Last week I finished up Shauna James Ahern‘s “Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found The food That Loves Me Back…And How You Can Too.”
It changed me pretty profoundly, and even if you don’t (or need to) follow a gluten-free diet, I highly recommend everyone reading it.
More than a road map or a cookbook to eating gluten-free, it addresses something bigger about making peace with food. In this context, it’s the need to make peace with food when there is so much of it you have to avoid for fear of being seriously sick. And that’s an incredibly difficult task for those of us who, upon telling us we can’t have something, want to devour it like there’s no tomorrow. For those of us for whom certain food – junk food, easy-to-snarf-down-processed food – is a comfort in times of stress and sorrow. For those of us who intellectually and as feminists could no longer abide by the language that assigns women nothing but shame and guilt based on what they choose to eat.
But here is the reality: Certain foods, even in moderation, just aren’t good for some of us. And they make us sick. And we deserve better than to constantly be pumping toxins into our body.
Going even further is the plain ol’ truth, staring us all in the face, and that’s that we don’t want to take the time, exert the discipline it takes to take care of ourselves. We’ve relied on companies, whose best interests are not that of our health, to do that, and we abdicate responsibility to the shiniest package, the wittiest advertisement.
James-Ahern’s book was grace-filled and touching. I could see, understand, compute, for the first time, why my approach was not enough. The pain I still felt every morning in my gut? Yeah. That was there because I was still consuming gluten.
So last week I decided to get serious. In my Treo I jotted down every single ingredient gluten-intolerants must avoid. I’ve referred to them before a single piece of food enters my mouth. I grocery shopped over the weekend with all of this in mind, and strove to make sure all of the food in the basket was as local and as untouched as possible. I bought enough food for a couple of meals, rather than stockpiling, to ensure nothing went to waste and everything was as fresh as possible.
I won’t go into the minutiae, but I will tell you this: there was not a single day this week that I woke up, doubled over in pain. Not one. I didn’t struggle for breath, either, an unfortunate development over the past two years that has also resulted in this weird, nervous tick here I suck in my stomach as hard as I can, twitching up my side. And never once did I feel deprived or hungry, though admittedly using a pat of butter to cook with, for the first time in years, gave me much room for pause.
And guilt. Oh, the guilt.
But I’m working on it. When you remind yourself that you only need a little fresh goat cheese, as opposed to the gobs you dump from the packaged brands, it’s infinitely better for you and doing less damage. Plus, you’re sating something inside that’s long been dormant, a taste that you’ve been chasing after maddeningly, mainlining in the processed, gooped-up, chemically enhanced form. No wonder we’re all so fat.
For the first time in weeks, my stomach has not bloated out past my breasts. I haven’t wanted to die after sitting at my desk for an hour. It sucked to give up my favorite chewing gum – GUM! I had to toss my gum! – but the release from all of the mind-fucking that happens to me as a result of this intolerance (A bloated stomach plus a sensitivity to its size in proportion to my self-esteem is a recipe for disaster) has been so wonderful that I’ve had room in my brain to do some wonderful projects at work.
Scott long ago gave me his blessing to increase our food budget. Some of this stuff costs more, and it means I do some of our shopping at Whole Foods where the options are more plentiful. We are blessed, this I know, because we don’t have to think too much about how much we’re spending on food, where we are spending it and how long it needs to last. I will tell you that this week I spent less in groceries because I wasn’t attempting to buy for what I thought would be a week or two worth of groceries, only to let parts of it go bad because something came up or we worked too late one night. Buying in smaller portions, for only the most immediate meals, saved money, though I grant you it didn’t necessarily save time.
All this aside, there are plenty of ways around the seemingly cost prohibitive nature of eating this way. I think, as does Ahern-James and a slew of others, we’ve somehow been conditioned to believe that cheap, convenience food is a more financially beneficial option than that of fresh foods. We don’t value paying $5 for a bag of apples the way we do for a container of ice cream or a 12-can pack of beer. Apples should be cheap because mainstream grocery stores and food conglomerates have conditioned us to think as such. And if we pay too much for apples, well, there is no room in our cart for the, ahem, fun stuff like beer and ice-cream.
I am becoming one of those people for whom anything I eat should not contain more than about three or four – five, tops – ingredients and I better be able to pronounce and identify ’em all. If not? That company does not get my money.
Plus, there is the timing element, another facet Ahern-James addresses. Taking the time to prepare food and cook it has fallen out of fashion, and if a meal takes any longer than 20 minutes it’s taken us away from our down time. Why we don’t value the time we spend to nourish and feed our bodies is something I never really gave much heart-to-heart about, but I am now. Sure, an hour in my kitchen after a long day or a run means less time in front of the TV, but I could be a healthier, happier, more productive person because of it.
I spent about an hour in Whole Foods last Friday, picking up food for a celebratory meal Scott and I were having. It was indulgent and lovely, and I took the time to read and plan and enjoy what I was buying, because it was going to feed my husband and myself and celebrate a big accomplishment. I bought grass-fed strip steaks. I bought portabello mushrooms, and I grilled them with garlic and fresh rosemary. I bought truffled-infused goat cheese and some Pleasant Ridge Guyere, drizzled with lavendar-infused honey and walnuts and served with almond crackers. I had roasted red pepper soup with Greek yogurt. I marinated heirloom tomatoes in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We had chunks of Vosages’ Mo’s Bacon Bar. And red wine. Every last bit of this was gluten-free and probably $120 cheaper had we gone out and had a similar meal at a restaurant.
Doing this made sense to me. It felt lovely and guilt-free. We spent about six hours eating and drinking and talking and celebrating throughout the whole eating experience and it was more indulgent than any bag of Cheetos has ever really felt.
Plus, I didn’t want to cut a bitch the next morning because I was in pain.
So I recommend Ahern-James’ book. highly. It will seriously help to change the way you think about eating.
*****
Another blog to love for all of you healthy eating junkies!
Heather Eats Almond Butter. She’s in a yurt right now, which is making for some gorgeous pictures to look at on your lunch hour!
