Reflections

Working on some posts on stock, beef sausage, soup, and some yummy fall snacks… In the meantime, I thought I’d unload on y’all the stuff that’s been rattling around in my brain.

I’ve gone on occasional health sprees since high school when I gave up butter. My last year of college, I adopted a very low fat diet that consisted mostly of organic fruits and vegetables. I tried to avoid meat and have fish when I did eat meat. I visited health food stores, used a lot of apple cider vinegar and tofu, and ate a handful of plain almonds when I was so hungry I couldn’t go on. I slimmed down, became very self righteous, and was hungry much of the time. I was also briefly Kosher at some point, and I’ve been low-carb several times.

In December of last year I gave up dairy, sugar, and gluten all at the same time to try to help my son's reflux problems and prevent thrush. It worked; it also helped me shed the baby weight and then some. And I collected several new recipes--mostly because going without dairy was not something I'd ever tried before.

In the past year I’ve read a lot of alternative viewpoints on nutrition; the Paleo/Primal and Real Food/Slow Food/Nourishing Traditions perspectives were the ones I concentrated on the most. There’s a lot of overlap in what these different camps espouse, but there were many places they disagreed with each other. And I disagreed about a few things too just based on what I feel like my body needs (and I’m willing to really question a lot about what we “need”).

Eventually I started to go a little crazy. I wanted someone to give me the “right” answer.
I just don’t think that there is one right, tidy answer. I hate that.

This summer I finally read The Omnivore’s Dilemma (had been meaning to read it since, uh, since it was published in 2006). You’ve probably heard the author’s conclusion: Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I really resonated with his more laid back (in comparison) approach. Particularly the part about asking yourself how long a certain food has been eaten by humans and if the populations that ate this food appeared to be healthy. I’ve also been hugely guilty of what he calls “nutritionism” in the past—concentrating on a certain nutrient or superfood. I’ve always believed that we don’t know everything about what makes certain foods healthy and what synergies are at play when we eat foods whole and in certain combinations, but it’s easy to get caught up in the latest media hype.

Adam read it with me, and he liked it too, and it really helped that he was in agreement. Then we read In Defense of Food, and I took away even more about how certain cultures have developed ways of dealing with food and how far some “food” products in the supermarkets are from actual food. And I realized that I was going to have to be very careful about where our food comes from. And that I would have to cook. A lot. And since I didn't grow up with anyone from the "old country" showing me any traditional cooking methods, I'd have to figure out a lot of things on my own.

I tend to freak out about what I should be eating and end up in one of my crazy health kicks or else I’m so discouraged that I completely stop trying. I’m working on keeping an even keel now and developing healthy habits. I’m experimenting with what works for our family, and maybe it’ll give you some ideas as you try to figure out what works for yours.

À votre santé and all that.