On Life As A Picky Foodie

Thankfully

It’s the last Thursday in November and my Inbox is brimming. Many people have been frantically sending emails, putting up Facebook messages, making phone calls to say things they so rarely do.  Why do we feel the need to institutionalize one day as a reminder that it is important to be thankful? Shouldn’t gratitude be an everyday occurrence?  What about working towards balance and happiness before a crisis hits or making the small decisions that can impact wellbeing at every meal, with every snack?

A few years ago, a group of us spent Christmas day feeding the homeless down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  We got to the shelter at half past five in the morning and promptly got to work peeling potatoes, boiling rice and sautéing onions.  The regulars were quite aloof, almost rude, and I wondered why. Finally, around ten a.m., when we’d finished clearing up and were making our way to leave, I asked one of the volunteer coordinators what the deal was.

“We don’t mean to be unfriendly,” she said, “it’s just that I think a lot of us wonder where all of you are the rest of the year.  It’s always the same: nobody cares for 363 days, and then suddenly Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, we have to turn people like you away.  If you really want to help, what about showing up on a random day in May?”

People often switch to a healthier lifestyle only after a serious health scare.  We suddenly appreciate our friends, family and significant others so much more when we are faced with their loss. How often do you tell those around you that you love them?

Grateful has no itinerary.  Thank you doesn’t know the difference between the last Thursday in November and a random day in May.

Let’s not pass up this wonderful opportunity to give thanks, to hug our loved ones, to send our far-flung friends an email and let them know we’re thinking of them. Let’s even try to be nice to the telemarketer who calls in the middle of dinner. 

But what about tomorrow?

As a sign of my gratitude, I am offering a free forty-five minute phone consultation about six foods I am most grateful for.  Curious?  Email me to set it up at Gabriela@thepickyfoodie.com -- they might surprise you!

P.S. Looking for a great cookbook to give as a gift?  After a wonderful meal cooked by a generous, Picky Foodie Friendly omnivore, I have chosen to focus this week’s Friday Night Dinner Blog on others: cookbooks, websites, recipes that inspire me.

P.P.S. And for those veggies and vegans out there:

When my mother broke her leg some years ago, everyone had a theory about how she could best help herself.  But she knew what she needed to do and once the operation scars had healed, she started walking.  Whenever the pain got too sharp, she walked.  When the weather made her bones feel stiff, she walked.  At first, my mother was only able to do a few minutes at a time.  But she didn’t give up.  Now, my mother walks for hours, up steep hills and through sand.  Though she was over fifty when she broke her leg – in two places nonetheless – she is in better shape than many people half her age. This tiny woman is a physical powerhouse and though she looks fragile, she could probably walk any marathon, God knows she’s trained for it.

For a while, I made fun of the fact that no matter what ailed us, my mother’s answer to everything was WALK.  If someone had a migraine, or if their stomach hurt, she would advise them to go for a walk.  When people complained about constipation or mood swings, my mother’s cure-all – a walk, of course – would be the first thing she would recommend.

Many people don’t even start down the road to health because it feels too overwhelming.  They don’t want to overhaul their diet, change their lives, give up as much time as they think they need at the gym in order to really achieve results. So they do nothing at all.

But really all it takes is baby steps, one at a time. If you feel you are drinking too much coffee, and the thought of cutting it out completely makes you break out in cold sweat, try cutting your intake by half.  Are you aware that your life is too stressful but unable or unwilling to quit your job and move to Thailand?  Why not try simple breathing techniques that you can do in the subway, or when stuck in traffic?  And guess what the best way is to sneak a little exercise into your life? Take a walk!

Baby steps can mean parking your car a little further away so you add a couple of blocks on foot.  It can mean substituting just one part of your plate with a green vegetable once a week, or reading a piece of fiction instead of a work report before going to bed.

When I was trying to decide whether to go back to school to study Holistic Health, I met a woman who had never eaten a fruit or a vegetable in her life.  She was in her twenties and unable to eat anything that wasn’t white or beige. She didn’t cook and was addicted to fast food.  I couldn’t quite believe it: she appeared in relatively good health – nothing like what I would have imagined someone with her eating habits would look like.  She quickly admitted, however, that she was hopelessly constipated and that her skin was like a deep-fat fryer.

“Don’t try and make me see what I’m missing!” she exclaimed in her charming South London accent.  It turned out that her entire family and circle of friends were driving her mad with their constant nagging.  Although they meant well, their attempts to make her see the error of her ways were having the opposite effect.  So I tried a different tactic.

“If you were to try one thing,” I asked cautiously, “what do you think it would be?”

She answered almost immediately, thereby proving that she had, in fact, thought about it – a great sign:  “Strawberries.”

“But I wouldn’t know where to start,” she continued quickly, “I mean, I wouldn’t know what to expect.”

So we sat down and walked through all the questions she had.  She wanted to know what a cucumber tasted like, the texture of a strawberry, the wetness of a tomato, what the crunch sound of an apple would feel like in her mouth.  This woman had never eaten anything that wasn’t doughy – like bread or French fries -- or solid meat (chicken breast only) or cheese.  She didn’t know what biting into a ripe peach felt like, when the skin tears to reveal the sweetness of the flesh, or that syrupy tartness of summer berries.

And I had never had to describe any of it before. It was like talking to an alien. But later that night, I got one of the most gratifying phone calls I have ever received: unwilling to share her triumph with her pushy family yet, the young woman whispered down the phone “I did it, I tried a strawberry!  I came home and went to the refrigerator and took one out and stared at it and then I just put it in my mouth.  I couldn’t think about it too much because I wouldn’t have done it, but I did it!”

“And how was it?”

“Interesting.  Strange.  But I liked it. I think I’ll try it again.”

If a baby never took that first step, it wouldn’t take the second, or the third.  But a baby doesn’t say to itself that jogging feels too overwhelming so why try at all.  On the contrary, babies are perfectly happy with each tiny foot they are able to put in front of the other.

Nervous about taking that first step on your own? Why not schedule an exploratory first session with The Picky Foodie?  For more information, email me at: Gabriela@thepickyfoodie.com (don’t forget to mention this newsletter for a 10% discount)

And don’t forget to check out the Friday Night Dinner Blog for this week’s simple recipe: seasonal vegetable stew.

A few days ago, I was talking to a waitress at a local restaurant.  We got to chatting as often happens when I have to run down my list of allergies for the first time.  Anyway, it turned out that her day job involves dietary research.  Still, when she heard my list – dairy, gluten, etc. – she couldn’t help herself and like many others have done before her, she shook her head with pity. “You poor thing,” she said as she headed towards the kitchen.

Here’s the thing: if you felt as bad as I do when I eat bread or pasta or butter or cheese, you wouldn’t miss it either.

And I do.  Feel bad.  Bad doesn’t come close to describing how I feel when I eat diary or gluten.  But people don’t seem to realize that.  In fact, one thing I have noticed is how absolutely terrible many people need to feel before they will even consider making lifestyle changes.

One woman I know pops antacids like breath mints, but refuses to give up the foods her holistic MD has told her to avoid.  Another friend has a migraine pill with every meal and swears it’s the only thing that helps.  This person laughed when I offered up the theory that maybe their junkfood-heavy diet may carry some of the blame.  

You Are What You Eat is a phrase that, in my opinion has come to mean as little as the word peace in the Middle East: while everybody’s using it, few people really mean it.  And yet, nothing could be more true.

This morning’s breakfast was digested and separated into useable bits and refuse.  The useable bits went to feed our blood, our organs, our brains – we really and truly are built up of whatever we put into our bodies.  

So why is it so difficult to start thinking of our food choices in terms of how they will and do affect our quality of life, our focus, our mental clarity, our moods, our stomach function, the lustre of our hair, the strength of our nails, teeth, willpower and lungs?

Pills can help, science is an amazing gift, doctors are imperative.  But what if I told you that more than half of the cure lies in prevention, in taking care of the building blocks, the cement you are built of, the fire in your belly, the thoughts in your head?

There’s no need to take my word for it, however.  There are simple ways to test this theory, the simplest of which is the food diary: if you want to know how a food is making you feel, make note of it.  

When I started feeling ill, I went for hundreds of medical tests.  Each test came up with a different answer, every doctor with a new solution.  One said I had celiac, another said I didn’t, while a third couldn’t quite commit and told me I have “patches” of it.  

In the end, I can tell you more conclusively than any lab.  Because I’m the one who feels the burning itch of the rashes, I’m the one who gets stuck in bed with the debilitating cramps and it is my insides that feel like someone is scraping my intestinal wall with a white-hot rake.  Does it really matter which one of the MDs is technically right in the end?

In terms of celiac, the answer is no.  While many people take medications for many ailments, an allergy to gluten can only be treated in one way: total avoidance. 

Besides, if you knew how much better I feel since cutting out gluten...

One of the first things many of my clients and I do together is work through their food diary.  Food diaries offer many insights into a person’s habits, routines and preferences and are a great indicator of how best to start our work together.  If you’d like to find out more about how certain foods can make you feel, email me at: Gabriela@thepickyfoodie.com.  

It’s difficult to stress how good it feels when you finally start feeling good again!

P.S. check out the newly updated Friday Night Dinner Blog.  Laydeez, Jents, Goats and Cabbage -- it’s time to start cooking!

Recipes.  To follow or not to follow, that is the question.

But is it really?

Many of my clients start off telling me that they are terrible cooks, that it’s a miracle they haven’t burned down the kitchen yet, that they simply can’t be bothered.  Upon further examination it turns out that these statements often mask either a fear of failure or a general disinterest in fulfilling what many people see as a dull but necessary chore.  

As we are all told in kindergarten, we each possess special gifts, inpidual strengths that are ours alone.  This is true in the kitchen as well.  For example, I get enthusiastic and overexcited; my husband, on the other hand, tends to err on the side of caution.  You should see how those attitudes are reflected in our driving styles!

When I was a child, I loved playing dress up and pretending to be someone else for a little while.  I loved physical games like hide-and-seek or tag.  Riddles and puzzles never tempted me.  My little brother excelled at games that tested his knowledge and challenged his intellect.

When we made dinner together a few Christmases ago, I had to laugh at how different our approaches to cooking are.  I get dirty, I prefer to use my hands as often as possible, I throw a bunch of stuff in a pan and hope for the best.  My brother is meticulous about everything from the placement of ingredients to the temperature of the oven to the timings of each phase in his preparation.  In the end, we both enjoyed ourselves and the meal was fabulous.    

Because who doesn’t like to play?  

If you don’t like to cook, dread the possible outcomes or are bored, why not try to figure out how to transform kitchen duties into the kind of game that best suits you?  

Are you motivated by a ticking clock and besting your previous records?  Or do you prefer to work with textures?  Do colours inspire you?  Or are you the kind of person who likes to plot and strategize?

What kind of player are you?

As children, some of us liked charades, while others preferred to solve murder mysteries or figure out how to best take over the world one country at a time.  The same is true in the kitchen: to follow a recipe or not to follow a recipe may be the question but, in my opinion, the true answer lies in finding out what makes spending time preparing food fun (other than eating it, of course).

So go ahead, play with your food!  It might offer some insights into the kind of cook you are, even if you’ve never thought of yourself as one.  

And if you want some help exploring new foods, ideas and recipes, consider getting in touch!  Let me help you spice up your culinary home life in time for the holidays.  To set up a consultation or find out more, email me at Gabriela@thepickyfoodie.com 

Click here, if you'd like to {tag_unsubscribe}.