Friday, January 29, 2010

Holier than your hamburger


So, one of the things that stops me up from making the decision to eat more healthy, is the "holier than thou" complex that I perceive in a lot of my vegan, vegetarian friends. I dont want none of that.

I'm afraid of the person I'll become if I make that choice. I was watching my boyfriend polish off his possibly fifth or sixth diet coke of the day and had this, "holier than thou" moment and I caught myself. Wait a second. Why am I doing this? Is it some sort of power trip?

It's important that I make sure that's not the reason.

I read Chapter 2 in the Self Healing Cookbook last night and while I enjoyed it, it felt very "holier than thou" disguised in a "go ahead! eat whatever you want" attitude. For instance, all the recipes in the book are dairy free. That's cool. Except she talks about how dairy is okay in small doses. Small doses? What does that mean?!

However, just because she lays out vague guidelines doesn't make her self righteous. In fact, the opposite could easily be argued. The more I think about this, the more I think I'm probably projecting this one. I don't think self righteousness is a prerequisite to eating healthy. But it is something I'd like to notice and not embrace.

As with anything in life, whether it's doing homework, working out, biking to work, or even drinking beer, pre marital sex, watching TV. Any action taken, I experience some type of internal struggle to calibrate myself with society. The outcome can often result in judgement. So be it. As long as I can embrace it for what it is.
So onward.

The second issue at hand is the abstinence vs. occasional treats vs. occasional slip ups. If I really make a commitment to eat more healthy and conscious and base my diet on the recipes in this book and listen to my body more, I have to make this decision.

Do I choose:

A) ABSTINENCE. Go full force. Vow complete abstinence from all the foods the "holy book" says no to.

B) OCCASIONAL TREATS. Everytime I eat a food that falls into the "expanding" or "contracting" stress categories (more on that later), I think of it as a treat. Like a dog gets a bone. Ugh.

C) OCCASIONAL SLIP UP. Aim for abstinence but allow myself to mess up every once in a while. This is the classic vegan line, "Ya, I'm vegan but I occasionaly slip up." (please god, never let eating cheese be considered a slip up in my life, let accidentally forgetting to water the plant, or killing my goldfish by feeding it pot cookies or breaking a window from throwing my friend in it out of jest, but never never eating cheese)

So to decide:

Option C feels full of stress and the whole point of the book is to regulate moods with foods. To stop swinging from extremes of fat to sugar to fat to sugar.
The theory is that these expanding and contracting foods send us on a pendulum of mood and physical extremes.
Eating more within a "middle path" allows us to live a more balanced life.

Option B seems more realistic but its finding the right amount of treats to give myself. That's going to be tough....I'll try it for now. I don't know if I'm going to be able to treat these things as treats. They will become slip ups fast. And I foresee myself spiraling into guilt.

Option A. Hmmm, couldn't do it with sex, don't think its gonna happen with food either.

Happy Friday!
Jesus is eating a hamburger ha!
Now, who's holy?!?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Wakame


So I cooked a self healing dinner last night. Fresh miso soup with unpasteurized miso, carrots, seaweed (!), kale and onions. Chard with olive oil and sesame seeds and millet.
Millet.
Tastes like grits without the scrapple.
=)
Oh and baked, dill, sea salt, olive oil basted sweet potatoes.
The whole thing took me a little under an hour.
In my new kitchen I might add.
Which is twice as small as my old one.
Sigh.
But it's mine.
The seaweed was of the wakame version.

It was so hard at first so I had to soak it in water (per Self Healing Cookbook's recommendation.) It softened rigth up and I was able to cut it.
Anyway the meal was good!
And it felt so good to eat it.
As soon as we finished eating I ran to the bathroom....
I'll spare you the details but I think it was a truly cleansing experience.
We were both stuffed. Dan was impressed.
And I've got leftovers.
Oh and the carpet is being installed in our condo today!
That's huge!!!

By the way, searching for a picture of Wakame online I found this recipe. I want to try it tomorrow:

Simple Wakame Salad

1 clove garlic, grated
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
1/2 avocado
Bragg's to taste
3 cups greens (sunflower, buckwheat, spinach, lettuce, etc)
1 cup soaked wakame seaweek
optional: tomatoes, walnuts, pecans, almonds or pine nuts

Grate the ginger and garlic. In a small bow, mash the avocado, ginger, garlic and Bragg's together. Break greens and wakame up into bite size pieces. Toss all ingredients together thoroughly.

Thank you Living Foods for the recipe
http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/wakamesalad.html

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Chipotle!

My co worker came in with Chipotle.
It smells so effing good.
The cream.
The chicken.
The....oh man...
Dying......
Chipotle is self healing, isn't it?

A Self Healing Adventure


So, its been months since I've been blogging.
Took a trip to the west coast, moved out of one apartment and into a new condo.
Dan keeps calling me homeowner. "How's it going, homeowner?" That's me. A big homeowner.
One of the nasty side effects of this whole prestigious homeowner process has been living between two houses for months. We've finally got our kitchen nearly all moved in and I'm ready to start cooking for myself again!
I found a book, "The Self Healing Cookbook" on a display of bread the other night at WholeFoods and just whimsically bought it. I'm down to the last few hundred dollars in my bank account, but nevertheless I bought it.
Read the first chapter last night and I'm excited to get started. Dan has agreed to put up with dinner in a self healing style as long as when he gets to work he can order bacon egg sandwiches and diet coke all day long. I agreed.
So in the spirit of Julie and Julia and all you vegans out there, off I go.
A self healing journey.
No coffee this morning.
Black tea and soy milk in replacement of creamer.
Had a few coffee cravings this morning but got my caffeine fix so it wasn't so bad. Just the smell. Of fresh roasted folger. KSsshhhh...
The best part of waking up is....
Ahem.
For lunch I had black bean soup. It was spicy. And good.
I had to eat an hour early though cause I was hungry. I think coffee usually suppresses my appetite.
I've stocked my fridge with greens, grains, miso paste and seaweed. (These are foundational elements to the healing)
Let it begin.