This morning, my weight was 157.6#, up 1.8# from yesterday. This was expected since I was loading yesterday.
Today, I am beginning the very low calorie phase of the hCG diet. This time, I will be following a vegan protocol.
For lunch, I experimented with the spice, asafetida. I found it at an Indian grocery store where they knew it as “hing.” I was somewhat concerned about how it might work since it is usually prepared for use by sautéing in oil. The concern is well-placed since one of the nicknames of asafetida is “Devil’s Dung.” That nickname is well-earned since a jar of asafetida can stink up one’s entire kitchen and spoil other spices kept nearby if the jar it is kept in is not air-tight. Raw, it smells quite nasty. One commentary says that it smells like rotting feet. The Jains in India like this spice because they don’t eat root vegetables. They are concerned about killing any microorganisms that might be on them. They use asafetida to get an umami flavor to their foods that would otherwise be missing without onions or garlic.
Since there is no added oil in hCG cooking, I sautéed the asafetida in a bit of vegetable broth. It worked! The smell of the cooked asafetida was actually quite lovely and rather unique. A purest probably would have skipped using onions or garlic with the asafetida, but I chose to use them anyway.
I was also pleased to discover that I enjoyed my pea protein shake.