Meeting Notes - August 4th

Personal Relationships with Food – Sensitivities and “Knowing” what to eat…

- Story of attempting to eat soy and soy foods while eating a vegan diet, and ignoring a feeling that it wasn’t “right” for the body. Finally acknowledging that soy is not a native part of the ancestral European diet, and relinquishing the need to what is “healthy” in the popular, marketing sense.

- Reading Diet for a Small Planet and undergoing the process of becoming a vegetarian; giving up sugar and experiencing the boost in energy and well-being that resulted. Undergoing muscle testing for food sensitivities, and discovering that a continuous consumption of corn chips had led to a corn sensitivity.

- Living with a constitution that has trouble digesting proteins – develop bumps on the skin from eating meat or dairy products, as well as spicy foods; now rely on grains and legumes – digest oatmeal especially well

- Story of growing up eating with a focus on quantity and not quality. Always ate very quickly while working as a cook in a restaurant as a young man, and that hurried approach carried over into adulthood. It has taken many years to learn to slow down and savor food as it is eaten. Also learned over the years to eat more seasonally – warmer, heavier foods in winter, lighter foods with less meat in summer. Time of day is also important – always have breakfast, and a large midday meal will cause sluggishness and tiredness.

- Eating seasonally in summer is made much easier when getting produce from a CSA farm share, but children eat less seasonally since there are certain foods they want year-round. Noticed that the day feels much better if breakfast is some sort of native ethnic food, like oatmeal, than something less native and more processed. Cutting out sugar from the family’s diet and learning to bake with honey, and maple and agave syrups. Used to drink gallons of coffee, but now feel very affected by caffeine. Crave chocolate often even though it leads to feeling unwell.

- Had a grandmother who warned against eating tomatoes without every really explaining why, but now know that many people have a sensitivity to nightshade vegetables. Sometimes wonder if mother would not have developed diabetes if she had never left Ethiopia and adopted a more Western way of eating. Here in the U.S. one can eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. When things are at their best, then meals are communal – food is different when eaten alone. Metabolism is sharply affected by spiritual and emotional context – food just “sits there” in the stomach when eaten in a state of sadness – the metabolism shuts down.

- Story of experiencing the emotional aspects of eating – has spent a lifetime taking care of others, children, an elderly mother, etc. When stressed get the urge to eat, especially comfort foods, bread, and chocolate. Have a full appreciation of the extent to which anxiety and depression affect eating.

- Isolation is something we continuously have to look at – “humans are healers of one another” – we are constantly dealing with aloneness