On Feeling Crazy Around Food - the Wagon Metaphor

Have you ever felt crazy around food? Like a mix between needing it all in your stomach right now and having cravings that you can't even explain? Many people do. Sometimes it just feels necessary - like some primal force that you aren't even in control of anymore. It happens a LOT when you're dieting and trying to be "good." This is when problems start, a lot of the time. By denying your body nutrients it needs, it will latch out and, in trying to get the nutrition it vitally deserves, will make you eat food you didn't even want in the first place. And then there's also the fact that a lot of people's guts (microbiomes) are completely messed up, and there are bacteria in there that are super hungry and will try to get you to eat lots of bad fat or bad sugar or bad carbs (in general, "bad" means "refined," or not coming directly from a plant.)

A beautiful quote by Marc David of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, based in Boulder, Colorado. He's been working with people who feel like they've lost their lives to worrying about food and body image, and gets to the root of the problem with them - it's pretty badass stuff. Check him (and his partner in crime Emily Rosen) out at psychologyofeating.com and on Facebook and Instagram.

Our tastebuds have been hi-jacked by the industrial food system. We're not eating enough of what we need, and we're eating too much of what we don't need. It's a crisis, actually, because we are feeding into a system that is simultaneously destroying our planet. If we could cut out all the bullshit and focus on what our bodies really want, this world would be an exponentially better place. This goes beyond body-image and even health - this is the entire planet and human population we're talking about.

I have three great resources for you if you feel crazy around food, or at least don't feel like you have a healthy relationship with it. Sometimes it's hard to admit that you have issues with food because we, especially womyn, are taught that they should just BE thin - without any problems attaining or maintaining that. It's not true! So many people are struggling.
Here are my two favorite websites for helping to not feel crazy around food:
https://sixmonthstosanity.com/- Six Months to Sanity: stop dieting and take your sanity back!
http://psychologyofeating.com/ - (as mentioned above) The Psychology of Eating - the leading think-tank on nutritional psychology
http://isabelfoxenduke.com/- Isabel Foxen Duke - stop feeling crazy around food!

I just wanted to share a really beautiful excerpt from Isabel Foxen Duke's blog:

"The only time a person EVER “falls off a wagon”
is when there’s a wagon to fall off of; 
a set of rules, ideals, or beliefs around food that we let determine how we feel about ourselves.
“I was sooo good with food yesterday, and today, I SUCK.”
sound familiar?
and I’m guessing that when you go into the place of “I suck,”
when you “fall off the wagon,”
you fall hard. Like knee-deep-in-brownie-batter-hard. 
Not fun, and so avoidable. 
If you want to make peace with food, and stop shame-eating cookies in the middle of the night,
Ask yourself,
what “wagons” am I trying not to fall off of?
Where am I judging my performance with food? 
Where did I draw an imaginary line of “not okay?”
AND GET RID OF THAT SHIZ.
Because as long as there’s a wagon to fall off of, you WILL fall off of it eventually.
You see,
“Falling off” is not your problem. Your wagon is your problem."

Sometimes it brings me to tears! This can apply to ANY area of your life, not just food and weight and maintaining your figure or whatever. This can apply to getting good grades to the point of doing yourself in, toxic friendships out of fear of letting go, staying at a job you hate, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on an on. Remember this wagon metaphor next time you feel stuck.

Sending much love :)

Okay, But What IS Mindfulness?

The term mindfulness has kind of a bad rep in the modern world. It conjures up images of hippies and introversion and vegans and all that stuff that US pop culture isn't an enormous fan of. Basically, mindfulness is simply about being hyper-present, which is a great way of not letting time escape you and fully enjoying your life. That sounds pretty great, right? Yeah, it is! Here's a definition:

"Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training. The term "mindfulness" is a translation of the Pali term sati, which is a significant element of some Buddhist traditions." - http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/mindfulness/definition

 I like this second definition a lot, because it's about withholding judgment on ourselves. If you truly realized how often you judged yourself negatively throughout the day, whether that be subconsciously in the form of not letting yourself wear a sleeveless shirt on a hot day, or louder as in telling yourself in the mirror that you're too fat, too thin, too ugly, or whatever it is, as we all do, you would fall at your own feet. Mindfulness allows you to let go of judgment and just BE.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/mindfulness/definition

Being in the present is something we rarely do in modern day society anymore. We are constantly worried about the future, dwelling on the past, and forget that life is made up of consecutive present moments, and that's all we have. It's limited.

And here's another one from Mandy Hale, a great thinker on mindfulness and happiness:

livelifehappy.com

See how these quotes tie in with body acceptance and food/eating too? If you're constantly wishing you had a different body, a different face, ANYTHING, you're living in the past or future. It's not fair to yourself. Learn to let yourself be.

Let go of shoulds. Let go of judgment. Learn to just exist. That way, you can learn the sound of your own intuition, which is your best friend you haven't met yet. Your intuition will guide you to all the places you want to go and reintroduce you to yourself.

Onward!

My Grandmother's Story

When I was eight years old, I watched my grandmother on my mom's side be diagnosed with spleen cancer and quickly deteriorate. She decided she wasn't interested in chemotherapy or radiation, and remembered a time when she had been living in New York City across from a doctor she thought was crazy at the time. He was healing cancer by putting people on a strict nutritarian diet, where you only allow foods to enter your body that contain the maximum nutrition possible. That means their ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) score is in the first column . Check out this chart to see what foods make the cut:

ANDI scores table: http://www.nutritionnutontherun.com/2014/03/20/nutrient-density-andi-superfoods/

It's essentially vegan, though NOT totally, and it's about getting rid of all the bullshit around food and diet and subtracting, which is what most people's mindsets about food are based on, and instead focusing on ADDING the good stuff, to the point where you just naturally don't have room anymore for the bad.

Anyway. My grandma remembered this and got in contact with the doctor. His name was Dr. Max Gerson, from Germany. I don't know the full story, and neither does my grandma, but apparently he was banned in the United States, because his therapy would have put the entire cancer industry out of business. She started on the treatment, and soon after, her cancer was GONE. Read her full story here:
http://gerson.org/gerpress/joyce-stage-4-non-hodgkins-lymphoma-recovery/

My Grandma, Joyce Forsythe, at age 74, after surviving cancer on Dr. Gerson's therapy

It was a miracle. Often, people don't believe me when I tell them. But sometimes, sometimes, it sparks interest and inspires them to eat better, connect more with family, and live a healthier life. Dr. Gerson doesn't have all the answers, but it's important to remember that nobody else does either. And this - eating food with maximum nutrition - makes a heck of a lot more sense to me than poisoning your body with chemicals.

This drastically changed the way my family ate. My Mom, the most important person in my life, changed her diet a lot but also didn't want to mess up her life, and didn't want to force it on us either. She had had serious health issues in the past, and around 12 years later, was worried she had liver disease from years of pushing herself too hard (she's a psychiatrist at Harvard University, attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and Columbia before that. She's a hard worker if I've every known one). Anyway, all that prestigious education only got her so far in terms of her own health. The adventurous woman that she is, she spent one month in Nepal after doing a test to see if she had liver disease. Her thought process was, "If I don't have liver disease, I'm going on this trip. If I DO have liver disease, I'm going on this trip." That still makes me shiver a little.

My diet started to change during this time. I realized that gluten made me feel really sick and heavy, and that dairy didn't agree with my system either. I dappled in vegetarianism and veganism here and there, but nothing was extremely exciting or easy to stick with until I really started thinking about nutritarianism.

DISCLAIMER this blog DOES NOT promote any one kind of eating besides mindful eating! It's just a way of letting you know what's out there and my story. The WHOLE POINT is everyone's different and I encourage you to know your body enough to know what that is.

That's it for now! Thanks for reading!

Cooking as Meditation

In this incredibly fucked up world we live in, cooking, for me, is one of the few things that makes sense. It offers a sense of control yet also freedom that we as humans so desperately look for. This want for control yet freedom usually manifests in unhealthy ways, whether in eating disorders, alcoholism, drug addictions, or self-harm, and more. Cooking is definitely not going to solve these issues, but it does offer a beautiful connection to ourselves that we (and I) thought died a long time ago. It's a way of giving yourself over to the universe, and stepping out of control and simultaneously back into it.

Cooking is a way of setting yourself free of the industrial food system, which is responsible for so much suffering in this world. When we cook for ourselves, we are able to gain back our independence - to not be so dependent on industry and companies to feed us. It's a pretty cool thing too break free of this modern craze, while also being healthier in the meantime.

This blog does not advocate for any particular diet, but it is true that if you cut out certain food groups, cooking becomes more necessary and also more fun and creative.

Use cooking as alone time if you're an introvert, or use cooking as a group activity to spend time with family and friends if you're extroverted. Either way, cooking can become one of your favorite parts of the day.

Michael Pollan, a great mind in the food world, said that you can eat anything you want, under one condition: if you make it yourself. Wanna eat bread? Go for it! Just be sure to make it from scratch. It's a really awesome way to take a step back and understand what you are actually eating when you eat - since YOU made it! It's a really empowering feeling.

This is a beautiful #bowlofgoodness from Nina Olsson, author of Bowls of Goodness, an incredible cookbook. Follow her on Instagram at @nourish_atelier

A Happy Thought for your Thursday :)

Eat Food.

This pretty much sums it up.

Dieting vs. Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating is another way of saying mindful eating. It's about eating what and when your body needs - not when you are bored or angry or frustrated or anxious.

This is a helpful and very powerful infographic that sums up the difference between the two. And I'd just like to say: you have one life. Would you rather spend it in the left or the right column?

This is a big deal, because it puts the agency back into you and, especially your BODY. You have a living, breathing body, and you must treat it as such. Abusing it isn't fair.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness has become an overused buzzword lately that makes some people annoyed just upon hearing it. It conjures up images of insane amounts of yoga, crunchy granola and "being present." The point is, it's a specific type of person that normally practices mindfulness. But I'm here to make mindfulness a more accessible topic, because, once cultivated, it really is quite amazing.

Mindfulness requires really knowing yourself, and being mindful is a great way to know yourself better. The process of becoming more mindful begets deep self discovery. You will learn about yourself when you practice mindfulness, and learn invaluable information about how to make yourself vibrant and be happy - like, deeply happy and satisfied with your life.

The cool thing about mindful eating is it allows you to eat less without sacrificing satisfaction.

Youth Food Bill of Rights

The Youth Food Bill of Rights (YFBR) is an organization that is raising awareness about young people's ability to create change in the current food systems that shape our lives. The industrial food system induces much suffering - of animals, workers, farmers, and the people consuming it. In creating a new town, as is happening with Kalu Yala, it is vitally important to be aware of this movement and make sure that these principles are embedded in every initiative that is undertaken.

"In order to reshape our food system, we the youth have come together to name our rights:

1. We have the right to culturally affirming food. We demand the preservation, protection and reconstruction of traditional
   farming, cultural history and significance of food and agriculture. We demand that indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own autonomous food systems should they choose.
2. We have the right to sustainable food. We demand an end to the mistreatment of animals and the environment, that is caused by our current food system.
3. We have the right to nutritional education. We demand government funding to educate and inform youth and parents about nutrition.
   a. Education on things such as seasonal eating, organic farming,
   sustainability, and diet related illness should be provided so that people can make better informed decisions.
   b. We recommend that schools recognize youth lead fitness programs as tools for success.
4. We have the right to healthy food at school. We the youth demand more healthy food choices in our schools, and in schools all over the world. We want vending machines out of schools unless they have healthy choices. We need healthier school lunches that are implemented by schools with the ingredients decided on by the Youth. We demand composting in schools and in our neighborhoods.
5. We have the right to genetic diversity and GMO-free food.  We the youth, call for the Labeling of Genetically Modified seeds, plants, and produce. We demand a policy from the government that labels all GMO’s..
6. We have the right to poison-free food. We the youth absolutely don’t want any chemical pesticides in our food!
7. We have the right to beverages and foods that don't harm us. We the Youth demand a ban on High Fructose Corn Syrup and other additives, and preservatives that are a detriment to our communities’ health. This must be implemented by our government, and governments around the world.
8. We have the right to local food. We demand food to be grown and consumed by region to cut the use of fossil fuels and reduce the globalization of our food system.
9. We have the right to fair food. We the youth demand that everyone working in the food system must be treated
   with respect, treated fairly, and earn at the minimum, a just living wage. For all those that are working in the food system we demand a model like the Domestic Fair Trade Association to be implemented.
10. We have the right to good food subsidies. We demand an end to the subsidy of cash crops, including corn and soy beans. Rather than our tax dollars going to subsidies for industrial farming, we demand financial support for small organic farmers.
11. We have the right to organic food and organic farmers. We demand a restructuring of the process of being certified organic and fair trade to improve the thoroughness and accessibility of of these programs.
12. We have the right to cultivate unused land. We demand that a policy be enacted allowing for unused land to be made available for communities to farm and garden organically and sustainably.
13. We have the right to save our seed. We believe farmers and all people should have the freedom to save their seed. Any law that prevents this should be reversed; no law shall ever be made to
    prevent seed saving.
14. We have the right to an ozone layer. We the youth demand a 20% decrease of industrial farms every 5 years, to decrease the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions associated with industrial
    farming.
15. We have the right to support our farmers through direct market transactions. We demand that the number of farmer’s markets be increased every year until there are more farmers’ markets than corporate super markets.
16. We have the right to convenient food that is healthy. We want healthy options in corner stores while empowering the community to make better food choices. We demand more jobs for youth to work with our communities to make this happen and help them control their food systems.
17. We have the right to leadership education. We the youth demand that there be more school assemblies to inform and empower more youth with the knowledge of food justice. The continuation of the movement for Food Justice, Food Sovereignty and cultivation of future
    leaders is necessary for feeding our youth, our nation and our world.

This is only the beginning step in many to come to make our visions, our dreams, and this bill a reality."  

Source: youthfoodbillofrights.com

Mealtime

3x a day, everyday, the conch shell blows and it is time to eat at Kalu Yala. Upon hearing the conch, people run from all over town to get the amazing food that has been made lovingly for us. We eat absolutely delicious, seriously amazing food. To give you an idea of what a typical meal looks like, here is: chayote, red peppers, green peppers, broccoli, and patacones (smashed fried plantains) with a green garlic dressing. :)

Understanding the Banana Tree

Part of the pull of coming to this amazing community in the jungles of Panama, for me, was to experience a food system working well for the people it was feeding. In other words, I wanted to see eating healthily be the most natural option; not a burden, an expense, or a hardship, as it is in many of the communities I have been in in the United States and other parts of the world. In my first week here, I wandered around the food forest, where pineapple plants, lemon trees, katuk (ka-TUK, an unbelievably delicious leafy green that's somewhat similar to spinach), arugula, aloe, mangosteen, okra, kale, and many, many more amazing foods are growing in harmony alongside each other. What stood out most was learning, by the farm manager that the  banana and plantain trees (female and male versions of the same plant, respectively) each grow a bunch of bananas/plantains once a year, and that's it. I kind of stopped in my tracks. Thinking about how many bananas we always see stacked high in the grocery store, and knowing that, naturally, a banana tree only produces about twenty bananas each year, and requires a good amount of labor, was eye-opening. When we eat a banana or plantain, we should stop and realize how incredible it is that we are able to enjoy it - how thankful to the plant we are, how thankful to the water, and how thankful to the farmer.
Understanding the labor that goes into our food is an important part of eating mindfully.

Six Food Contemplations for Young People

These contemplations are not only for young people, of course - they are only specified as for young people because they are more accessible to children, in their simplicity.

This food is the gift of the whole universe: the Earth, the sky, the rain, and the sun.

We thank the people who have made this food, especially the farmers and the cooks.

We only put on our plate as much food as we can eat.

We want to chew the food slowly so that we can enjoy it.

This food gives us energy to practice being more loving and understanding.

We eat this food in order to be healthy and happy, and to love each other as a family.

Peas in a local family's home in San Miguel, Colon, Panama. PC: Vineta Gleba

The Five Contemplations

The Five Contemplations are used in Buddhist and zen thinking to conjure up mindfulness when eating. They are:

This food is a gift of the Earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work.

May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food.

May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed, and learn to eat with moderation.

May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet.

We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our community, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.