In Which She Summons Normal

This past month has been amazing, "I'm so lucky" beauty side by side with ridiculous out of control "I can't believe this is my life" despair. Nobody died. We didn't lose our house. We all had more than enough food to eat but the feeling of real, painful frustration was still legitimately there sandwiched by flashes of fabulous.

We were sick over and over and over from Nib's hospitalization through two days ago in June with no apparent cause besides random chance, the roses bloomed beautifully, the house was trashed perpetually, the baby continues to be a gentle soul who sleeps and only wakes once or twice in a night, my hive got overcrowded and then I accidentally killed a few of my bees babies through sheer clumsiness, Our CSA began and it is wonderful, Nib started teething his two year molars and we had the most amazing summer thunderstorms, the heat was withering (literally in the case of my garden) and I hit my pre-pregnancy weight. And on and on it went...back and forth like a crazy rocking pendulum.

 

It feels like it is evening out a bit now...more stable, more normal or at least less painfully raw moments of bad happenings. I have tried to be strong or to figure it out or to even let go of it and I'm not sure I succeeded at any of it. I just survived accidentally. Am very happy to be apparently on the other side though and hoping to have a very smooth stage next. I am so desperate for some regularity, some even living and some frigging social contact! I cannot wait for the next bit.

 

I have hacked into our hedge, I have formed a health accountability partnership with Jane, I have a 38 day spiritual contemplation spinning, and I am itching to paint. I predict good books, fresh batches of kombucha, beans from the garden, a clean guinea pig cage, and some grand adventures with my boys. May it be so.

Eating To Live

I have a pal who keeps asking me to write a post about how I eat. I've written before about my foodie philosophy thoughts but never specifically about meal planning and nutrition and health and what I think about eating well. So, this post is for you, Jo....

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I'm the daughter of a hippie, raised on Adelle Davis and granola so in some sense health and deep interest in natural eating has been ingrained in me. (Thanks Mama! I'm eternally grateful!) I've done all kinds of reading and research about food and the upshot of my study is that I really, truly believe that whole foods, as found in nature are healthy and processed foods, particularly refined flour and sugar are poison. I know that sounds unnaturally strong and unpopular but its what I really have uncovered. I eat grains if they're whole, I try to minimize breads, pastries and pasta since flour doesn't do us a lot of nutritional favors. We have pasta once a week, for Sunday night dinner and it is always whole grain, sometimes I eat the sauce over steamed or sauteed veggies instead of noodles.

Here are some of the food tips I use to try to guide myself to eat well:

• Three colors of produce at each meal.
• Each dinner I make has a protein source (not necessarily animal), a cooked veggie, a raw veggie and a fruit, and sometimes a grain (usually rice or quinoa).
• Solid breakfast every day....no exceptions, ever.
• Drinks at our house are water, milk, tea and coffee (once a day on occasion), and lately sometimes fresh juice I make in my juicer.
• Chocolate is our sweet of choice, always dark an eaten in small squares. 
• Fat is not the enemy. We drink whole milk, we butter our veggies, we eat our steaks untrimmed, we saute in olive oil and we eat cheese regularly. (note however, that none of us are lactose intolerant)
• I cook and shop from a subscription menu planner that is delivered to my email account weekly. You can find it here, if you're curious.
• We buy fruit in quantity and keep it out in the open to encourage eating it for snacks.

I've done all kinds of things to stay healthy I've weaned myself down to skim milk, I've eaten diet products, I've lived on gas station cappuccinos, but I feel healthier sticking to my current eating regime than I ever have in my life. And the research heavily supports this kind of eating. There is a lot of evidence to prove the theory that something serious is wrong with modern, Western eating...people all over the world are leaving their native diets and adopting our fast food, convenience lifestyle and they are suddenly and dramatically inheriting our legacy of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. I truly believe that aging in a strong, fit way is possible and normal on the right diet. Although exercise is supportive and good, evidence tells us the most alarming factor is that we've left foods that make us strong and healthy for foods that are toxic, dangerous poison. I really believe that modern processed foods are the single source of most current health issues in America.

Lest you think I'm some sort of glowing, fork holding poster child, let me share that I am also a compulsive eater who has major weakness in the food department. I have a hard time coping with emotions, usually negative ones and I eat to calm down and feel good again. I wish a salad made me feel sane again but right now I'm pretty trapped in eating foods that I know are toxic and dangerous when the panic hits. I can eat well most of the time but as soon as the chips are down...I head for a gas station candy bar or a cookie stashed in the freezer from Christmas...or five or eight. I want to kick this habit. I need to learn other ways of calming myself and I need to just cut these dangerous foods out of my life so they aren't even there in the freezer if life does take a sudden bad turn.


I was just saying today that I am pretty committed to eating a real food, no processed goods diet but I need some form of support. So, at homeschool coop today, I told the other crunchy mommies about my plan...and then afterwards we ran to Whole Foods to pick up a couple things and serendipitously there was a woman there, signing people up for the Eat Right America Challenge, a 28 day real foods pledge with built in email and real life support. If you have a local store, you might want to think about joining me. 

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If you're curious about where I'm getting these wild nutrition ideas consider checking out a few of the following sources and beginning your own research campaign:

Books
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
Nourishing Traditions
Real Food, What to Eat and Why
The Omnivores Dilemma
Deep Nutrition
50 Secrets of the World's Longest Living People

Movies
Sick Fat and Nearly Dead
Food Inc.
Fast Food Nation
Forks Over Knives

Related articles

• you.are.what.you.eat ::: The Food Matters Project (keelymarie.com)
• Why your Grandma has better diet than you, balanced habits 7 (balancedprofessional.com)
• Processed Foods vs. Whole Foods (bleilerfitness.com)
• The "Asian Paradox": How Can Asians Eat So Much Rice and Not Gain Weight? (marksdailyapple.com)
• Clean Eats (givethanksandpraise.wordpress.com)

New CSA

We're a good bit of the way through the harvesting season with our new CSA and I have to say that I like it. It is just as handy as I imagined to have our pick-up location down the street, instead of 45 minutes away, and kind of fun to meet neighbors there who also happen to have a share. I didn't count on the community interaction bit, kind of a fun bonus.

I do miss going up to an actual farm. It was a great built-in break that we had going and I feel like we've removed ourselves a little bit from the food-land connection. There was one scheduled members day when our new CSA invited everyone to come up for a picnic and help pull garlic and then go for a dip in the creek. Have to make sure to plan on going next year. I am an organization klutz and through a lot of fumbling we managed to miss it this time around. Am still kicking myself  although this morning I found out there is a special autumn farm festival scheduled for September when we can maybe make up the difference! Hooray!

Since there's such a small actual farm connection to speak of via our CSA this year, I find that I'm seeking out chances to go to drive out to the country for other things: caterpillar hunting, listening to the frogs sing, rural estate sales, buying farm milk, picking up local meat...etc. Kind of fun to mix it up anyhow.

So, the time savings is great, the produce is great, the community connection is fun and over-all I think we made a fine trade. You never quite know when you make this kind of a gamble and switch everything up, but this time it worked out.

Dear Farm, Goodbye....

Our dear little farm where we go to pick veggies and fruit is suddenly far away. There are downsides to moving. Its far away and unfortunately in the wrong direction. This year it is has honestly been painful and then more painful trying to get up there to collect our share. I think this may be our last round in the roster.

We need a new CSA! We're in a new place and honestly, the options are suddenly way more diverse and numerous than they were two years ago when I was trying to find our first share. You can't lose with more options. I love the fact that our farm requires us to go up the farm to collect our share and has no delivery, but frankly, as a mother of three with one car its a little insane to have to run up there every week. And although its meant to be enforced time in nature it often becomes harried, manic, "Run run run!!!!" time on a farm where the kids don't get out of the car and I madly throw vegetables into our sack and then dash back behind the wheel and peel out of the drive on my way to go collect A while everyone wails in unison. It could be better.

I love this little magnet on the cooler at the farm. Gotta figure out where to get one.

Local drop off doesn't sound so terrible. It would mean I'd drive .4 miles down the street and pick up a pre-sorted, ready loaded box of goods fresh from our farm. That could be handy. Plus, then I'd have the time to swing by the farmer's market if I wanted and we could always drive up to pick up milk or eggs if we felt rambly and wanted to go for a drive. Right? Maybe there are even good places to drive to over this direction that won't be directly opposite wherever I need to be next. (Do I sound like I'm trying to talk myself into this?)

Sungold cherries...one of my favorite tomatoes in the world.

G, suddenly distressed and immobilized by the fact that he was in tall grass.

So, yes....Farm, its been sweet. Very sweet. We've mosied all over your velvet fields and wandered zig-zags across your dirt lanes, but our time may be over. Time to let our slot go to a another family who will love it well the way we did. Everything, even farms themselves, have their season. I know that's the right thing to do, but somehow I'm still very sad. I loved last summer at the farm and I'm so sad to let it go and step into the new thing, but I know that good surprises are only found by opening your hands and letting go of the old and who knows what great new experiences are waiting for us at a new CSA.Yesterday I put us on the waiting list at this sweet little venture. And now we wait and see....