From Danger D. Hotrod
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Okay, first off - this task turned out be HARD. I thought it was going to be all happy-go-lucky let's eat and poop rainbows for a week, but it was really rough, especially on days that I didn't plan for. It was definitely a learning experience though, since I've stopped I'm really appreciating being able to eat whatever I want. The biggest problem for me was not being able to eat bread! Colorful foods are good but don't tend to be very filling, I was often hungry while doing this task and was seriously wishing that Brown was somewhere in the middle of the Rainbow. If it wasn't for star5 cooking many meals (and icecream!) for us, I would have probably gone insane.

You should have seen my poop on white day though - it was like all the rainbow colors from the whole week came out at once, it was seriously fucked up looking.

To sum up, this task was super fun to do, and it was also a huge pain in the ass!
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star5 says: it was a fun challenge. i have the advantage of not having a job right now and of loving cooking challenges.. also i have a new icecream maker. being vegan prepared me somewhat for this.. the ability to just say that i can't have something and stick to it. when i had time to plan it out, it was pretty easy, but when in a hurry it got harder. the first few days were pretty fun.. green was a relief.. after no green veggies for a few days my body was happy. luckily for blue day, i just happened to have a mock bluebird and a mock blue cow.. making the day much easier than i would have expected. and while it looked a bit strange, it tasted delicious. purple was a bit of a hectic day and i got hungry and got in the mindset of eating anything purple. walking to the store, i wanted to eat everything purple.. flowers, clothes, an awning.. it was taking over. luckily i restrained myself. all in all, i had a fun time, but quite happy to have no color restraints on my diet anymore.

Space Bug's Report:

This task was hard. Star5 decided the day before that she wanted to do it, and asked if I wanted to collaborate. I said yes, but I hadn't had much time to prepare or think about meal planning, which made it a lot harder. The next day I ran out at lunchtime and went to the co-op, trying not to take too much time searching for the approrpriate colored foods for that day and the next for too long so I could get back to the office. I was busy during the week pretty often too, and I realized how dependent I am on more convenient foods. I have a high metabolism, get hungry really often, graze a lot, and subsist a lot on starchy foods and quick energy stuff that doesn't take a lot of preparation, like bread and hummus. Both of those are in the prohibited brown group, along with my favorite forms of caffeine! No coffeee! Aaaaaargh! A side effect was that I went completely caffeine free for this week as well, and I drink coffee or caffeineated cola at least once almost every day otherwise. (I'm not a fan of technicolor caffeinated sodas like various Mountain Dew variants.) I was frequently hungry and frustrated with this task and would have very likely given up without the help of star5's cooking and the communal support of my collaborators on this one. On the days that I took a more active role in my participation (planned better for snacks and meals) I found I felt a lot better about things, like I had more control over my hunger and my mental state (the two are really strongly linked for me- I get really easily crabby when I'm sugar crashed.)

The experience also really dichotomized colored foods for me in terms of artificially colored crappy snack foods as opposed to straight up fruit and vegetables.

I found myself at the grocery store more often than usual, and avoiding places where I knew I'd be tempted to cheat- I didn't go meet people at the bar or the coffee shop when I could have, for instance.

We had different ways of counting "days"- Danger counted a day from when he woke up to when he went to sleep- I counted them from midnight to midnight. Frequently I'd be watching the clock at 11:45 so that I could have a snack from some previously forbidden color before going to sleep. Eating bread again when the white day came was particularly satisfying. I missed bread more than anything else. At midnight on the last day, I celebrated my return to multi-colored food with pizza and soda post midnight, and very much relished my coffee the next day.

On green day, I ended up having a really crappy and stressful day, post green curry. I bought some peppermint bonbon ice cream to make myself feel better, and it got all super melty by the time I got home. S4 asked me if I wanted some scotch to make me feel better instead, and in the most pitiful child's voice you can imagine, I pouted "I *can't*. Scotch is YELLOW." So we put some green food coloring in my glass of scotch so that I could have some. After that I started to feel better.


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Danger D. Hotrod's Rainbow Week Menu
Thursday - Red
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Breakfast
Red smoothie:
frozen cherries
cherry soy yogurt
soymilk
cranberry juice

Lunch
Tomato Soup
Fresh Cherries
Rasberry Spritzer

After Work
Cranberry Vodka
Rasberry Mousse Cake

Dinner
Red Wine
Red Pasta with Tomato Sauce
Fried Tomatoes
Red Fruit Salad (cherries, grapefruit, strawberries, dried cranberries, watermelon)
Strawberry Cherry Icecream

Friday - Orange
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Breakfast
Orange Smoothie:
peach soy yogurt
soymilk
orange juice

Lunch
Mac and Cheese
Orange Passionfruit Spritzer
Orange

Dinner
Orange Curry with orange rice
Homemade Orange Soy Icecream

Saturday - Yellow
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Breakfast
Scrambled Eggs
Lunch
Barbecue cookout with:
Yellow Corn Chips
grilled corn
grilled polenta with garlic
grilled veggies - yellow beans, curried tofu, yellow pepper, yellow tomatoes marinated in a yellow dressing
lemonade daiquiries

Dinner
Leftover Barbecue stuff

Sunday - Green
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Breakfast
Avocado Spring Rolls
Lunch
Midori Sours and Vodka Gimlets (gay pride)
Dinner
Green Salad
Green Spinach Ravioli with a Brocolli Cream Sauce (delicious!)

Monday - Blue
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Breakfast
Blueberry Smoothie
Lunch
Blueberry Soy Yogurt with Blueberries
Blue Corn Chips
Dinner
Mock Bluebird Soup with blue biscuits

Tuesday - Purple
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Breakfast
Rice Cereal with Blackberries
Lunch
Grapes
Rasberry Apple Sauce
Plum
Dinner
Borscht
Purple Cabbage, purple onion, and beet salad with a vinagrette
Blueberry Sorbet (super purple and super sour)
Grape tofu, fried purple potatoes, fried eggplant

Wednesday - White
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Breakfast
Rice Cereal with Soymilk
Lunch
Fizzy Water
Swiss and tofu sandwich on white bread with the crust cutoff. Veganaisse!
Dinner
Pasta Alfredo with mushrooms and tofu
Soymilk mixed with Kefir

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what star5 ate:

rainbow-

thurs - red
tomato soup
red beans & rice chips
tomato slices
raspberry lemonade
beet pasta w/ tomato sauce
fried tomatoes
fruit salad
homemade strawberry-cherry soy icecream
cherry juice
red wine

fri - orange
gatorade
carrot-apple juice
soy cheeze
carrot salad
raw carrots
curry rice and orange curry veggies and tofu
homemade orange soy icecraem
orange mango juice

sat - yellow
yellow salad (potato, corn, tofu, pepper, tomato)
vegan mac n' cheeze
yellow grilled veggies
polenta
con on the cob
yellow cake w/ lemon frosting
homemade pineapple icecream
half yellow banana

sun - green
green salad
green salad from whole foods
key lime soda
split pea soup
lime italian soda

mon - blue
blue tofu scramble with blue fake bacon
blue pancakes and blue syrup
blue gatorade
blue kiwi italian soda
mock bluebird and rice soup
blue biscuits
homemade blue vanilla icecream

tue - purple
grape soda
purple asparagus
fried purple potatoes
grape juice
grape flavored tofu
grape and beet flavored eggplant
borscht
purple cabbage salad
grape juice and vodka
blueberry sorbet

wed - white
inside of italian bread and vegan mozzarella
rice with vegenaise and tofu
vanilla italian soda
homemade coconut soy icecream

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What Spacebug ate:

Red:
Strawberry smoothie for breakfast
Raw red pepper and tomato soup for lunch
beet pasta, fried tomatoes, fruit salad, homemade ice cream, cranberry spritzer for dinner

Orange:
snacked during the day on baby carrots, cheddar cheese, cheese curls, orange soda, those vibrant orange peanut butter snack crackers (no photo), morning blend juice, orange curry/rice and homemade ice cream for dinner, mango spritzer

Yellow:
pasta with nutritional yeast sauce, yellow corn chips
yellow grilled veggies, polenta
star5's yellow salad, yellow cake w/ lemon frosting
homemade pineapple icecream
later went out and had fried potatoes with yellow curry sauce and a wheat ale- (no photo)

Green:
salad with spinach, green peppers, avocado, pesto dressing, green machine smoothie, green apple hard candy, green tea soda
Green thai curry (picked this restaurant because their green curry is usually INSANELY INTENSELY GREEN. This day, it wasn't so brilliant as it usually is.), veggie booty, peppermint bon bon ice cream, shot of 12 year scotch with food coloring.

Blue:
Blueberry yogurt, vanilla protein shake with blueberries, blue biscuits and mock bluebird and rice stew, blue ice cream, blue gatorade, blue corn chips.

Purple:
Berry juice, plums, grape fruit leather, fried purple potatoes, grape juice
grape flavored tofu, grape and beet flavored eggplant, borscht, purple cabbage salad, blueberry sorbet, boysenberry spritzer

White:
White bread and sheepsmilk cheese, soymilk shake, vanilla soy ice cream, white mushroom ravioli with cream sauce

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