Low Carb Menu at the Roth House

I was asked for my low carb menu ideas.

It's been just as tricky to cook low-carb as it was to cook without concern to carbs. This is a great place for ideas!

For breakfast, I have a few cashews and some carrots or apples dipped in almond or peanut butter. Or nothing, just vitamins. A big glass of cold water makes me feel charged and clean. I have to leave earlier; Greg handles breakfast.

The children and Greg have oatmeal or cold cereal maybe twice a week; we are still running out our storage. The other days, they have eggs, eggs with bacon, eggs with ham, eggs with sausage, eggs and spam, spam with rats, etc. Eggs are fast and yummy. Based on my research, the hype about cholesterol and fat causing heart problems is unfounded and relies on unproven theories that are just bad science and wrong. I am betting my life on it. I am going to have my annual doctor visit soon, I'll have them do a complete blood analysis and tell you how it goes.  

I pack the kids lunches every day. They get chicken nuggets, ham slices, corn dogs, tacitos, or leftovers with carrots and apples, a few nuts, cheese sticks and 100% juice box, but we are switching them to milk now. Juice is sugar water. Honestly, I think the only appropriate drinks for children are milk and water. I never put in candy or cookies. Rarely, I will put in pretzels, chips, or crackers.

I eat lunch when I get home. I actually like canned/packaged meats, like tuna, salmon, oysters, and sardines. I eat leftover chicken/roast or canned seafood with steamed and fresh veggies. Green beans, broccoli, asparagus, mixed vegetables, brussel sprouts, carrots, edamame, spinach, Romain, green stuff. Cheese. I've been craving zucchini. I end up with 1 part protein, 2 parts green vegetables, 1 part fruit, 1 part dairy.  

Dinners are trickiest, trying to please and feed and nurture all of us at the same time. Picky bunch, lately. 

I love to buy the frozen boneless skinless chicken tenders. They defrost and cook fast and taste great. With just basic salt and pepper, we like to dip em in ketchup, ranch, honey mustard. Or switch up spices for diversity. Cumin. Soy. Chipotle. Onions and garlic.

We get a thing called "Moist Brisket" pre-cooked from Whole Foods sometimes. It's pricey per pound, but one pound is sufficient to feed my little family of five when all we eat is brisket and a couple veggies (and potato salad, but potato salad is a "treat").

Good old crock pot roast.

Grilled chicken legs.

Baked frozen fish.

Sauteed shrimps are very popular here.

Then we steam or saute a bunch of veggies - mushroom, onions, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli, etc. Have some beans, grapes, raspberries, on the side because three is a nicer number of items on the plate.


We have refried beans and tortilla chips and salsa and sour cream. We might have ravioli and chunky marinara with chicken.

We snack on cashews, pistachios, jerky, carrots, grapes.


Sagan loves noodles. We add beef and broccoli to the ramen.

We are still struggling with implementing the new diet into our whole family. I am not as concerned with the
children eating more carbs than me. They run and move and jump a lot more than I do.

And that's all I really have right now.


You know how I imagine and you maybe experienced food in France? They have this fancy rich food, but just a tiny amount on the plate? And it seems ridiculous; that would never fill anyone up! Right? But it's delicious and has a lot of fat (VITAL FOR BRAIN AND HEART FUNCTION!) and you eat it slowly, savoring and you do end up feeling full.

After a Month

I always miss blogging. I want to blog every day. I want to blog EVERYTHING, every event, thought, project. Every difficult, embarrassing, funny, joyful moment.

But I really can't.

There's time. There's respecting my husband and children's rights to privacy and not embarrassing them publicly. Really, that's all that keeps me back.

I've learned a couple of new truths: your body treats sugar, soda, cake, bread, pasta, rice, fruits, and twinkies all pretty much the same way - breaks them down to simple sugar molecules, uses a little as needed and has insulin escort the rest to be deposited into your fat cells. If your body is good at storing fat, you probably are well aware. If you keep the sugar levels up in your blood by regularly eating all the aforementioned foods, your body has no need to tap into those fat cells, even if you exercise a whole whole WHOLE lot. Also, the sugar raises your cholesterol, the bad kind. It's not fat. Sugar.

Also, you don't need to eat any carbohydrates at all. Nope. Your body can convert fat and protein into energy. You don't need carbs. You can live perfectly well on protein and fat as long as you get some vitamins from plants. Fat is your heart's FAVORITE source of energy. And you know why you never hear of anyone with cancer of the heart? Because sugar causes cancer and hearts use fat. SUGAR IS KILLING US.

Today would be my little brother's 31st birthday. I no longer believe that is was a bad heart that killed him (or my dad or aunt or several others in my family). I believe it was an IGNORANT medical community that continues to tell us to eat mostly fruits and veggies and whole grain carbs and lo fat diets.

Please educate yourself on the bio-chemical interactions that go on in your body. Please know that your brain and heart, your neurological and circulatory systems, require FAT to function properly. Please note that it is NOT the bread, pasta, or rice at your dinner that makes you fill full, it is the fat. Cut out the carb entirely, and you actually fill up faster and don't even need the carbs.

Once your blood is no longer constantly circulating sugar for energy, you enter a state called ketosis where your body uses its fat stores for energy. You will feel more energetic, stronger, need less sleep.

My husband has lost 14 pounds this month and said he feels full, eating meat and vegetables. He never used to eat much in the way of veggies before, but he is now. On lo-fat diets, he said he never stopped feeling hungry. He'd try to eat normal portions, but his stomach hurt with hunger. He's better now.

What's really sad is when I'm putting out the lunches for my kids at school and the kid has a bolony sandwich on soft fluffy white bread with a thin slice of meat and a thin slice of fakey fake cheese, a bag of cheesy puffs, and a bottle of blue kool-aid. I throw the cookie in the trash (we are a no-candy school), but all the rest is sugar, too. It is no wonder that kids bounce off walls and can't sit and concentrate. Got hyper kids? Reevaluate their diets. Growing muscles, brains, and bones need protein, fat, and calcium. Water and milk are really the only appropriate child drinks. Kids (and adults) do NOT need to spike their blood with sugar all day.

I couple months ago lost ten pounds being really strict about calories and exercising a lot. Felt tired and grumpy a lot.

I lost another 5 pounds this month by eating protein and vegetables until I feel full and just living life.

I got 5 hours of sleep last night and woke up feeling fine.

Our doctors are misinformed and uninformed. Stop eating the carbs. Every bite of bread is sugar and its effects are evident all around you. Half of my immediate family is dead. I promise, you will not die without pasta or bread or any of it. But continuing to eat it not is not making you any healthier.

That's all I can really say. Educate yourself, study it out, ask God, try it out. There's a very old story where the king of Ethiopia is visiting the King of Persia. The Ethiopian King asks how long the Persians live. "80 years and all I eat is bread and drink wine!" The Ethiopian King laughs at him and says, "We live to be 120 eating meat and drinking milk." We have forgotten where we came from, I think.