Food for Thought — and Thoughts of Food : What Does It Mean to You?
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The word “food” can be about as loaded as a baked potato with sour cream, chives, bacon, cheese, the kitchen sink etc. It’s a source of nourishment and love and can become an unhealthy replacement for whatever is missing in our lives.
I don’t want to dive into that today, but I do want to have a little fun with it, and in a way that invites a peek into who you are.
I grew up in a home with a mother who provided pretty basic, standard fare. When I say basic, I mean seriously basic.
It wasn’t until I had my first baby that my journey with food took a seriously dark turn. I was unhappily pushed into marriage at 17 and 10 months later, had a daughter just after I turned 18. Within weeks, my mental health took a major slide and unbeknownst to me or my doctors, I was deep into post-partum psychosis.
Food was a major player in that whole nightmare, showing up in paranoid delusions and severe OCD. Eventually, as the post-partum psychosis gradually disappeared it was replaced with full-blown anorexia due to a variety of external factors that finally ripped apart my inner world.
Typical of an anorexic, I was all about recipes and cooking and nutrition and feeding other people. I just didn’t want to feed myself. I did battle with that misery for 9 years before finally figuring out the root of the problem and healing it.
In the meantime, my eldest daughter had massive ADHD troubles (understated). She was just 4 when I was introduced to the idea of how diet plays a role in such behaviour challenges and along with my own health concerns, I became even more focused on food and nutrition.
In spite of that, by the time I was in my early 30s, I was in pretty rough shape health-wise (including a significant heart problem with no risk factors). Apparently, a soap-opera life will do that to you. I’d been having acupuncture for some time and on top of my own self-imposed restrictions, suddenly this food was bad for me and that food was bad for me and oh, dear, LORD I shouldn’t eat tomatoes, and on and on it went. HUH?? Even many supposedly healthful foods were not good for me.
Desperate to be well, I followed instructions.
After several years of a highly restricted diet full of shoulds and shouldn’ts, it was something of a shock to my system when I ended up in the office of a homeopath for the first time. I was asked what foods I craved, or didn’t like, or that I liked but that didn’t like me back.
I’d been restricting myself for so many years, I didn’t even know anymore.
But as I learned later during my studies to become a homeopath, suppression of those natural desires is actually harmful. Just like suppression of symptoms, which are the body’s only way to express that something is out of balance — and when you suppress the symptom, the body has to try harder to tell you what’s wrong.
Apparently, our natural cravings and aversions are essential in determining the correct remedy (in homeopathy, the “medicine” is called a remedy, which is usually in a pellet form). And not only with food and drinks. In everything. Hot or cold climate? Fresh air? Rainy days? Sunny days? Daytime, nighttime? How do you react to drafts? Do you like to be touched? No? Do you like company? Do you prefer being alone? What position do you lie in when you’re sleeping? And so much more detail than that.
We want a full and complete picture of the patient mentally, emotionally and physically because all of these little differences and quirks and preferences are the essence of who you are.
What you like to eat is just one of them.
And so is when you like to eat particular foods. For me, it’s dinner foods for breakfast, please. Pasta, soup, stew, casseroles, curries, giant salad (that’s an enormous salad. Not a salad made out of storybook giants) — anything you would serve your family for dinner, that’s my breakfast, please!
And if I eat traditional breakfast foods at all, they’re for dinner. A bowl of porridge. A couple of eggs. Fruit, yogurt and seeds.
I also love certain weird combinations, like when I discovered vanilla ice cream was quite yummy with Branston pickle (a UK delight, a tangy sweet/vinegary chutney type concoction of vegetables, onion etc., and yay, I can get it at Walmart in the British section!).
I love cold leftover Chinese or Japanese food for breakfast. Or cold roasted vegetables. I graze, grabbing whatever looks interesting and makes my mouth say, YES PLEASE. NOW! So a meal can consist of a weird assortment of whatever strikes my fancy in that moment.
At least I do have some sense of moderation with all of that, so although homeopathic philosophy encourages us to eat whatever we want, this means “with some sense and balance about it!” I love salt and vinegar crisps and could eat loads of them every day, but I only allow myself a reasonable portion. Sometimes as part of breakfast. 🤦🏻♀️🙄
And don’t even get me started on how my food cravings changed when I hit menopause. What the heck?? My body had a mind of its own and suddenly, it was screaming at me for fatty, starchy foods, hearty meals, meat — and lots of it — when I’d prefer not eating any at all. No more “bark and bird seed.” Man. It’s had worse tantrums than any 2-year-old I’ve ever seen! Turns out the 2-year-olds are a lot easier to deal with than a menopausal body. We’re still in negotiations but so far, this ain’t goin’ in my favour …
I’ve lived alone for so many years, I’ve been loving the freedom to eat as I please, not according to the expectations of a partner who would want us to share “three meals a day” and have them be “normal people meals.” I am not a “normal people.”
Perhaps I should say, “traditional foods for each meal” as opposed to “normal people meals.” But you get my point. I don’t do well with that, whatever you want to call it, and the idea of merging my life with that of another human and being expected to change my less-than-traditional eating habits is probably more deeply disturbing than any other part of what such a merge might entail! 🤣
There’s a lot more to my food journey, but these are a few highlights. From being a kid who never gave much thought to food, to having paranoid delusions about it during post-partum psychosis and being terrified to eat, to becoming anorexic and not being able to eat, to becoming far too fixated on super healthy eating, to finally eating whatever the hell I want— well, it’s been interesting. I’ve reached a point where — within reason — I’m going to eat whatever I enjoy and if it means a living a few years less, well, that’s okay with me.
Today I had Japanese Gyoza chicken dumplings for breakfast with Granny Smith apple slices and … oops … some of those salt and vinegar crisps. Next up — mid-afternoon lunch/dinner — blueberries, plain fat free yogurt, with sunflower and hemp seeds.
Just another day in a kitchen where Liberty reigns supreme … (haha, see what I did there?)
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