TR SNIPPET WHAT I ATE AND WHERE

MY CHANGING CHOICES

At home I am developing a diet that eliminates carbohydrates, avoids meat and dairy, and leans organic for carcinogenic pesticide high risk foods.  I eat eggs and fish, picking the fish down the food chain and eliminate that damned Swai, and imported shrimp, both marinated in chemicals and antibiotics in those farm ponds.  At the same time  my new diet emphasizes the super foods that cut the risks of cancer, like kale.

At home it has worked pretty well and I have not felt deprived mostly because I try new foods, especially new beans from an Indian, chana dal being my best find, a bean well down the glycemic index and used around the world to control diabetes without drugs.

The diet reversed my diabetes, dropping two medicines and gives me a healthy A1C. 

It also seems to control my psoriatic arthritis and some of my psoriasis.  So it weaned me from Humira, a really heavy duty injected drug that did reverse the arthritis, but has other risks.  I can’t tell what did that, but I suspect it is the elimination of meats as they are inflammatory.

I am hoping it will keep me cancer free.  One in two men in America, one in three women at some point in their lives are diagnosed with some form of cancer.

It should help me lose weight.  It did in the beginning, but I am very bad about exercise.  That was rather disappointing, but I’ve decided that if I wind up a fat old guy with a healthy blood sugar who never gets cancer that will be enough benefit.

All the being said, such a diet is really not like being an alcoholic on the wagon.  Small tastes happen without losing the basic thrust of the diet.  I don’t find going off for a meal or having a small taste of desert a slippery slope.  At the Golden Nugget the deserts were so tempting that one time I had pecan pielike square and a small cup of flan.  Portions there are very small so waste is avoided.  Other places I just tasted a bit of what I had to take.  And my rule was always that if the taste was not fantastic, I tossed the rest of the sample.

In Vegas I found it hard to be organic because chasing those foods would put me well out of the casino areas or make me buy high end meals. 

And other food is free. 

Using comps I ate on $11 a day this trip.

My sugar stayed low and with the walking and rolling of luggage I lost the ten pounds I had gained over a sedentary winter.

 I don’t much mind buying organic at home because the added cost in the food budget is offset by not buying the expensive meats and cheeses I was used to.  Beans are very cheap, even organic beans.

However, I find it more convenient and inexpensive to eat at Vegas buffets.  There is often a huge selection of vegetables and some buffets are starting to label foods as sugar free or gluten free or even Vegan.  Often in a buffet like the Orleans or Gold Coast I can eat for free and using a veggie soup I can gather other vegetables from the various stages and add them for my own creation.  I might even gather some broth from a meat flavored soup like polosole or jambalaya but avoid the bits of meat and put in more vegetables from other parts of the buffet. While this is not a purist approach, I still reduce the inflammatory nature of the meal.

The Mongolian grills are nice as well.  I know they use oil, but I ask for less oil and sauce and hope for the best.

One of the best buffets was the Golden Nugget.  Here I could make some fine smoked salmon, capers, onions, tomatoes, horseradish.  Also there were plenty of good vegetables including some fine grilled zucchini. And the fruits went well beyond the usual hard melon.  There were piles of apples and bananas for the taking.  The pink grape fruit was delicious.  A few prunes with just a small dab of yogurt was fine. 

Two downtown places now off my favorites list are Main Street Station buffets and Four Magnolias.  It was harder to find diet friendly foods at those venues. 

That being said I did choose to go off the diet a few times. I had Ellis Island steak special one time while here. It is radically off diet because only the salad would fit in my diet perfectly, the green beans being fine but a bit high in carbohydrates so not a super food.

In spite of all the issues I have read about in this restaurant, I found the Ellis Island meal just fine.  I treated myself to mashed potato replacing that terrible gravy with a bit of aujus into which I also dipped my roll.  It was all off diet.

There was a huge list of people waiting for tables, but for some reason the woman seated solo me directly at a small table.  Perhaps it was because I was solo.  This table faced the Karaoke and for once the sounds coming from there were not the warped and twisted tones of some narcisitic drunk, but the voice of some blond woman who sang half a dozen songs.  I could see her and she sounded just fine.  So I had Ellis Island and live music as well.  On another visit I ate the apple walnut salad and found it a good meal.

I also tasted the skewered lamb at Spice Market buffet supper.  I love lamb.  They don’t offer it at lunch, but the poker buddies were going to this buffet, so lamb and shrimp tempura were my off diet treats.  And I went with two EllaCappa and Scio5153.  However the wild mushroom ragout was also a favorite.  I have to learn how to make that.

Of course, I know that food in Vegas is rarely prepared without some oil.  At home I sauté most of what I cook.  I love my new little green ceramic fry pan which does a fine job.  No sticking.  Even an egg can be made with no oil although it is not as easy as it looks on television. 

However, for getting healthy food on a low budget when traveling, Vegas is the place to go and after one day of veggies from the Orleans buffet and an off diet steak special supper at Ellis Island my morning sugar was 127. This number is not my goal of being down below 100 (which I can manage if I eat just super foods ) but plenty good enough not to be worried.

I hoped to hit an Indian restaurant, but I never did.  Next trip I am going to bring tumeric into the buffets with me, so a get a dose of its anti cancer producing value each day.  I noted that I could ride the SDX right to the Indian Oven.  I see coupons for that often.
 

For sweetener in the room I use Stevia and sometimes I manage to remember to carry the packets. 
Note that Truvia, so highly advertised, is really not Stevia. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJjjtlEvi04

I carry cinnamon and lace my coffee with it. Next trip I want to put it in a shaker.  I did not bring enough, but at the D breakfast I could replenish just by asking for cinnamon for my fruit and they would give me such a plentiful amount that I'd take some back to the room with me and use it in coffee there.

The hardest part for me when I am solo is eating more than just once a day.  Diabetics, even those not on insulin,  should eat more than once, but I am accustomed to eating in Vegas a cheap lunch buffet and then having alcohol fill me up the rest of the day.  I greatly reduced my alcohol consumption, replacing it with virgin bloody Mary’s and lots of Perrier and lime with the large bottles found at the Flamingo and Golden Nugget. I thought I would miss being drunk here, but actually it went fine and I noticed that I felt better with no after effects and less wiped when I had just a few hours sleep.  I only had alcohol about seven times this trip.

I do order virgin spicy bloody marys with olives and no ice and figure that is sort of a meal.  I have snacks in the room, seeds, nuts, fruit sometimes and make a small meal on those.

What I miss most is my daily ration of kale.

 

I took with me long lists of suggestions for healthier food in Vegas, but most required searching out places off my usual places to stay or gamble.  This trip I rubbed some toes toward being blistered, so I did not want to hike much.

I did use a Groupon at the Veggie House out Spring Mountain Road in Chinatown.

 

 

 

My middle of the road approach seemed to work well enough.  Once home I broke out the organic kale.

 

GOLDEN NUGGET

My buddies all agreed that this was not only the best buffet in downtown, but that it was well worth the additional price over Main  Street Station.  For me the decision is very simple.  Main Street Station has great food and a good ambiance, but very little in the way of vegetables or fruit, so it does not fit my new patterns of eating.

The Golden Nugget is very good for people wanting fruit.  There is a huge selection, including grapefruit and sweet pineapple, and it is all arranged separately.

One morning they served collard greens.  They did have bacon to flavor, but were very good and not overcooked.  The omelets are good as well.

At a Sunday Brunch buffet (check price) I was really well fed.  I had my favorite smoked salmon, onions, tomato, topped with a bit of strong horse radish which I should make into a creamy sauce to cut the power.

Other mornings I could not get the horseradish.

At the daily breakfast because there is no shushi, there is no horseradish.  I asked a person who was obviously in charge and he was amused and said that no one had ever asked for that before.  I explained that the smoked salmon, onions, tomato, capers was usually accompanied by a creamy horseradish sauce.  Well, some guys if they don’t already know, you can’t tell them.

I also loved finding grapefruit, including some sweet pink quarters.  They have grapefruit juice as well.  Many buffets have just hard melon for fruit.  It will do, but it not very tasty.

I tasted a crab salad and did indulge in a small cup of flan and a small slice of pecan pie.  Those desserts were very good, but perhaps I have no judgment now that I never eat dessert.

Everyone praised the deep fried shrimp.  I had a taste of that. 

I loved the grilled summer squash along with a grilled hot jalapeno pepper that needed to be eaten in small doses.

Coffee was brought to the table in a carafe and so there was no need to keep catching the waitress.  However, each time I was there I found those waiting tables some of the best in Vegas, except for on stumblebum who brought me the wrong drinks, corrected just one of them so I had to stop her from leaving, and was just in an inattentive daze.

On my last morning visit I sat with a pool view.  Going right at 7 and asking for that makes for a very pleasant ambiance.

The pattern of playing poker for the breakfast comp is one I intend to increase next year.

 

EL CORTEZ

I ate breakfast at the El Cortez café.  I had a vegetarian omelet with mushrooms, onions and peppers that was very good.  They let me substitute grits for the potato and I could have ordered the rye toast dry but I took buttered.  I had her not give me butter for the grits.  I asked and got Cholula.

 

BELLAGIO BUFFET

I had caught the 2 lunch buffet offer before it was watered down to one, so Wild Bill and I went for a feast.  The Bellagio buffet  experience was a bit less easy that the Excalibur show redemptions.  I had forgotten my confirmation number and the clerk had trouble finding my award.  But she used her own telephone and called the MLife people.  She told me I was lucky that my card was attached to my award.  Otherwise, with no confirmation number, she could not have found the award.

Wild Bill and I went in fairly early.  The tickets were line passes.  We did not intend to do the trick of staying for the supper food, but we had such a fine, long talk that we did stay that long.  Actually, I was disappointed when my lunch pickled herring was replaced with some fancier supper food, just the reverse of what folks who are stalking the crab would experience.

We stayed a long, long time.  No one rushed us.  It all was delicious and most was on my diet.

BOYD BUFFETS

 

Most of you probably know this, but for a Saphire level card, 1000 points is equal to a dollar in cashback while 600 points is equal to a dollar in food.  It pays to eat using points whenever possible.

 

I always like the Orleans buffet, but now that I am radically dieting, it seemed even nicer.  There were plenty of vegetables and fruit, a real vegetable soup, great cut up green vegetables, and even some sugar free desert choices, including a very tasty pecan pie.  The coffee was good too.  We could use the two for one buffet coupon and still pay with points.

I also like the Gold Coast buffet and I managed at Sam’s Town to find plenty in my diet to eat.

I tired Fremont again using points earned other places.  It was adequate, but I did not find it appealing enough to want to seek it out very often.  This was breakfast.  Perhaps other meals offer more variety.

 

MESKEREM ETHIOPIAN RESTAURANT

http://www.yelp.com/biz/meskerem-ethiopian-restaurant-and-market-las-vegas

I ate at the Ethiopian place near the Clarion on Convention Drive just around the corner from the Peppermill.  I visited twice.  I think the small buffet with beans and cabbage would have better suited my diet, but I ordered late one night off the menu.  I was the only tourist in the place.  It seems to be a gathering for Ethiopians who also play a fascinating Italian game on the pool table in the back  where no cues are used but the balls thrown by hand.  Points are earned when small pins in the center of the table are tipped over.  I don’t really have the rules down.  The players were very friendly and offered to have me play, but I declined.  They said they rarely play for money, but sometimes for beer.

 

 

DENNY’S DOWNTOWN

Okay, I know, I know, it is a chain with the same food as we get at home, but it looks like no other Denny’s I can remember seeing anywhere.  I was prepared not to like it, but the abstract patterns of the delightfully marigold yellow mesh that wraps around the place as well as the opportunity to eat outside, set back from the traffic of Fremont but still in view of a pretty girl or two delights me.  Besides, my mother liked Denny’s.  I did not eat there, but that is because there were just too many other choices for breakfast.

 

THAI DOWNTOWN

I looked at this menu, but I never actually made it here, probably because I just had too much free food downtown.