When I announced my plan to eat only food sourced from IKEA for an entire week, most people had a simple reaction: "Why?" Leaving aside the two obvious answers ("meatballs are awesome" and "I'm a strange guy"), I figured the experience might actually offer useful lessons. These are those lessons.

Much of my experience in this week-long IKEA eating challenge has been one of abundance. However, as the week draws to a close, I find myself unexpectedly short of one crucial ingredient: herring.

Five days into my week-long IKEA eating experience, I have learned three things. Firstly, there's a fair degree of repetition, which I can live with. Secondly, I miss vegetables. Thirdly, drinking plunger coffee all day is not a valid strategy.

For me, meatballs are the iconic IKEA food, but past experience tells me that a lot of Lifehacker readers believe that the el cheapo hot dog sold at the Bistro are a delight not to be missed. So when I planned my week-long IKEA eating experience, I made sure to include an evening visit to indulge in some non-Swedish dogging.

On the first day of my idiotic personal challenge to eat nothing but food from IKEA for a week, I baked 62 meatballs to provide me with lunch options throughout the week. On day 3, I have to see how well a two-day-old container filled with meatballs, mash, gravy and lingonberry jam holds up.

So we've reached day 2 of my mildly insane challenge to eat nothing but food from IKEA for a week, and the first order of the day is a breakfast I have to cook myself. Unfortunately, one thing that isn't sold in the Swedish Food Market is cereal, so I'm going to need a different approach for my daily starter.