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ardysez

~ surrender to yourself

ardysez

Tag Archives: healthy eating

the comfort of food…

25 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by Ardys in Cook's Edit, Food, Health

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

comfortfood, health, healthy eating

IMG_5799Some of us eat to live. Others live to eat. I probably fall somewhere in the middle of that continuum. Influencing personal preferences are things like cultural and family rituals, environment and health. For most adults, it is one of the few things we can do in life that is totally up to us as to when, how and what we consume. But I have found, that my body and mind often disagree about what I should be eating, and that can be a problem.

In July of 2017 I quit eating grains. All of them. Not a fad or weight-loss diet, it was an informed choice—or as informed as is possible with food intolerances, which are quite mysterious. Having a psoriatic rash extending from my upper back to my legs, and periodic eczema, I was desperate to fix the problem, if possible. It had worsened over the year I was eating gluten free so that didn’t seem to be the answer…what to do? Quit grains…and then what?

After only 3 days the itching stopped. After 3 weeks the rash started to fade a bit and I was losing weight that had slowly crept on over a period of five years. It wasn’t a lot of weight, but it was stubborn and seemingly immoveable. And then it left. Not sorry to see you go! Now, some 8 months later, I am still noticing changes for the better. Not wanting to get into the very contested issues around medical versus alternative treatments of things, I will say that tests show that my blood sugar level has decreased from high to normal, cholesterol has adjusted to normal and there is a marked difference in inflammatory symptoms, such as arthritis. And more…

I still have a list of food intolerances, but have noticed that a few things seem to be digesting much better and eczema is no longer a problem. It reminds me of that movie about Benjamin Button, the one where he ages in reverse. It kind of feels like my body is returning to normal, whatever that was. It has been a long time.

I’m not on a bandwagon to tell you to eat any certain way, we are all different. I do what seems right for myself and leave others to make their own choices. My choices are informed. I read and update my knowledge continually. Be your own advocate, I say.

Perhaps the most valuable food and life lesson was told to me over 25 years ago when I began to try and heal myself. A naturopath told me ‘Make a list of all the things you CAN eat and post it on the fridge. That way, when you are hungry you will see all the available options, rather than all the things you need to avoid’. It was a lesson in perspective–food for thought, in every sense.

In recent years I’ve become very dedicated to my morning cup of coffee. Some days it seemed it was the only bright spot in the day, not that my life is horrible, it isn’t. But food and drink consumption has been a lifelong challenge and the bright spots are not always easy to come by. The siren call of morning coffee, however, seemed to take on an elevated need to satisfy. Why? I only have the one cup, and it is half-caf, that is half decaf beans and half normal beans, ground and steeped together for my morning joie-de-vivre. I even enjoy the ritual of making my pour-over coffee. In cold weather I sometimes have a second cup but it is all decaf. Yes, caffein has become something I am also sensitive to. More’s the pity. For me, coffee is a comfort. I have been drinking it since childhood, when Grandma would ask me if I wanted her to make me some of her ‘rat poison’ (instant coffee) and we would both giggle with devilish delight. She would make me a milky cup, sweet with sugar. My parents always had coffee in the mornings and so have I. Morning just doesn’t feel right without it.*

I try to understand these things but sometimes the full picture eludes me, until one day while I’m reading or listening or watching, another piece of the puzzle snaps into place. One such day happened this month, listening to the BBC Food Program about ‘comfort food’. Most people understand what that term means, but few of us would identify the same food(s) to describe it. Usually, comfort food is something that reminds you of childhood, of home, or of a special meal, person or place. Often, all of the above! For me, comfort food was Mom’s homemade stewed chicken and dumplings, pecan pie, pancakes, mashed potatoes with gravy and fried chicken…and also, milky coffee.

As I began listening to the podcast I wondered, ‘…am I going to be able to get through this?’…such was the intensity with which people recalled their comfort foods and why. Eating can be a personal pleasure for one, or hold even deeper meaning, going to the heart of family culture and tradition. Nearly all of the foods described are things I can no longer eat. But I persevered. Not one to accept a joyless diet gracefully, I am used to researching cooking methods, foods and recipes that can restore my joie while also feeding my family and friends. Recent efforts have, of course, been focused on foods without grains.

Continuing to listen, I realised my search was not only for nutritional reasons, I had also been searching for a new set of comfort foods. 

fullsizeoutput_3ee7

Slow cooked chicken and vegetable soup

Many of the old comfort foods were just not possible to recreate satisfactorily with alternative ingredients that did not include grains, or flour, as we know it. Fried chicken made with almond meal just didn’t make the grade. However, stewed chicken like Mom used to make for eating with dumplings or noodles, made into ‘Zoodle Soup’ is pretty good. It is a slow cooked chicken and vegetable soup made with zucchini ‘noodles’ (‘zoodles’) or in my case, stick shapes cut on the mandolin slicer, because I didn’t want to have another gadget in my kitchen. The zoodles remind me of the way Mom would sometimes break spaghetti into shorter pieces for soups. The soup is savoury and wholesome and what you would want if you had a cold or flu. That’s the comfort test, isn’t it? When you are sad, or sick, what do you want to eat that makes you feel better?

Russian ‘Syrniki’ or ricotta pancakes were soon to be added to my repertoire.

IMG_0871

Russian-style Syrniki, ricotta pancakes with yogurt and berries

And an ersatz English-style Muffin fills the void, when I want a crispy vehicle for butter and jam.

IMG_0916

grain free English-style Muffin with cashew butter and plum jam

My greatest triumph so far has been French-style Apple Cake. It looks and tastes like my distant memory of the real deal, and everyone who has eaten it thinks it is delicious and special, as is its namesake.

fullsizeoutput_3e7a

French-style Apple Cake

I realise I will never replicate the exact feeling of those old comfort foods because they are flavours that were established in the beginning of my life. But there is great pleasure, and comfort, in creating new dishes for this phase of my life.

So what do you want to eat that gives you comfort? Go on, I’m tough, hit me with it….

 

*(I have eliminated coffee several times over the years, once for three years, replacing with green, herbal or black tea and not found any health benefits.)

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Restraint? – hold on a minute!

24 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Ardys in Life

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

coffee, health, healthy eating, humanity, life

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!  –Mae West

Just finished the last swallow of my coffee.  It is not quite 6am and already I’m wishing I had a second cup.  But I have learned, a second cup is just not the same.  The first cup each morning is perfection, but after that, subsequent coffees simply don’t measure up. Such is the life of the addicted!

Why are most things in life like that?  It is only when you have abstained for a while that the experience is born anew.  (careful, careful… let’s not let this drift into suggestive territory…)  I can’t say I have truly learned this deep down ‘in my waters’ as the old folks used to say.  In my head I know it, but in practice I sometimes still allow myself to have the second (and third) piece of chocolate, the second cup of coffee, the second morning of not doing my exercises, in hope that a miracle of Universal benevolence will occur.

Yesterday I heard a nutritionist, whom I respect, say that in her practice she encourages people to restrain their portions and eat only when hungry.  The subject of ‘grazing’, which is a popular way of eating, came up and she said when she is working with a person who needs to gain weight, eating often is the method she recommends!! This was disappointing like the first time a boy said to me ‘I’ll call you’ and I believed him. Seriously. She went on to further say, most of us never quite feel hungry, or full, when we graze.  Apparently we need to feel those two extremes (but not too much of either) for the right chemical things to happen in our bodies to keep us in balance, weight-wise.  So where’s the damn manual?  Can’t somebody figure out this whole ‘being human’ thing, PLEASE??

green tea

green tea

It is said ‘discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most’.  Hmmm.  Right now I want the most pleasure.  Have I got it?

I used to have two cups of coffee every morning. But most days I cut out the second cup, since it is not as satisfying as the first, and I’ve replaced it with green tea.  I like green tea and I enjoy drinking it plain, no honey or lemon or anything.  So it’s virtually calorie free.  You would think, according to conventional wisdom, cutting out that 150 calories each day would see me lose weight… but it did not.  Of course some demon spawn will say, ‘Oh but you must have replaced those calories with something else’.  Well, okay, if you say so, but I am unaware if I have, and I have given it a lot of thought over cake…

My mantra, ‘Moderation, and lots of it!’

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Go for the Gado!

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by Ardys in Darwin, Food, Recommendations

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Food, Gado Gado, healthy eating, home-cooked, preserving rammed earth, rammed earth house

Phew! The house smells awful this morning.  Our ‘house doctor’ is putting the sealer on the outside to protect the rammed earth.  This has to be done usually around every 4 years.  The product we use is called Rain Coat and it is a silicon based sealer that cleans up with turpentine.  All the others we have seen are xylene based and that stuff will rot your liver!  But the Rain Coat still smells when you first put it on.

Masking

Masking

Spraying

Spraying

It takes longer to mask all the windows and doors than it does to actually spray on the sealer.  DD (Darling Donald, Doctor Don, take your pick…) uses a low pressure garden sprayer and it works perfectly.  He gives it two coats but there is very little drying time required between coats, so it is not like using acrylic paint on your walls.  He does it in the winter though, because when the air is too warm application doesn’t work as well.

We divide our domestic jobs pretty well, and some, like the gardening, we share.  Yesterday, while he was masking everything off in preparation for the spraying, I was cooking.  Well, actually, cooking is a bit of a stretch… I was steaming vegetables, making rice, and I did the tiniest bit of cooking  to make the peanut sauce.  Gado Gado is a favourite meal of ours since our earliest days in Darwin… (I mentioned it in a post a couple of months ago… Darwin-Now)

In those days I took it for granted because once a week we could go to the markets and buy it.  But then we moved to Alice 22 years ago and the only Asian food one could get here was Chinese.  So I learned to make our own Gado-Gado, thanks to Charmain Solomon, and, as you do, modified things a bit to suit our tastes and to make it a little easier on the cook.  It is not difficult, just tedious to steam all those vegetables.

And here is the end result…

Gado-Gado with rice and peanut sauce

Gado-Gado with rice and peanut sauce

I share with you my time tested, okay, modified recipe, and hope you will try it sometime.  It is fairly healthy providing you don’t smother things with gallons of peanut sauce, though that is very tempting.  The spicy peanut sauce brings all the flavours together so nicely. Thank goodness, of all the things I am sensitive to, peanut butter is not one of them!  If you want a protein component in addition to the egg and peanut sauce, cook a few chicken satay skewers on the grill, over charcoal if you can, lovely flavour!  The origins of this dish are Indonesian/Malaysian.

I’ve posted the recipe under the FOOD heading here on my blog, scroll down and you will see it.

Must go cook something so I can stop smelling turpentine…

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