Aloha Friday: Food Deprivation

Last week (and the beginning of this week), I celebrated Passover.  During this holiday, I give up a lot of foods like bread, rice, corn, beans, and soy products.  This can be a tricky time as we are confined to matzo as most of our source of carbs.  It also means that favorite year round foods, such as macaroni and cheese or soy-based veggie burgers, aren’t allowed.

Of course, in many ways I’m used to restricting my diet.  While growing up, I learned about the Kosher dietary rules during Hebrew school.  One by one I decided to follow them.  First, I stopped eating milk and meat together.  This meant turning my usual bacon cheeseburger into a bacon burger.

Next, I gave up all meats that couldn’t be kosher* while eating out.  This wasn’t too hard.  Except for bacon and the occasional Chinese food spare rib, I was never a big fan of shrimp, clams, ham and the like.  Spare ribs were occasional enough that I gave them up easily.  Bacon, however, I dreaded giving up.  I expected it to be a difficult affair packed with cravings and backsliding.  Instead, I turned my bacon burger into a plain burger and never looked back.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What foods would you find difficult (if not impossible) to give up for a week?  What foods would you find difficult or impossible to give up for the rest of your life?

* To clarify, by “meats that couldn’t be kosher”, I mean meats that intrinsically couldn’t be kosher due to the animal they come from** such as ham (from pigs) and shrimp.

** For the curious, the rule for land animals is cloven hooves and chews its cud. Pigs have the hooves but don’t chew their cud; cows do both.  Therefore cows are kosher while pigs aren’t.  Water animals, meanwhile, need to have fins and scales.  Tilapia, for example, have both and are thus kosher while shrimp have neither.  Of course, while eating out, I tend to just say I am “vegetarian” since this is quicker and something most waiters will understand instead of “I have a complex set of religious rules that I follow and here they are…”

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #85