)  I spritzed some Bragg Liquid Aminos on my veggies, tofu, and noodles.  I did not miss sodium packed soy sauce plus I definitely consumed the 10 amino acids that I can't produce plus the extra 6 aminos that I can produce.  I hope my proteins are happy!

Now I can eat a bowl of oats and banana every single day especially with some chia seeds and dark chocolate dreams (it's like dessert for breakfast).  But I've been getting hungry less than an hour later.  I drink plenty of water (and coffee...trust me, don't come between me and my coffee) so I don't think hydration has been the problem.  So I decided to experiment with protein powder so I searched my blogs and discovered on Jarrow Brown Rice Protein Powder from the Fitnessita:

I added 2.5 T (55 calories, 12 grams protein) plus 1 tsp chia seeds to my oatmeal mixture along with a huge banana for some fructose sweetness and potassium.  I'll keep y'all posted how the protein powder effects my morning hunger.

Do you ever fall into a food rut and how do you climb out?  Any suggestions for filling additions to my oatmeal?