I had an interesting experience today. We have a family visiting us and, well, you can fault me for this, but I just decided to give them the foods they like. Weird thing #1 was grocery shopping and buying all this stuff I used to buy in my previous life, over 6 years ago--cereal and milk and ham and cheese and bread and cookies and ingredients for a spaghetti dinner. Trying to remember what the ingredients were, and searching for this stuff was as confusing as when I was first learning where the tofu and tempeh was. I made the dinner just like I did before I changed my diet, with no regard to health. Weird thing #2 was cooking meat, and then not being able to test it to verify I had the right flavorings. But I was told it was good. How can you go wrong with lots of fat and salt and meat and seasonings and cheese and butter? It is easy to cook this way. The bread was drenched in garlicy butter. Of course, that was a hit. One of the girls just wanted the garlic bread and noodles without the sauce--drenched in butter and parmesan cheese. Weird thing #3 was my reaction to the food. Part of me wanted to eat it. I know the spaghetti sauce tasted really good and I wanted some, but I don't want to eat animals. I know the garlic bread tasted really good but at the same time I was grossed out by the greasiness of the butter and it does have an overpowering smell. Wierd thing #4 was cleanup. Boy did that take a lot of soap. I was thinking, it would be good if you could do a similar cleanup to your blood vessels after eating this.
Unfortunately, a reaction to all of this was that I overate on my foods. I didn't eat regular meals at mealtimes, just ate randomly. I ate too much fruit, too many nuts, too much essene bread, a few turkish figs (they were good), what else, carrots, some cabbage, edamame with d'angou pear vinegar and chopped walnuts (that was good). I made a nice ice cream from a banana, cherries, walnuts and grape juice. I discovered that frozen mangos and peanut butter is a nice combination. Maybe that was weird thing #5. ha. Okay, so I have something to work on in my next challenge: Dealing with visitors. This was a problem for me several times this past year. Well, tomorrow is a good opportunity to get started. I get to watch them eat my old diet all day long. I will behave. I can do this.
4 comments:
Cooking SAD for family while eating for best health, myself, is my daily world. I hear you about feeling weird, in that you want the family to enjoy their meal, but you're not about to taste it yourself, to try to determine if it's right! 'Right', in that case, would be the trash can! I just call my oldest boy (who has no interest in my foods) to taste the SAD foods; I sometimes have him prepare the meats now, if it's labor intensive, because I find myself slightly nauseous if I stand over cooking meat. To think, two years ago I'd have been eating that, and thinking it smelled great as the flesh seared in the hot pan! How life changes!
What works for me, Barb, is to simply center on my own needs/food requirements, and not even notice the non-food items on the table. Item A, let's say garlic bread: does this feed disease, or health? It feeds disease,therefore it's not food for me, on to the next item...it really has become as simple as that, after almost two years of practice. Amaze myself, sometimes.
Hi Linda, thanks for your comments. I will get an opportunity to work on this today again! I will try to focus on separating my food needs from others. I like that idea.
How to handle visitors and visit family in their homes is hard for me, too. Sometimes I make it a challenge to myself (when I have the energy) to prepare something healthy that they will actually like. Huge success in this lately has been my kale salad, massaged with avocado and a fruity vinegar + topped with finely sliced red onion, pistachios, and dried cranberries. Made it for my neighbors who just had a baby, and they LOVED it. Made it at my parents' house for a cookout, and my mom e-mailed later for the recipe because so many people had commented on it. Smoothies, banana "ice cream", and my healthy gazpacho are generally palatable or even desirable to my guests, too. I think my heirloom beans in tomato puree, topped with lots of fresh cilantro, peppers, and avocado are pretty darn delicious, too, so I'm going to try that one next. Gee, that and a kale salad could be an entire healthy meal - finished with banana walnut ice cream! Alas, sometimes I just don't have the energy, though - sometimes its enough to just keep "me" on track.
thanks for the tips Patricia. Those meals sound great! I decided I will try to make healthy things next time, and then we can always supplement their food from a deli counter. There is no need for me to prepare unhealthy food.
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