On Life As A Picky Foodie

The past couple of months have been a blur of boxes – packed and unpacked – shifts – mental, physical, emotional – and searching, looking, yearning for some kind of stability and, dare I say it, routine.  It’s funny that two adults needed a baby in order to have, and learn to cherish, routine.

The past couple of months have also, unfortunately lacked any kind of proper time to devote to me, my work, my writing, my Picky Foodie world.  Every night, when I sit at the computer it is to get things done so we don’t drown in administrative tasks.  And by the time I’m done with those, every part of me is completely shattered.  As a Holistic Health Consultant to myself, at that point, I recommend sleep. 

Still, so many moments that would have been wonderful to share here, have gone unrecorded.  However, today I knew I would be writing this down no matter how late it was or how tired I got.  Full-time motherhood is the hardest, most exhausting, most time-consuming job I have ever done and probably will ever do.  I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again: kids don’t come with a pause button.

But for all the challenges…

Today was a rough day.  Vida Lev didn’t sleep very much or very well and kept me up most of the night with constant demands to nurse.  It was also a day packed with activities, play dates and I needed to cook dinner to take over to a friend’s house.  When Vida doesn’t sleep, she can get grumpy (who doesn’t?).  When neither of us sleeps, well, it can get pretty trying.

I decided to take her to the park in the hopes that a little fresh air and a good run around might help.  She took off after the ball but then stopped and came running back to me in tears.  She demanded to be picked up but wanted to be let down again immediately.  Exhaustion coupled with an inability to verbalize what’s wrong.  Eesh!

Finally, she lay down on the grass and looked up at the sky.  A small smile appeared on her face.  She pointed at the airplanes, the birds.  “Ooooo” she whispered in awe of a falling leaf or a cloud.  Then she turned to look at me and patted the spot beside her. 

There we lay, staring up at the blue sky, the flutter of cotton candy clouds, feeling the chilly wind on our runny noses. 

“La la la,” she sang softly beside me.

“La la la,” I replied in a similar tone.

“La laaa,” she sang and waited.

It was my turn: “La laaa.”

“Laa laa.”

“Laa laa.”

“la la la la.”

“la la la la.”

For a magical moment, all that existed was the blue sky, the clouds, and my daughter and I singing a song together that had no words but felt like the clearest, truest love song.  Her voice went as high as it would go and then low low low.  And I followed, happy.  I felt her little hand grab my thumb.

La la la

Easy Easy Quinoa

These days, there is no time for fuss.  There is less time for dishes or planning or complications.  I thought I’d share one of our autumn favourites. (Although I’m currently no longer eating grains but that’ll be a post for another time).  It’s got greens, sweet seasonal root veg, protein-rich quinoa – this is truly a perfect meal-in-a-bowl or a fantastic nutrient-dense side dish.   And, it’s super versatile: make it with leftovers, change up the greens or grains you use, add different spices.  Or, do the whole cook once, eat three times thing.  It works, and best of all, it will keep you from missing magical moments because you were too busy in the kitchen.  

1 ½ cups quinoa

1 medium squash of choice, preferably one with edible skin (I love kabocha)

1/2 T coconut oil

4 onions

1-2 bay leaves

1 T balsamic vinegar

½ t cinnamon + ¾ t cinnamon

½ t ground cumin

pinch chilli flakes or to taste

1 bunch kale

 ¾ c raisins

water

salt to taste

Soak the quinoa overnight or throughout a work day.  Make sure you cover with enough water so it doesn’t get all soaked up. 

Drain and rinse well.

Bring to a boil in 3 cups of water.  Once it’s proper boiling, lower the flame and cook until the water is gone (around 45 minutes).

Pre-heat the oven to 350F/175C

Chop the squash into bite-sized pieces. Combine with the coconut oil and mix well to ensure pieces are ever so lightly coated.  Sprinkle with salt, ½ t cinnamon, a sprinkle of rock salt and a pinch of chilli flakes.  Roast for 45 minutes. Pull out of the over and give the pan a good shake/ stir and return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes.  The squash is ready when it is easily pierced with a fork (but not mushy). 

Chop the onions into thin strips, put in a pan along with the bay leaves and balsamic.  Cover with water and bring to a boil.  Allow to simmer, topping up the water as needed until the onions are well-cooked (around 45 minutes).  There should be no water remaining in the pan. 

Finely chop up the kale. 

When the quinoa, squash and onions are ready, combine in a big bowl.  Stir in the kale, which will be slightly “cooked” by the heat of the rest of the ingredients.  Then add the additional 3/4t cinnamon, the cumin, an additional dash of chilli flakes and lastly, the raisins.  Adjust the seasonings to taste.  

Serve warm or at room temperature.

So what can be done to help boost an underactive thyroid?

First of all, cut out the processed food.  OK, you say, but Gabriela, you would tell me to do that anyway.

Yes, you’re right.  And your thyroid is one more great reason to do so…

But what else is there?

Last week, I gave a bunch of yoga teachers-in-training a talk about nutrition during pregnancy.  Of course the question of soy came up and I had to admit that although some of my closest friends are soy-lovers, I personally consider it devil’s food.

Simply put: soy messes with your hormones.

Your thyroid is all about the hormones.

I’ll let you connect the dots.

If you have to have it, try and stick to the fermented kind like miso or tempeh.

Other foods that can inhibit a properly functioning thyroid include brassica vegetables like bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, collards, mustard greens, tatsoi and turnips.  And other goitrogens: peanuts, millet, strawberries, pears, peaches, spinach, sweet potatoes.

The good news, however, is that cooking most of the vegetables above will lower their harmful effects. 

There are the PUFAs, of course, which I mentioned in my last thyroid post.

Lastly, fluoride is a nasty little bastard that acts more or less like a poison on the thyroid.  If you drink tap water or use a tabletop filter, chances are you’re ingesting way more fluoride than you think.

And I have to say this: caffeine has been said to act as a thyroid suppressant… So much for that morning java boost!

But what am I going to eat???  And how am I going to brush my teeth?

OK, OK, don’t have a cow!

Do I go through life without broccoli, kale or sweet potatoes?  Not a chance!  Moderation, dear Watson.  Ask yourself: Is that food worth it?  Do I really want it?  Will it make me feel good? These are constructive questions to ask anyway, but keeping your thyroid in mind offers one more incentive.

If you’ve ever woken up the morning after a “good” / “healthy” meal and wondered why you feel like you’ve been hit by a fast-moving bus, maybe it’s time to check the ingredients of your dinner, as well as get a blood test to get your thyroid levels checked.

But rest assured, it’s not all bad news: micronutrients like selenium (found in Brazil nuts), magnesium (chocolate has the highest levels of magnesium of any food, but you can also try nuts, legumes, and cumin) and zinc (good sources are sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and chocolate; and for the omnivores, try oysters and lamb) are beneficial to the thyroid.  Also, sea vegetables – and especially kelp -- provide iodine, which is necessary for proper thyroid function.  And coconut oil is widely used to boost thyroid levels as well as metabolism.

As for my own thyroid?  Since removing the PUFAs from my diet (you can read more about this in thyroid part 1), I have seen a remarkable boost in my energy levels and what I affectionately called my post pregnancy camel hump has massively decreased.  What never ceases to amaze me is how quickly I feel the effects of every food decision – the good ones as well as the bad. 

P.S. Of course there is one more thing you can do to help an underactive thyroid ... Exercise.  But I'm sure you knew that already.

“My children / partner won’t eat that” is a response that I often get from clients. It’s not that they don’t want to make dietary changes, but the other people in their household will not agree to or go along with such things.

Wives fuss about their husbands’ eating habits. 
Mothers fret about getting vegetables into their children. 

Women spend hours in the kitchen making three, four, five different meals to satisfy every palate, and then worrying about getting missing nutrients in somehow.

There have been entire cookbooks written about how to “hide” foods – most notably by Jessica Seinfeld (the wife of the famous comedian) and Missy Lapine (who sued Mrs Seinfeld for plagiarism a few years ago).  Both of them advocate stealthily pureeing vegetables into every recipe so that kids (and fussy adults) won’t know they’re actually consuming healthy ingredients. 

Marion Nestle, food policy and nutrition guru rightly points out that, on the flip side, there is a trust issue involved.  How can a child (or an adult for that matter) keep believing the person making the food after they discover that ingredients they hate are being forced upon them anyway?  Personally, I would feel done over.

I’m thinking about recipes that involve beets in brownies, squash in pasta sauces, spinach in burgers.  And while these are wonderful and creative ideas, I think it is about how they are presented -- or whether they are mentioned at all.  I find the sneakiness problematic. 

When kids are involved, what is more important: nutrition or trust?

Where allergies are concerned, I think the dilemma is non-existent. And so too with food choices made for ethical reasons:

A few years ago, I went to dinner at a friend’s house.  They had my list of allergies and knew how sensitive I am to certain foods.  We enjoyed a great meal and had a lot of fun but on my way home, I started to feel ill.  I was dizzy, my stomach was upset, and a migraine soon set in.  DW called our hosts to find out whether they had mistakenly put anything in our supper that I might be having a reaction to.  The wife admitted that she had, in fact added a teaspoon of bouillon (containing yeast, gluten and sugar) to the soup.  Instead of apologizing, she remained incredulous: “It was just a teaspoon!  How much harm can that cause?” was what she said.

Other people I know who are a stealth vegans were at a dinner party once where the host proudly announced that the dinner they had eaten contained beef stock.  “But you liked it, didn’t you?” he demanded as if that was the point!

I don’t think I need expain how harmful these two events were to the friendships involved. 

There are great ways to enjoy healthy fare – it’s simply a question of figuring out how you like it. 

This week I made kale chips. It seems everyone is into kale chips these days.  Food bloggers have been raving about them ad nauseam and the market is exploding with packaged versions.  Still, the store-bought ones are never as good as the homemade version.  The first kale chips I enjoyed were whipped up by my friend, Ella from the The Regal Vegan.  They were crunchy, savoury, tasty, satisfying.  And healthy. 

Speed and ease have become of primary importance these days and these little gems are both.  (not to mention easy on the wallet!)

Kale chips are ridiculously delicious and if you google them, you’ll find that there are a million ways of flavouring them.  I kept things simple: a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, a smidgen of spicy smoked paprika.

If your partner or family has a hard time with things like kale, I dare you to whip up a batch.  Chances are, everyone will start thinking of this famous leafy green – symbol of all things terribly healthy – in a whole new way.

They’re kale, they’re crunchy, they’re in your face delicious – no need to hide anything anywhere (except maybe an extra batch for yourself before grabby fingers polish them off)

Kale Chips
(this recipe is for a baked version.  They are also a great raw snack if you have a dehydrator)

You’ll need:
-  a bunch of fresh, raw kale
-  any flavourings (options include soy sauce, salt, vinegar, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika – I recently read a recipe using cinnamon!)
-  oil (olive, toasted sesame)

*** the options are endless ***

Preheat the oven to 176 Centigrade (350 Fahrenheit)

Rip washed  kale off the stalk into large bite-sized pieces

In a bowl, mix the raw kale and the flavourings until the leaves are well-coated.

Spread in a roasting pan

Bake for 8 minutes.  Allow to cool before eating so they get nice and crispy.

Note: although these kale chips can happily be eaten on their own, they also make a great garnish in soups.  If you're missing some crunch, sprinkle some of these guys on top of a creamy potage!  For example, the spicy heat of smoky paprika provided a wonderful topping on sweet winter squash soup. 

Dear Friends;

I was recently reminded in a very real way of how important health is.  If we don’t have our health, nothing else matters.

At 2:30 on Christmas morning, my baby girl woke up screaming.  When I reached over to pick her up, her skin was burning hot and she seemed uncomfortable being touched. 

For the next eighteen hours, DW and I sponged her down, we sang to her, we read every book over and over in an attempt to get her temperature down and make her comfortable.  She was terrified, and when her fever shot up to 40.5 Centigrade (105 Fahrenheit), so were we.  We didn’t eat, we barely spoke.

It was Christmas, but the gifts we had bought for everyone, the food I had cooked for our family meal – suddenly none of it mattered.  The only thing we could think about was getting her well again.

Today, almost a week later, she is back to her self.  She is squawking, chirping, singing, happily eating her apples, oranges and broccoli.  And although neither DW nor I are particularly superstitious, we are knocking on so much wood, I’m starting to see grooves in the furniture.

Over the past seven months, I have questioned everything: Am I overdressing her?  Am I under dressing her?  Am I feeding her too much?  Too little?  Am I starting solids too early?  Too late?  Is she happy?  Am I a good mother?  Is she learning all my bad habits? 

But that day, watching my baby girl in pain, I didn’t doubt or think or analyze.  I simply did.  And feeling her settle in my arms offered a little bit of comfort. 

So here it is, dear friends, the dawn of 2011.  May it be happy, fun-filled, fulfilling, a good laugh, inspired, inspiring, beautiful, surprising.  Most of all, may it be a healthy year for you and your loved ones.

Be well and enjoy

Gabriela

P.S.  Have I mentioned green smoothies before?  Here is the one that has kept me going this week:

Juice:
1 bunch kale or cavalo nero
2 beetroots

Blend the juice with:
2 bananas
1 Tablespoon almond butter
1 T Dr. Schulze's Superfood (optional)
raw honey (optional, to taste – add 1 t at a time as the bananas make this very sweet)

The smoothie tastes very “green” so only adventurous souls should venture here, but it’ll give you energy for hours and hours. 

Dear friends;

This is the story of a little blue hat.  This little blue hat has flecks of brown and grey and beige.  It’s a soft hat, one that looks comfortable, comforting and warm.  The blue in it brings out the colours in my daughter’s eyes. 

Every night, we pull it over her head and my baby girl now knows it’s time for bed. 

This isn’t just any little blue hat, no. 

It’s the little blue hat knitted especially by Auntie V. 

When I told my family I was pregnant, my daughter’s Auntie V immediately got to work on a hat for our unborn child.  There is so much love between those stitches!

So every night, Vida smiles when she feels her little blue hat being pulled over her head.  For our part, we know it will keep her warm because her Auntie V made sure of that.

This holiday season, why not give something you’ve taken the time to make yourself?  Even a card that wasn’t composed by others counts. 

Or here’s an idea: what better way is there to tell people how much you care than with delicious, nutritious food?

Like a sweet, green smoothie.  Here’s a holiday treat to help get those greens into your loved ones (I know it’s not quite a hat, but while I’m only just learning to knit, I’ve got blending down to an art)

Green Holiday Smoothie (vanilla)
(serves 2)

Combine in the blender:

-  1 ½ cups coconut water (you can use plain water if you so desire, simply adjust the sweetness accordingly with some raw honey)

-  3 kale leaves, stalk removed

-  1 banana (peeled)

-  2 satsumas (peeled)

-  2 T almond butter

-  ¼ t cinnamon

-  1/8 t vanilla powder

blend well until smooth and the colour is uniform

The coconut water is full of electrolytes.  The kale – do I really need to talk about the kale?  The banana’s got potassium, the satsumas will give you Vitamin C and help your body with iron absorption.  The almond butter has Vitamin E, good fats, and protein.  The cinnamon is warming, the vanilla soothing and calming.

Now bring on the holidays!

Happy Chwanstmukkah everyone

With love

Gabriela

P.S.  On Life As A Picky Foodie Newsletter is taking the month of December off!  See you all in 2011!