Gut Feelings--No More Eating To Please

Just at the four week mark in England, heading to Israel tomorrow; I finished translating Alpha this morning! And sent in the final portion of my second packet of this year's MFA work (i.e. thesis and critical paper work). Doesn't it always feel good to have some closure before a trip?
For a little more closure, since I'm burning the candle hard at both ends anyway, the promised post on some food stuff that isn't going away (yet?)
You'd think--I keep thinking--that a light bulb will go off and I'll have it all figured out and have created a sustainable, simple, failsafe way to fuel my physical existence in this world and perhaps even understand that this is necessary as a prerequisite to other things.

But just as I failed to find one single "bottom", the light bulb moment is elusive too, and I keep bobbing around the same old gyre. That said, my current problem is a result of having tried something "new" but finding it led back to "same old." Since getting out of the hospital--two months now, yay!--I'd been trying to eat a variety of foods rather than living mostly on coconut milk. This meant experimenting with legumes and gluten free grains, and even, via an ill-advised purchase of a marked-down-gluten-free boxed brownie mix, with some refined flour and sugar in the dynamite medium of chocolate. Oh, my proclivity for marked down goods! Always gets me in trouble. And then I allowed my mum to get me similar gluten free packaged goods to sample over here. I learned that my body, like most bodies, is susceptible to addiction to the chocolate/sugar combination, and suffered much guilt and painful cravings even while being able to taste the essential emptiness of that food.. 
I continued with the illusion that my body could cope with these foods...
And even relaxed my ban on sucralose so I could have good old English ginger beer in the zero calorie version.

This ginger beer is from Sainsbury's; the "diet" versions from two other supermarkets I looked at had barley malt in the ingredients! Diet soda that isn't gluten free?! Aside from the sucralose, the above picture has two other issues. The enormous amount of liquid recalls a flagging of massive liquid consumption as ominous in a post of about 18 months ago. And, well, the diet product. Um, of course it's reasonable for me to try the products over here and see what they're like, right? It's quite good, incidentally.
I got sick. Not from the sucralose--so far that seems okay. From the food, from expanding my palette and kidding myself that I could handle a broader range of foods. There were two days in the past week that I basically couldn't do anything, except some translating, and was just in abject pain all through the inside of my body. I've had to scale the variety way back and to accept that I have to be super careful. Even relying heavily on charcoal and silica gel and enzymes, if I have one bite too many I am in agony. I already mentioned using tons of charcoal a little while back, but I wasn't yet ready then to face that the things I was choosing to eat were simply making me sick.
So, no I can't just eat anything gluten free and be okay. And I can't just go out to eat and trust I won't get sick if I order something I know will work. And no I can't just eat more of something because it tastes good. I was doing quite a bit of "eating to please" also, and can't do that anymore. Whether my gut issues are a result of having celiac or are created/exacerbated by the history of self starvation is a moot point at this stage, and saying a person can go gung ho on all kinds of foods in the interests of "recovery" or of fitting in with other people is misguided if there are genuine problems, even if getting sick doesn't happen immediately.
If you have gut permeability issues, they can preclude good digestion even if you're not getting symptoms of indigestion. Inflammation will build up, until you're confronted with it harshly as I was last week, and as I could have avoided being by laying off grains, legumes, and refined sugar also. Since sucralose is sucrose with the hydrogen bonds replaced with chlorine, it's pretty likely it could penetrate a leaky gut in a not-so-nice way, so I should probably reconsider the ginger beer and (unpictured) energy drinks.
Duh, right?! A light bulb turning off and on like a fireworks display--can't I just keep it on and act on the realization?
The best part is that my mum has undertaken to remind me not to eat "too much", which will be a welcome contrast from her expressing concern over whether I've eaten "enough".
Ugh, I don't love talking about food! Do you hate me talking about food? It's good to have this under awareness before we go to Israel, since the food is so fantastic and tempting there. I'm relieved to be back on the straight and narrow, and to have overridden the "eat to please" imperative, to have headed back to more bearable ways to deal with the problem that generally, eating tends to beget eating.

Encountering Strange Fruit--Medlars!

Time, high time for a post. I've had the delight of encountering weird and wonderful fruit in various far flung places of the world, and in one of my lifetimes was nicknamed "the fruit fairy". Who knew that I'd find an unfamiliar fruit right here in London? Show and tell must ensue, but after I put up this post I also need to talk about food in a more serious way, as the time has come to face up to some issues I've been trying to ignore.

The apples are russet apples, which I mentioned before, crisp, sour-sweet, special texture, never had them outside of England. The little fruits that look like tan-colored rosehips?

These are called MEDLARS. I said they look like rosehips, and the juxtaposition with the russet apple insinuates the relatedness to apples and yes, they are in the rosaceae family, as apples and roses are too. They are mespilus germanica. I had read about them in classical texts--the Greeks and Romans ate them. But what to do with them? In the above picture, they look pretty green. and they were firm. I bit into one, knowing I would probably get woody and astringent, and that's what I got (probably not an example of manifesting your reality).
I let them get really dark brown, soft, mushy, which they have been doing serially, not all at once (as you can see in the picture below). I peeled off the husks and removed this brown, mushy pulp with five sizable seeds in a loose star shape at the center (just like an original, ungrafted apple).

 Mushy, mealy--a texture not appealing to everybody but obviously very rich in pectin, which is good for many people's gut. Mild in flavor, not strong or outstandingly delicious. It's usually boiled up with a bunch of sugar for jam.
I mixed it up with another product I haven't been able to find back home. The Turkish and other ethnic shops here are a treasure trove for my Israeli palate--whole shelves of houmous and tahini and halva and pickles and unusual herbal teas... And in the jar below is carob syrup! 

The only ingredient is carob pods, but obviously they've been boiled down into a sort of molasses. Full of carob's natural sweetness, with its complex dark and bright notes prominent also.

I then stirred in some tahini (carob syrup and tahini is a very normal dip, as are tahini/honey and tahini/date syrup). And thus, I created a dip slightly less dense than straight up carob syrup and tahini, with the gentle, soothing texture of the medlars.
Fun fun! I love getting to know new fruits, especially when they're actually old, heritage fruits, and I love getting to be in the abundance of carob and tahini and all things Middle East palate oriented.

I don't want to make this post too long, so I'll post another very shortly addressing the too-long-ignored food situation.
Love from London!

What Motivates You to Do Your Best? Raw Chocolates in London Review: Should We Sample Everything in Pursuit of Our Writing?

We're still in Anchorage, where it warmed up today from 10 degrees to around 32 (freezing): freezing it may be, but the 20 degree-increase in temperature makes it feel positively warm! You can't imagine this application of 'it's all relative' until you experience it in your flesh.

I'm more than ready to be getting home and have had a couple of embarrassing, shaming incidents where my behavior wasn't as I'd have liked because I hadn't eaten enough and my blood sugar was too low and I was cranky. What's the lesson here? Well, I need to fend for myself no matter what everyone else is doing, and I need to accept that my needs are different. More globally, I need to find some things that nurture me in Anchorage. I tag along with Phil and his friends, and they have been wonderful friends too, and very accepting of me. Some of them are even writers also, and afford me a tantalizing glimpse into Anchorage's thriving literary scene. But I don't know any raw-food enthusiasts in Anchorage and since there are raw products at the natural food store, there must be someone out there. And there must be other writerly types with whom I could connect also. So right now, a sense of frustration with myself at not having done my best is my motivation to do better. It's not pure and unmitigated shame: it's also a determination to do better.

What motivates you to do your best?

I have a couple more posts to make about our London trip and time is passing on and carrying in its current all kinds of other happenings to talk about as well. I'm looking forward to feeling less skewed and more caught-up.

I promised to share a review of the raw chocolate and other goodies that I broke the budget on at the Whole Foods in High St Kensington.

Pictured are 'conscious' 'Healthy Heart' chocolate bar and also their lucuma bar (with cacao butter, sort of a white chocolate) and 'pulsin's maple peanut protein bar and also their 'berry burst' with dried raspberries and goji berries and cacao. I also picked up this little ball

and a heinously expensive bar of Shazzie's Naked Chocolate that I seem to have failed to photograph. It wasn't an accident that the flavor of Naked Chocolate that I picked was the 'Siren,' with blue-green algae added, just like the 'Healthy Heart' flavor of 'conscious' chocolate that I picked out, shown above.

I have more intimate pictures of these goodies that I will add another time, since this internet connection is ridiculously slow and I want to post this blog before I have to leave! But it's kind of symbolic that I'm having such trouble posting photos, as I'm finding myself ambivalent about this whole reviewing process. I could tell you about how the conscious chocolate bar had more of a truffle texture, which was delicious and satisfying.

That the 'naked chocolate' bar, whose blocks are much thicker, was a little grainier, not a very good texture, but that both of them tasted great (the 'conscious' somewhat better) and the algae was a very unobtrusive note.

I could tell you that Phil, who loves chocolate but had never had raw chocolate before, thought that the raw cacao was a very 'harsh' note in the chocolate. I could tell you that 'conscious' lucuma bar was disappointing, especially since I'm on a quest to make chocolate without caffeine in it, and was thinking of exploring a white chocolate path. The cacao butter on the bottom was kind of waxy, the lucuma layer above was just too sweet.

I could tell you that the little 'berriball'

tasted a lot better to me than 'pulsin's berry-cacao offering,

which I would have categorized as somewhat 'harsh' too. But the 'berriball' had raisins and dates and much more sweet stuff in it whereas 'pulsin's was lower-glycemic.

I could tell you that my favorite thing was the 'pulsin' peanut maple protein bar.

Despite the fact that personally, I think that carob/peanuts/maple syrup is a very odd flavor combo, I liked the fact that they used carob and cacao butter, I loved that they used pea protein powder (my protein powder of choice, with hemp), and I especially loved that they were low-glycemic and low-fructose, with a minimal amount of maple syrup and 'brown rice malt' (a new ingredient for me) also with the sweetness of carob.

And thereby hangs a tale. What does it say that the bar I liked best may not have had the best flavor, but tasted good and was made from a set of ingredients that I was happy about? Furthermore, what does it say that sampling those raw chocolate bars just underscored for me that my naturopath is right and that I really shouldn't eat chocolate?

This all seems to say that maybe trying out all the chocolate bars isn't the best thing for me to do, and that as much as I love tastes and good foodiness, I (am compelled to) prefer what feels better in my body. The maple peanut protein bar tasted great (if a little offbeat) to me, and I ate half of it after lunch and half of it late afternoon and it didn't wig me out (the final ingredient was green tea extract, which I think is caffeine free) and it didn't spike my blood sugar. I would buy it again. All the others, not so much. I'd like to learn more about 'pulsin:' I noticed that although they are 'low temperature processed' and a small company, they did have whey protein in some of their flavors.

Another one of theirs I was tempted to try was a maca-ashwagandha flavor, except that (as I've shared before), I know that ashwagandha wigs me out, much as I love maca! So, I didn't try the bar with the ashwagandha: why did I try so many cacao bars?

And why was this a bad idea?

When I eat raw cacao, I feel an instant hit of anxiety and stimulation. It often makes my stomach feel more capacious, like I could eat more than I'd otherwise be able to. It's addictive: I always want more of it. When I eat it more than a day or two in a row, it exacerbates yeast symptoms and prevents me from sleeping. And of course, the social element: everybody adores cacao, and I want to share in the conversation about it, not be the party-pooper who says 'oh, it's bad for me!' (or even worse, 'oh, it's bad for you!')

I love that having a blog has helped me to feel freer to buy sometimes expensive goodies to review them. I used to put myself off with sticker shock and deprive myself of the experience. But I'm now recognizing that taking the blogging as carte blanche to try all kinds of raw cacao when I know that I find it addictive, that it gives me instant and then cumulative symptoms, and that it is counterproductive to the adrenal healing that I'm working on, may not be wise, smart or even self-loving. As my very wise and kind bloggie-friend Bitt says, "We have to do what's best for our health first and foremost." 


And so, when we got to Anchorage and discovered raw chocolate bars at the natural food store...and then later found that they're even available in Homer, and at about half the price of raw chocolate in London...

 ...I didn't feel like I was compelled to buy them just to review.


Yes, I do still have a review of Vega's Whole Food Vibrance bars coming up. But this twist in the tail of a blog product review might actually be a more interesting direction for the blog itself! I'm mulling over all that and will talk more about it in due course.


What has you blog writing or other putting yourself out there inspired you to do? Have you ever had to back off from certain things that it allows that don't serve you well?

I'll be back as soon as I can, with photos and hopefully another post. Much love.

Visiting, Shopping and Body Image, Vantra Restaurant Review

It's been a whirlwind week in and around London! We really barely stopped for a moment this past week.

We saw a gorgeous sunset on Hampstead Heath (and a very cool dead tree that looks like anything you want it to)...

We enjoyed the filtered sunlight in the tall and narrow alleyways of Winchester.

We played with a pair of delightful twins (the children of some dear old friends) who loved posing for photos and then running away as soon as I pressed the shutter: two suspiciously swollen curtains...

and playing 'horses' on Phil's knee.

We visited Phil's stepson, a wonderful, welcoming person,

and spent some time with our beautiful niece, who (of course) adores Phil too, and her parents (I am so impressed with my brother and sister-in-law. Great parents, great human beings).

Traveling around the London area with public transportation is very doable, but is also quite tiring: lots of crowds, lots of walking between stations, lots of stairs up and down, lots of noisy public address announcements... And when I went shopping in Oxford Circus with my mum, I discovered that sometimes nowadays you have to 'queue' (stand in line) just to get back into the underground (subway) station!

The underground looks older - the trains that I remember spanking new in my teens are obviously close to twenty years old now, graffiti'd and worn-out-looking. Lots of renovations and line closures at awkward moments. But I'd never seen building materials stacked under the tracks before! See all those piles of blocks?

I was ambivalent about going shopping with my mum. First of all, I'm a terrible shopper. Second, I don't like crowds. And third, and worst, I had tried on an old pair of trousers (pants) at my folks' home, that I'd worn since my early teens and wore last time I was here three years ago, and they fitted just fine, except that I couldn't do them up! Admittedly, three years ago I still weighed in the double digits, which I no longer do and which most people say I shouldn't, but this threw me for a major loop and gave me little interest in buying clothes, eating, or doing anything except crunches!

But actually, we had a great time. The shopping itself was quite smooth, despite the crowds and the rain, and I learned a funny thing about clothes sizing too. In the photo below, the pants on the left are a size larger than the pants on the right, in a different style.

The purple cords on the left, in the larger size, were tight on my waist and loose elsewhere. The black ones on the right, a size smaller, were very comfortable and quite loose around the waist! Go figure... Not surprisingly, I got the black ones - and my mum got a pair too, so we were both happy.

By the time we got done, it was long past lunchtime, and perhaps I was a little more interested in lunch with that lesson in clothing sizes. And having made you cringe a bit with that body image talk, it's time for a restaurant review! I blogged earlier about our visit to Vita Organic and how they told us that their 'raw food' operation had mostly moved to their new premises in Soho Street.

Mum and I hiked down to Soho Street to find the new place, Vantra.

Liked the look of that mission statement! Liked the young coconuts (whole, not shaved) on the bar.

But 'coming soon' is the operative term: they have a beautiful buffet featuring a lot of raw salads and also a lot of cooked vegan food with sprouts and vegetables and beautiful sauces...

...all along the window to the street, a tempting arrangement... But they don't have any of the raw gourmet stuff yet: the lasagnas, pizzas, etc: that's all 'coming soon.' They do have nut milks and smoothie options, and we got a raspberry-cacao smoothie with nut milk and sweetened with coconut crystals to go with our lunch. One time through the buffet is 6 pounds per person, no sharing. All the plates and 'silverware' are compostable/recycled (great concept, I guess, for a new, up-and-coming place not to have to do dishes on top of everything.

Here's my plate:

(mostly raw, lots of sea veggies and sprouts, but I had to try those giant cooked mushrooms and a piece of aubergine (eggplant) simmered in coconut milk). My mum's plate:

We have some similar tastes! But I wasn't sure about the gluten status of those noodles at 11 o'clock on her plate, or the creamy mixture at 2 o'clock, so stayed away on the safe side.

Naughty me for having cacao, but my mum agreed that the smoothie was delicious! They brought a bottle of agave along when they served it, in case we wanted it sweeter. It was plenty sweet just as it was (no agave for me, thanks)!

She took a pic of me too (but it's a little blurry).

It was a delicious and satisfying meal, at a pretty decent price for central London. I was thrilled that my mum really liked it too, and that she was talking about going back with various friends of hers whom she's sure will love it. It makes me so happy when I can introduce someone to something I enjoy and have them enjoy it too. However, my search for a genuine 'raw' restaurant is still unfulfilled, although if you wanted to eat purely raw at Vantra or Vita-O, they do have a very extensive selection of salads, plus the various nut milks and smoothies. I was sorry that they didn't have any raw desserts, especially since they claim to espouse a low-glycemic philosophy, but truth be told, I generally prefer smoothies anyway.

I'll share more as I can. Just a few more days here, and I'm quite tired today and hoping for some slower-paced days. Back home is snow-bound!

How are you preparing for Thanksgiving?

From London - Family (Baby Pics!), Parks, Good Living, VitaOrganic Restaurant

Sorry not to have posted for so long - there's so much catching up to do, so much to see - and a whole new face on the world to which to introduce Phil.

Have to start with the baby, of course! She is just three months old, but she's so alert, so big, so engaged, so happy! She has this knowing look in her eyes as she smiles, as if she has a private joke. Here she is with my mom...[removed baby pics at request of my brother and sister-in-law]

And with her mom and grandma

My brother makes such a great dad

And I got to experience her remarkable firm-footedness also (she likes to 'stand up')

It is a new kind of magic, the galvanizing effect on a family of having a small baby around. The juxtaposition of helplessness, constant, earnest, determined learning (watch those babies soaking up everything!) and being charming and adorable... Plus, the appeal of an infant who resembles their family members is definitely strong. It was fascinating for me to be drawn into that too: they were wondering whether she might end up with eyes like mine (my brother has red hair and fair skin, but much darker eyes, whereas I'm darker-complected but have almost green eyes) and remarking on the similarity of our hair colors also. It's wonderful to see how her parents dote on her, how alert they are to her needs and likes.

Phil and I went around London a bit - we went to the National Gallery: I was so taken with the fig-tree hedge outside! Actually, I was seeing fig trees everywhere - those beautiful leaves...

The trees are one of the things I love most in London - many of them are so old and full of character.

Here's Phil with Buckingham Palace in the background. He thought there was something fundamentally, conceptually wrong with taking such a picture!

When I was a kid, the ponds in London parks were full of mallard ducks, canada geese, coots, and not much else. Now, though, there were still those, but also beautiful mandarin ducks, another kind of coot, two or three other kinds of geese, several other kinds of duck, and these ridiculous, hilarious pelicans!

We met up with my other brother for lunch - they got take-out falafels and we sat outside a pub in the rain!

I just got a little broccoli and cauliflower (from the falafel place, middle-eastern style, like my grandmother's cooking) because I was so excited to go try a raw food restaurant in London! There were none last time I was here: now, according to web searches, there are several. Vita Organic wasn't very far from where we were with my bro, and their website claims that they have a low-glycemic philosophy, so I was especially excited to try them out.

UNfortunately, they hadn't updated their website to tell that they were expanding to new premises, a way further on, and that most of the live food was in the new place. So after a long, in my case, hungry, walk in the rain, we came to a very cool and cute bar that was mostly cooked vegan eat-in buffet.

I got a 'living latte' - nut milk with your choice of flavorings. I asked for chai and maca, and had it made with yacon syrup to be low-glycemic.

It was 3pm, but quite busy with customers coming in to eat buffet - but I was surprised by how long it took to arrive. For how expensive it was, it's also pretty small. The top inch there is 'head.' It was good enough for me, but I could have made something much better myself, and wouldn't have felt good about sharing it with someone who wasn't into raw foods. What I couldn't understand was why it had such an intense licorice flavor - there was a lot of nutmeg in the chai, which amplified the licorice. I've never had yacon syrup before, but I've grown yacon before and that has no licorice taste... I didn't dislike it, but a lot of people do.

I've been making lots of gorgeous salads at my folks,'

(table spread extra-big for the visit of my brother, his wife and their baby)

and stuffed a butternut squash with lentils, middle eastern style...

Some marinaded and lightly-toasted pumpkin seeds on top - was yummy! Neither of my brothers would eat it, although my bigger brother loves Israeli style lentils. They're both major meat and minimal veggies guys. We have many differences and many things in common too - have been enjoying giggling over reminiscences.

I have a product review to do, as promised, and lots more London experiences to share. But most of the time here has to be dedicated to visiting, going, seeing.

Much love!