An interesting thing happened to me, food-speaking, over the holidays. I did something I don't usually do. I ate more than a teensy nibble of cane-sugar-rich foods -- I actually ate a rather unexpected quantity of chocolate. I am not generally much of a chocolate eater, so more than a couple of chocolate chips is pretty much a lot for me. This is not the interesting part. The interesting part is that I not only immediately started to crave snacks in the evening, I also fell into a depression. One or two days of less than ideal sugar consumption, and I was truly a mess, feeling hopeless, bereft, and deeply deeply sad. It made me wonder how much of depression in general is linked to sugar consumption ... How much of the holiday related depressions are actually because people usually eat terribly during the holidays.
As you probably know, exercise is good for depression, so I started doing a daily 'peak' or 'interval' exercise session on my husband's water rower (I'm really not a gym person) in addition to my usual 20 minutes of yoga or pilates. In addition, I ran far far away from all sugar, even eating less fruit than usual, and absolutely cut out all after-dinner eating. Within a few days, I was definitely feeling much more like my pre-holiday self. No longer addicted to sugar, no longer depressed, and no longer interested in evening snacks. But holy mackeral I've been craving seaweed!
Okay, that's probably not a sentence you read all the time.
I've been making seaweed salad from wakame. Rehydrating it with hot water, draining it, then tossing it with coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, a touch of sea salt, and a few drops of sesame oil while still warm. I'm the only person in my house who wants much to do with it. My husband's interest in seaweed is limited to the nori that wraps our sushi, and my son is only good for a single piece or two. However, I could eat this from dawn to dusk, and still enjoy it.
Right now, at a time of year that it's hard to find good quality organic green vegetables in good condition, it's nice to know that I can go to my pantry and find something that not only is good for me and tastes great, the total prep time takes less than 5 minutes.
But maybe I'm just weird.
I've been reading more and more about the wisdom of limiting grain in diet. Apparently, for most people, even whole grain contributes to systemic inflammation along with sugar and refined carbohydrates. I've found it easy to decrease the quantity of grain used in our diets by baking with almond flour, pecan meal, and coconut flour.
I've also found new and interesting superfoods to add to our diets, such as maca, acai, green barley, raw cacao, goji, hemp, chia, and mesquite ... Not that any of these are new, but it's been fun experimenting with them. I have to admit that the superfood powerbars are still among my favourite quick nibble.
Something that I find interesting right now is old school vs new school ideas on nutrition. When I read the column by the registered dietician in the Globe and Mail giving people advice on health and nutrition, almost everything she says seems ridiculous to me. Up there with the belief we had back in the 1980's that dietary fat was a four letter word, and carbs were king, even if they were refined. Up there with the man-made fats of the 50's -- margarine! Up there with the belief that sugar is good energy food. I know I must have lost some of you with these statements, but the amazing thing is that fat in your diet helps you burn fat and absorb vitamins, and is necessary for all the functions of your body. Some fats like coconut oil go as far as to rev up your metabolism, clear out your arteries, and feed your brain. Among other things. Whereas sugar is stored as fat, feeds cancer cells, and now is credited with causing heart disease, and weakening the immune system.
Anyway, I wish you wonderful good health in this coming year, (and all the years to come), and I encourage you to do as much research as you can into healthy eating, no longer accepting the 'food guides' we've been coasting with since the invention of man-made oil products to spread on our white bread ... Or just keep cooking from my blog, and you'll do fine ;)
And by the way, I apologize for not posting more since New Year's soup. Which truly was delicious. We just finished it off tonight. As a break from the utterly fantastic Tomato and Chickpea soup I made a couple of days ago but haven't managed to photograph yet, thus haven't posted yet. I've made a number of things that were ... not terribly successful. They were good, but not good enough to share. I've been a little too experimental lately. Or I just need a second or third go. Or maybe I've lost my cooking mojo. Stay tuned and I'll let you know!
Finally, I thank you for reading my blog. I really am delighted that you are here -- delighted, amazed, grateful, and thrilled.
xo
-stacey
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