My boyfriend once asked me, “Have you ever screwed up in the kitchen? Like, have you ever made something that turned out to be totally disgusting?” He asked this as we were enjoying something or rather that I had made that night. I love to cook, and my boyfriend is a big fan of this. It works out well.
I thought about his question…”Not really”, I replied, “At least not since I’ve been old enough to understand the basics of cooking.” Sure, I’ve made mistakes, forgotten ingredients, overcooked, undercooked, and over-seasoned, but nothing has been so terrible that it hasn’t been edible, and many “mistakes” have turned out to be happy discoveries for a new spin on a dish.
Until yesterday.
Sigh. I was going to make some of my Zucchini Bluffins, but then I decided to experiment. I wanted something different, and something to use up some of the mammoth quantity of strawberries I had frozen in the freezer from the summer’s bounty. I’m not going to go into the details about the rest of the ingredients, but let’s just say I was trying to cram too much stuff into one little muffin. I popped them into the oven, and when they finished baking, I took them out of the oven and took a whiff. “Hmmm,” I thought, “these smell…weird.” I let them cool off a little before I tried one.
Upon my first bite, I wrinkled my nose. They were not what I was expecting, but maybe a second bite would be a better judge: More nose wrinkling and my tongue stuck out. Ok, so maybe these were not great stand-alone muffins, but maybe I could salvage them by using them with a spread of nut butter to mask the taste? There were so many super ingredients in there! I didn’t want them to go to waste! I thought about bringing them to work and freezing them, only to be eaten when desperately hungry. But even then, I bet that every time I ate one, I would just barely be choking it down. I would hate every minute of eating this muffin, no matter how I put it.
Then I remembered one of my favourite sayings (everybody, say it with me!): THROW IT IN OR THROW IT OUT!
…And into the compost the muffins went!
This is one of the clearest ways to express something I feel very strongly about: Don’t treat your body like a garbage can. Yeah. Cause you know who eats garbage?
Garbage monsters. And sometimes goats.
I HATE throwing away food. I am VERY careful about making sure my food doesn’t go to waste or go bad before I get a chance to make something delicious with it while it’s still fresh. I’m almost compulsive about my food economics, and can’t understand how some people throw out a crisper drawer of rotten produce and repeat the same pattern every week. However, the subject of timely food usage will be saved for another post. What I wanted to express there was that I really, really hate wasting food or throwing it out.
HOWEVER, I also refuse to turn my body into a trash receptacle, and throw unhealthy food into it just for the sake of not feeding the green bin. So, to recap: Rule #1- Body isn’t a waste bin, Rule #2- Try not to waste food.
Certain times of the year (hmmmm, I don’t know, maybe the HOLIDAY SEASON) are quite challenging for those of us who choose to focus on healthful foods. This is the time of year (and it’s starting already!) that people begin bringing in cookies and cakes to work, department stores are giving away candy canes and chocolates, and holiday parties (and associated junk foods and beverages) are filling up our calendars. Even we ourselves are guilty of contributing to the excess! During the holidays, we feel the need to stock our cupboards with sweet treats and keep bowls of chocolates on the coffee table. We invite our loved ones to our houses and stuff them (and ourselves) to the point of nausea with rich food. It’s how we show our love.
So where does all this extra food go?
Well, unfortunately, it goes into our mouths, even when we don’t really want it to. Here are some examples of common situations where we all turn our bodies into a waste disposal vehicle.
Example #1: The Waste-Not-Want-Not
This is the category that I am most prone to fall under. This person hates the site of food going into the garbage, or just feels a vague sense of guilt when every last crumb isn’t consumed. This person is challenged when they are the host of a party, and are left with mounds of leftovers at the end of the night. Because they hate throwing food out, they will keep that extra tub of ice cream, the plate of cookies, the tin of squares, and the bags of chips. They will keep these things, and eventually consume them, not because they are of especially good quality, or even because they are particularly tasty. This person will find themselves eating the stale chips and forking dry cake into their mouths just to get it over with, just to use it up. The thought doesn’t occur to them that it may be more valuable to spare their bodies this shock than to just cut their losses, throw the junk food away, and technically have wasted a few bucks.
Example #2: The Carpe Diem
This one is sooo common, and the Carpe Diem will identify themselves easily with the words, “Oh, just this once” or “Well, it’s the holidays and I’ll go on a diet when it’s over”. They give themselves an excuse to gorge themselves on treats for weeks, because, after all, it’s a limited time offer! The holidays are the only time when we are allowed to stuff ourselves with abandon, and not worry about the consequences…Right?? This person will feel almost frantic at parties and potlucks; they will want to try everything at least once. They will feel guilty each time they find themselves with a sore belly, but push the thought away with, “Just this once”.
Example #3: The Martyr
This person has the best intentions. She is often “the heart of the house”, and wants the best for her children, her husband, or her elderly parents. She eats the junk so her loved ones don’t have to. “My family shouldn’t eat this,” she says, polishing of the box of chocolates her neighbour sent. She thinks only of the people she is “saving”, but not of her own exhausted and sugar-toxic and congested internal organs. She also probably has a bit of the “Waste-Not-Want-Not” personality, because otherwise she would just toss the excess sweets. She will probably hide the goodies from the rest of her family, but allow herself to have access to the junk. Ironically, the Martyr may also exhibit the reverse: She may supply her loved ones with an endless quantity of chocolate, pop, and cookies, but deny herself. Her intention is to treat her family and see them happy, and it always comes out of love. She will say things like “I keep cookies in the house for the kids”, and even though she knows they aren’t good for anyone, she can’t help but give in to her family’s sweet tooth. She hates to see anyone denied.
Example #4: The Warrior
This is probably the male version of the Martyr (although, of course, these types may exist in either gender). This is the guy that has to maintain his tough image, lest he be ridiculed for being a wimp. He is the one that is forced to chug the beer or finish the last piece of pie. People may even contribute to his plate (I am guilty of doing this to my own boyfriend!) because they know he will finish it if they can’t. He is a hero in the form of a human garburator, and it is a role that he may be secretly proud of. Of course, his pride does nothing for his health, and he will suffer the consequences. Warriors will encourage other Warriors to compete with their consumption prowess.
We all have our reasons for eating unhealthily, or eating beyond our digestive capacity at one sitting. My intention is not to criminalize occasional overindulgence, but I want us to be aware of our behaviours. Remind yourself that there is a choice when considering that tin of cookies your sweet Aunt Bertha (the Martyr) sent to you: You can throw it in (your body, and use it like a garbage), or you can throw it out (into the actual garbage, and let the raccoons worry about their cholesterol 
). Have consideration and respect for your body and think about the effects of food before you put it into your mouth. Ask yourself “Is this food healing for me, or is it harming me?“ If you know the food isn’t good for you, you can still eat it, but don’t make up excuses. Your body doesn’t care about excuses. It will respond directly to your actions.
The holidays are tricky because we all want it to be a time of indulgence. However, limiting ourselves to just one time a year creates that frantic “limited time offer” mentality. If you tell yourself that you can indulge in moderation (in a variety of ways, not just with food) all year-long, you may find that the compulsion to orally vacuum up every cake in sight will diminish. Maybe you won’t feel like you have to eat as many pieces of pie as you can now because you’ll be on a strict diet come the New Year. Maybe you’ll start listening to your body, and it will tell you it wants a snuggle instead of a cookie, or a good night’s sleep instead of a bottle of wine. There are simpler, healthier ways to show our love to ourselves and to others.
During the holidays, sometimes even warring countries will agree to stop the combat for a moment of peace. Let’s stop the war on our bodies and create peace inside too.
Take care,
Alex
Hallowe’en is a few days away, but instead of ghouls, goblins, and ghosts, it’s threats of Swine Flu that’s keeping many of us up at night.
The swine flu is said to be more contagious than the seasonal flu because we have not yet developed a natural immunity to it. I believe this to be a very relevant argument, and ultimately, any decision is about intelligently weighing the odds. If your informed decision is not to take the vaccine, consider the following: In contracting this infection, we have two routes of entry: The mouth and the nose. Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly and don’t eat, put your fingers in your mouth or nose before washing your hands. When you’re done eating, tasting your fingers, or picking your nose (gross!), wash your hands again. These preventative measures protect us AND those around us to the spread of disease. In short, I believe we can control these routes of entry to a large extent. To the extent that we cannot, your best line of defense against any illness is this: Your Immune System.
In case you didn’t know, Integrative Medicine is a growing fusion between Western practices and alternative or complementary medicine. Dr.Weil is probably one of the best known figures of the movement. He is trained as an MD, a traditional doctor, but also applies the wisdom of holistic therapies like herbal medicine, homeopathy, body work, and spiritual influences.
In several different spots in his website, Dr.Weil highlighted the “antiviral and immune-boosting effects” of the herb. In one article in particular, he made the connection between astragalus and the H1N1 virus. While he didn’t specifically say that astragalus would cure the virus, he did note it as a method of supporting the body’s protective immune system, which of course is our most important barrier against viruses such as the swine flu.
Everybody has to dedicate a certain amount of their income to those necessary, rigid payments: rent, bills, etc. If you divide up your elastic expenses into categories like groceries, entertainment, clothes, music/books, and travel, most people will have one or two categories that tend to disproportionately drain their money.
Two and a half years later, my “entertainment” bar has plummeted, my “clothes” bar is very reasonable, and my “groceries” bar is still the tallest one in the bunch. My skin has never been better, I’ve reached my “happy weight”, and I’m slowly figuring out my tummy troubles (that one is a bit more complicated)…And gosh darn it, I’m just plain happy 
Ha.
Ingredients: This is the number one thing I do when buying ANYTHING. I turn the box over, and read the ingredients. If they’re not listed, I raise an eyebrow and put it back on the shelf. The list on the mask seemed long at first, but then I realized that both the latin names and the common names were listed [eg. Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil]. There were a few on there that I didn’t recognize, but one of the great parts about Dr.Hauschka’s website is that when you click to see the complete ingredient list for a given product, each and every single ingredient has a link to a description of what it is, what it is used for, and what products it is found in. I give the ingredients 4/5.
