Intuitive

There are different kinds of healthful eaters and I fall into a category that doesn't eat kale. That's actually not true. I eat kale whenever it suits me, which just happens to be rarely. I had a really bad experience with it once so I'm gun shy. What can I say? I'm not a tree-eater. Anything that reminds me of grass or trees isn't going to get my love, unless it's contained holistically in some dish that I enjoy.

I do like quite a few vegetables and vary them in my diet but, honestly, if you ask me about my food impetus, they don't rate. They're a pleasant accompaniment, a reprieve from the substantial.

Moreover, while I believe in eating vegetables for health (though I'm only motivated by desire), and while I know we need to treat this world better and consume less meat, I eat it or fish/seafood pretty much daily, in small amounts.

I'm effectively a person who doesn't eat sugar, processed food, beans (though I flirt with these because I like them) and grains of any description. My wine consumption is regulated, but I've hit a sweet spot.  Oh, and it happens that I'm not super into vegetables.

These factors can coexist and I am, nonetheless, a healthful eater- though some of you may be wondering wtf I actually do eat (read on). But, here's the thing, I've spent a shit ton of time over the past 6 months considering what food resonates. What food gets me off? Because, remember, when I started this thing I was beyond satisfaction.  I inhabited emptiness, or it did me, and everything was cavernously bland.

I'd been such a mess of sugar addiction that it affected my sense of taste. Sure, I'm a food discerner from way back, but there was always a fundamental disconnect between my appetite, my hunger - and the needs of my autonomic body. I was driven by an irrational, semi-regular compulsion to eat sugar in whatever form was easiest.

It sounds really bad when I put it that way...

So I made a decision. In my new landscape, I would only eat food that I want. If the thrill was elusive, my job was to find it. I've undertaken this with sincerity :-)

Foods I love to eat and so I eat them pretty well as much as I want, as often as I want (and I'm not known for my moderation):

• Full fat dairy, theoretically, in unrestricted amounts (but I must remain mindful, in the scheme of things, to ingest this food group in balance with the others - because I could eat only dairy for the rest of my life and, let's face it, that wouldn't really be smart): butter, cream, yogurt, cheese, milk... Cream is my perfect dairy. Sometimes I drink 4 oz of heavy cream at a go, in one form or another. Dairy has a notable effect on my mood, it calms me the fuck down and it makes me happy. I just have to perfect my creme patissiere without grain sugar or flour (but 1 tsp maple syrup) so I can eat it for dinner when the mood strikes - and use it in dessert, natch. With berries. It's high in good mood chemicals, protein and fat. What's not to love??

• Other oils - cuz if I'm going to eat vegetables (and I do appreciate them for their many gifts), they need to be oily. Also, oil is good on or in everything.

• The coconut in all it's forms, but particularly the cream and oil (notice a trend?).

• Meats that are on the more raw vs more cooked side. Preferably salty and saucy.

• Potatoes - but not in large quantities and generally smothered in some sort of fat (or rich sauce). I particularly love roasted and mashed.

• Cacao/Cocoa/Chocolate - Also ridiculous mood enhancer. It tastes like earth and when you mix it with fat, it's soporific. But without sugar, this is a totally different food than any choc bar (even the 80%).

• Pistachio nuts (and I eat other nuts but these are my faves). Really salty or spicy ones.

• Eggs for their spectacular versatility. They give richness to everything.

• Bacon. Look, let's just give this one its own line item and move on.

• Berries, pears, apples, stone fruits - the things that make the best crumbles

• Coffee and wine - in moderation, but only because if I have more than 3 shots of coffee in a day, I start to shake (sad) and when I drink booze as I used to, it makes me feel sick. Note: It would appear, though I didn't realize it at the time, that I used to drink wine as a blood sugar stabilization mechanism. Now that I don't eat sugar, I don't find wine anywhere near as biologically compelling (though it is a beautiful accompaniment to meals).

With few exceptions, I eat for texture first. That's what makes or breaks food for me and rich textures are endlessly pleasurable. Next I taste for umami. Then sweet. With sugar, I want only a tease. I love the dense, fatty, saucy things (in proper proportions). I do live in a cold climate, after all.

Also, I don't love chewing unless I'm in the mood (which is strangely infrequently in the scheme of things). What do all of my faves (soups and sauces and mashed potatoes and mince and scrambled eggs and drinking chocolate and soft cheese and vegetables sauteed in sauce) have in common? You don't have to feel like chewing in order to enjoy them. Note: This isn't about my TMJD for the most part. It's about an undercurrent of physical revulsion at the thought of eating something that must be chewed/absorbed. Yeah, I agree, it's fucking weird. I used to mask my aversion with a constant infusion of sugar and simple carbs.

I've decided not to worry about any of this. This is how I'm eating right now. It suits more of me than it doesn't suit (which is more than I can say for my former eating styles). I only eat what I want. If I desire sweet things before savoury, I eat them. If I want a quarter stick of butter in my scoop-sized mashed potatoes, I eat it.  If I want veggies braised in bacon fat, I eat them. I do not restrict salt or spices or fat or protein. I also welcome fruit and sweet-aligned foods (cocoa, wine, coffee). I pair them with the most stupidly fatty and moldy cheese I can find.

Is this low carb or ketogenic or primal, I have no fucking idea. It seems that most of my calories come from fat but nuts, fruit, veg and dairy have carbs and I eat them daily, sometimes in substantive quantities. I drink wine sometimes. I make dessert many nights of the week. I just cut the sugar almost entirely, eliminate the grain and use beautiful dairy, fruits, eggs and spices. You'd be amazed by how dessert can serve as an decadent main when you do this well. I don't know if this is healthy on paper. I know it's healthy for me.

Is it immoderate? Well, maybe, if you don't like the idea of mainlining fat, but does that matter if the end result is feeling and looking better? One could say I am exceedingly moderate about the sugar and grains. I sense I'm a vegan's nightmare.

Is this a good idea for others? Who can say? It can't hurt to try if you have mood or memory issues, an arrythmia, chronic pain or an illness caused by systemic inflammation or degeneration. Bio-available fat stabilizes the nervous system. But who can say what impacts come to those with high lipids or fat-sensitive systems? We are not all the same. We shouldn't all do the same thing.

So, today's question: What kind of eater are you? Emotional, Whole 30, health nut, gluttonous, austere - define yourself in the moment :-) and let's talk!

Health Food

I've had a pretty stressful last couple of weeks. Somehow I've persisted with this meditative eating thing, though I've gotta tell you, I'd really like a glass of wine right now...

I'm half inclined to keep going indefinitely (wine notwithstanding) but the thing I won't do tomorrow is yoga. Fourteen days straight is enough. I'm taking a couple of days off because I'm tired.

At work today, my friend brought in a few small pieces of her homemade French yogurt cake and generously handed me the ziploc in which they rested appealingly. After I bit into the third slice she said (quizzically but nicely): Oh, so you want the whole bag? Seriously, people, it was so delicious, I actually didn't feel so bad. The experience overrode any potential shame! FY cake is healthy, real food - if on the treat end of the spectrum. My friend does not enjoy gluten so she bakes with substitute flour (in this case a rice blend). I can't say I've been motivated to bake with rice flour but, given the success I've had with pie crust - and that I inhaled J's cake - I'm changing my stance.

I was so enamoured of J's cake (in loaf format) that I went to buy eggs, an organic orange (for zest) and Greek yogurt (I generally eat French-style). Turns out I had the perfect amount of brown rice flour remaining (from my crust-making over the weekend). BTW, just cuz they market it for crust doesn't mean you can't use it elsewhere...

Stupidly, I forgot that I have palm sugar and coconut sugar in the cupboard (I could have healthied it up, marginally more) but I always cut the amount of sugar in a cake recipe by 25% (except in pound cake).

Here's how you make it: Measure out 3/4 cup full fat plain yogurt, 1/2 cup oil, sea salt, 3/4 (or 1) cup of some sort of granular sugar, @1 tbsp orange zest, vanilla, 1.5 cups gluten-free flour (rice flour base), 2 eggs

Mix the dry stuff in a measuring cup. Add the sugar and zest and infuse the sugar by spoon-stirring them together in a medium bowl for a minute or so. There's alchemy in this. Add all of the wet ingredients to the sugar. Stir to incorporate. Inhale the heady scent of orange sugar. It energizes and calms simultaneously. Then add the cup with the dry ingredients. Just use a fork to work them in till the batter blends smoothly. Pour into a prepared loaf pan (prevent sticking using your fave prep method - mine's butter).

Did I mention it takes 15 minutes to make (including clean up) and then you pop it in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 F.

I swear to God, my entire house smells like the south of France in July - the muted scent of an orange-grove. What could be better? The rice flour creates a ridiculously moist, leavened cake with good, sticky crumb. I don't know how this flour would work if the recipe weren't so rich in fat, but in an oily cake, it's fantastic. Once again - I actually prefer rice to wheat flour. I have never liked its texture but now I know that there are lighter alternatives.

So here it is (but now it's gone)...

What? It's a freakin' loaf and I live with a 15 yo. And we both have PMS.

The bottom was a perfect sandy shade of tan - the platonic ideal for white cake! I added more salt than was called for. I love unexpected, crunchy zaps as I wade through the sweetness that surrounds them.

And I don't care how insane it makes me sound, this cake was soul-restoring. Each bite forged a synaptic connection with a gentle time and place. The taste and texture veritably transported one.

That, my friends, is the meaning of health food.

PS: I think you could easily make this in a spring form pan but I'd double the recipe or make it in a smaller pan (and cook for less long).

Meditative Eating

One of the things I've been doing - even in this very full work/life time span - is another one of my two week cleanses. Why now, in the middle of chaos? (Answer: Is there ever a good moment to give up sugar??) Well, if there's ever a time I'm likely to crash, it's in October. That's when I've had pneumonia (as a teenager), when I broke my foot, when I struggled with pertussis, when I got the worst respiratory flu ever. Autumn's when the chronic pain hits hardest - and when that bout that lasted what seemed like forever first set in. If I'm going to catch something, it's in the fall because that's when my immune system is down, when the workload is up and when I experience all kinds of unpleasant symptoms of inflammation.

What do I mean when I say inflammation? It's when my forearms start to hurt for no reason, when my myofascial tension flares. My tongue feels too big for my mouth. My throat swells up. My fingers swell. Sometimes, my whole body feels taut with puffiness. Before I had a kid (when I had regularly recurring canker clusters in my mouth), I'd get a batch of these. Lord, I'd have 4 sores in my mouth at any given time for weeks - one batch would go and another would arrive. (Pregnancy seems to have cured me of these, mercifully, cuz that was a long 30 years! Of course, back then, I didn't have all of the other symptoms to manage.)

I should start by saying that I don't love the term "cleanse" in the context of what I'm currently undertaking. See, this time around, I have modified the experience to be sustainable (IMO) and I think it might be more accurate to call this process - obnxiously, admittedly - a meditation on eating. Last time, as you may remember, I participated (on a whim, really) in the My Yoga Online challenge - which was devised by these yoga teachers - and I appreciated many of the features:

• Daily green smoothie or juice - check!
• Daily yoga, tailored to the rhythm of the cleanse - check!
• No booze - check (No exclamation point for this one)
• No gluten - check! (Really, I'd already been doing this one and have continued to do so.)
• An emphasis on nuts and seeds - modified check
• No processed food - check!
• Drastically reduce sugar - check (this one almost gets a frowny face, but I'm developing new aptitudes)

There were many things, however, that I found, frankly, unsuitable (draconian, one might say) - partly because the original cleanse was actually a "cleanse" (as in, moving towards 2 days of very light and clean food consumption) and, furthermore, it was geared towards the plant-loving yoga set.

Here's what ain't gonna fly for Krissie - not even for 14 days:

• No caffeine. That's just wrong. A morning double shot of espresso is delightful and I love it. Coffee isn't a gateway drug for me and I don't intend to treat it as such.
• No meat. What does one do for lunch and dinner??
• No eggs. What does one do for breakfast??
• No dairy. Um, just no.
• The increasingly restrictive format of the Conscious Cleanse - which is, as stated above, is designed to be a cleanse, not an all-the-time, "clean living" experience that moves towards fruits and vegetables only (just for 2 days - but still?!)

This time, I came up with my own plan: Meditative Eating (which isn't entirely easy but which also isn't in any way miserable) and decided to force invite two of my friends from work to participate - so that I wouldn't be lonely. They're like my chat group!: 

• Green smoothie or juice daily

• Daily Yoga - This is key and I actually devised separate practices for all three of us. Note: My friends do yoga and I convinced them to sign up for My Yoga Online for a month so that I could direct them to the chosen practices.

• No booze. Does this ever become pleasant? Say what you will (and I know that wine is straight up sugar / bad for your liver / fattening), it is the elixir of pleasure and I'm not prepared to live a life without it. Two weeks every 3 months (and then only on weekdays, the rest of the time), that I can do. Grudgingly.

• No gluten.

• No processed food.

• Practically no sugar with the exception of small quantities of seriously high quality dark chocolate, fruit and the occasional tsp of maple syrup in yogurt. I'm not going to lie - while this is MUCH easier to do this time than last - sugar is totally a gateway drug for me.

• As much protein of all the types as I'm hungry for. Nothing is off the list but I'm being really careful with nuts and seeds because, in the last year, I have experienced terrible abdominal pain and a vomit-reflex to cashews and pumpkin seeds (two things I used to eat constantly) and, honestly, it's hideously unpleasant / scary. I don't believe that I have an allergy, but I do think my system is sensitive to these foods right now, probably because - in the nut milk phase of the winter - I was mainlining all kinds of nuts and seeds. Apparently, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I want to allow my body to rebalance.

• Moderate amounts of dairy (full fat only, thank you)

• Focus on vegetables of many colours and seasonal things

• A commitment to considering my motivations when eating: Why do I want that ice cream / wine / cheesies? How can I be with the truly uncomfortable feeling of self-restraint?

What I can happily say is that, this time around, gluten's a mere blip on the radar (honestly, I don't care about it). The yoga portion of this 2 week reset is the most enjoyable part of it - especially since, this time, I designed it to suit myself. A propos of this, I have been doing mainly my own thing (rather than following online classes). My current emphasis is on long inversions (that's a post) and I've actually moved into a period of substantial activeness as the chronic pain continues to abate. Talk about burying the lede!

The fact is that I'm committed to forestalling illness - dare I say, promoting health all winter long - by boosting my immunity, and there's no better way to kick start this process than via the tried and true methods of eating well, sleeping well, moving well and being thoughtful.

The autumn is, in many ways, a terrible time. In the north, we watch our tether to the natural world erode. We live on the spoils of innovation (heat, accessible food, shelter). We feel the encroachment of cold in the bones, the visceral instability. My goal, this time around (and it's only taken 45 years!) is to be  truly mindful of every glimpse of the sun (and warmth it might bring) and to recognize that this is a recessive period. I cannot continue to march through winter as I do through the other seasons. Even as the world gears up in October, I must respect the introversion of this time of year and model my behaviour on it. Let's see how that goes, shall we?

So that's what I'm up to. Thoughts or feelings?