Joyful Food - Crafting a diet that's both healthy and joyful

This year my word-of-the-year is "Joyful". Each month I have chosen a joyful focus to inspire me, motivate me, to keep me on track. August's focus has been on food and what we eat.  This focus didn't start abruptly at the beginning of August, it has been a more gradual process over the past few months but August has given me the opportunity to have a moment to think about how it's going, to re-access what is and isn't working.

Over the past few years, young children, and time pressures have meant that I have been turning more and more towards processed and oven ready foods. There has been a lot of media coverage on how harmful ultra processed foods (UPFs) are and it prompted me to re-access our diet and what I have been putting into my, and my children's bodies. What is more, it is clear to me that UPF's are not joyful. Whilst they might taste ok, and fill a hole the burden of additives, preservatives and fake ingredients doesn't kindle joy in my heart in the way a home made slice of cake, a freshly tossed salad with dressing, or a newly baked loaf of bread might.

Please don't get me wrong, I don't believe that our diet has been drastically bad over the years, we haven't been eating all ready meals, fizzy drinks and take-away.  We are all pretty healthy, but there is definitely room for improvement (my husband and I are definitely fatter than is strictly necessary!)

One area I've felt especially guilty about is that of organic food.  I haven't been making much effort to source organic food.  As a child my own mother went to great lengths to buy organic food for us in a time when it was much more difficult to come by and wasn't readily available in the supermarket. I remember spending hours wandering around farm shops in the middle of no-where waiting for my mum to buy her fruits and vegetables, she even set up her own food co-operative from our home, bulk buying organic whole foods like oats, raisins and beans which she split up with a few friends.  She felt like organic food was really important for us and I don't want to undo all her good work on my health throughout my childhood by buying chemical laden food from the supermarket now. 

Considering diet can be a very confusing these days, there are so many different approaches to what we eat, so many people saying their diet plan is the best, most natural, most nutritious, or most healthy one out there and there are often many conflicting studies and contradictory research which supposedly back up the benefits of each one. This makes finding the truth extremely difficult and has led me to rely more on my own instinct and intuition about diet and nutrition than relying on the advice of all the so-called experts and proponents of different diets that are out there. 

For me this has meant organic whole foods, food as nature intended.  

Eating whole foods naturally means cutting out UPF's because a processed food is not a whole food. Whole foods are foods that have not been processed, although I have been processing some of the foods myself at home to make them more enjoyable, making my own bread for example. Home made food feels joyful, not just the simplicity of the ingredients but the heart that has gone into it.

Over the months I have been gradually trying to cut out as much processed food as possible, by making more things myself at home and sourcing organic versions of the things I normally buy. This has had a mixed response from my family!

I have had some successes, making my own bread for example, (I have made my own bread on and off for years, but I really committed to it this time), we are really enjoying a weekly organic veg box, and I have had some failures, (no one liked the home made granola I made) but there have been some downsides too.

For me as a home educating mum, (meaning that I don't get paid for my work and I am very occupied), trying to eat organic wholefoods has been very expensive and time consuming. I have found myself waking up to children clamouring they are starving because I have neglected to make more granola or bread and there is nothing for breakfast, or we have decided to have egg mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch but I haven't made the mayonnaise, or I've simply just not known what to cook.  The whole thing quickly because an overwhelming burden. And that is not joyful.

This whole journey with food has forced me to admit that I can't actually have it all, I can't actually do it all! If my children were in school I would have more time to make all the food myself, if I worked I'd have more money to spend on organic food, but I don't, so, as my online name, Imperfectly Natural Mama reminds me, I'm imperfect, and I can't actually be perfect this side of heaven, I have to live in this middle ground, this half way, working towards perfection but never quite making it and having to accept that. 

I am learning to compromise.  There will still be home made bread but we might not be spreading it with home made organic jam.  I think this is where I can find the joy in my food, eating as much whole, organic foods as possible but not wearing myself to the bone trying to get to it, and perhaps more importantly, letting go of the guilt of not being able to do it all. 

Lockdown reflections

A friend called me out on my complaining this week.

As most of you know I have struggled through lockdown and continue to struggle through the ongoing restrictions.  Phrases like "the new normal" set my teeth on edge and I want to throttle anyone to tells me that there is no going back to what we had before and that the virus will be with us forever. 

I enjoyed my life before lockdown.  I enjoyed seeing my friends and family, I enjoyed being able to do things spontaneously, I enjoyed socialising with other families, I enjoyed going to church and singing hymns. Living in our tiny house wasn't so bad when we were out of it most of the day at groups, other people's houses or visiting places, I have found spending more time at home with three children and an extra adult in the house all day (my husband working in our tiny bedroom) very challenging. I have had intense moments of cabin fever, wanting not only to run away from the house but to climb out of my own skin and just get away. But we've been trapped. 

That's how I've felt during lockdown: trapped. 

I have read often in messages from friends and on facebook that people have enjoyed lockdown.  All I could feel about this was envy and irritation. How can they find THIS enjoyable!! Don't they know how hard it's been for ME? How dare they say they've enjoyed it! 

And this is where my friend came in with her truth.  And I am so thankful for her insight.

"Your life was good before lockdown so lockdown is just a bad patch for you.  For the people who have enjoyed lockdown their lives were worse before and the lockdown is the good patch for them; and that's sad."

Lightbulb!

For some people lockdown has been like an oasis in the desert, compared to my relatively small shadow in the light, (apologies for the mixed metaphors).  There are people out there who have had to go to a miserable job everyday who have been furloughed or else been able to work from home for whom lockdown has been a huge relief and a rest, maybe they've got away from a mean boss or unpleasant coworkers and be able to relax and be themselves, there are people who have been able to spend time with their children that perhaps they never felt able to before due to school pressure, endless hobbies and clubs, and they have loved it.  There are people who have really enjoyed being able to spend time at home instead of  travelling away for work, there are people whose lives may have been so busy before that lockdown has given them the chance to pause and reflect on their lives. 

So while I have been busy moaning about how hard lockdown is for me, I should have been being thankful that my life was so good before and that lockdown in only temporary.  For me that bad bit is temporary, for other people the good bit is temporary.  Talk about food for thought.

I don't mean at all to sound patronising to people here, my life was good before but not perfect and I certainly don't mean to sound boastful or prideful about my life because it's not that at all.  It's gratitude, it's appreciation, it's thankfulness. It's feeling like actually I have got a lot to be happy about my life, as much as there are hard parts, like everyone else, overall, it's pretty damn good. 

Now there is no point in a moment of epiphany if one doesn't take something from it and change. How am I going to use this insight and make a difference in my life.  Here are some ways I am starting to make changes:

Stop moaning about how hard it all is, it's not as hard for me in lockdown as it is for some people normally, 

Tell myself that I enjoy cleaning and tidying for my family (fake it to make it!),

Make the best of the home we have, we are lucky to have one of our own despite how small it is, 

Enjoy my children as much as possible, I am fortunate to be able to home educate them, 

Craft a beautiful life.

                                          

My wise friend messaged me later and said this:

"Compare lockdown with food rationing during the war.  Families that were more well off, and could usually afford a wide variety of quality food, found rationing really difficult.  They were so unsatisfied with it because they were used to much better and much more food that that, and they tended to be the people that would buy stuff on the black market quite regularly.  However, the poorer working class families thrived during rationing because they were usually mal-nourished.  And so, they found that they were now getting more food than they'd ever had before.  A lot of them said "we've never had it so good!" By the end of the war the British nation was at its most healthy in terms of nutrition and cardio-vascular health as a result of rationing.  There was no gap in health between the rich and the poor.  Be like the poor people.  Proclaim to yourself: "we've never had it so good!"  Even if you don't feel like it."

                                          

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