People who are new to Fasting often pose the questions: “Can I really eat ‘anything I want’ on a Slow Day?” and “What should I eat on Slow Days?” To answer those questions, I have decided to add some blog posts to show some of the foods we eat on what the world calls NFDs [non-fast days] but which, in our house, we call ‘Slow Days.’ This feature will appear sporadically. 

Now for the answers.  Can you really eat ANYTHING you want on a Slow Day? Not really. If you eat too many calories every Slow Day, you will not lose weight. There are many questions asked on the FastDiet Forum which attest to that. Once in a while you can splurge, as long as it isn’t everyday. For what to eat on Slow Days, Dr. Mosley recommends a Mediterranean Diet. As for how we eat, an example follows.

People get lyrical about muffins. On the other hand, James Beard had a dim view of them, saying “Muffins have been inordinately popular for years. I, for one, have never been able to understand why.” For a long time, I didn’t care for most blueberry muffins I ever had — they were either too much like biscuits or they were gigantic and super-sweet. Finally I found a recipe from Maine for a coffeecake with blueberries in it. Inspiration!! It struck me that this recipe would be perfect when baked as muffins. Many fine breakfasts have resulted from that recipe, and here it is:

1 cup unbleached flour, 1 cup white whole wheat flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/3 cup butter [fairly soft so it will mix], 1 cup milk**, 1 egg, 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, 1 cup blueberries [fresh or frozen — frozen are better since they don’t mush up when stirred in which turns the batter a nasty grayish-blue] **You could use buttermilk or plain yogurt instead of milk, and then you would need to add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the above ingredients.

Combine and mix all the ingredients except the blueberries. Lastly, gently stir in the berries. Put into muffin papers or greased muffin tins. NB: Do all this the night before and leave the pan on the counter, covered, ready to bake in the morning. Works perfectly. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes or so. How many muffins you’ll get depends on the size of the tins. When I use silicon cupcake forms [see right] and I get 13-15 muffins.

What isn’t eaten for breakfast is put into zipper-locking bags, as these freeze and reheat very nicely. Have a happy breakfast!