I was asked to write out my reasons for practicing yoga, and one of the reasons I came up with is that when I practice with regularity and devotion, shifts happen in my life. My mental health is better. I make better decisions. I feel good. It made me think about my struggles in the kitchen lately and that perhaps the shift I need to make in my mind and heart is this one- one of devotion. It makes sense on a few levels here. Food prep takes place multiple times a day, every day. It’s not negotiable to feed my people, but sometimes I don’t prioritize feeding myself. It can be so easy to get stuck in food ruts, especially when there are ANY challenges or restrictions to note.
I said in my last post about Alpha-gal that I wanted to talk about food itself- what I am eating, what I can’t eat etc. The truth is though, I have been deeply struggling with the what to eat thing. It has been a surprising development because for my entire adult life, I have thrived on creating a diverse and delicious diet with restrictions. I was a strict vegan for a decade, and a raw food vegan for some of those years. I got really good at raw vegan food prep, took classes and workshops, was heavily invested in that community and I loved it. I felt free, not restricted. Once I added animal foods back in to my diet, I was incredibly aligned with the paleo/grain-free way of eating- it just made sense to me. Over time that has expanded, and I have always prioritized eating whole foods grown and raised as close to me as possible. On our homestead, we grow a lot of vegetables, some fruits, some grain and are able to forage and process locally abundant nuts into food as well (acorn and pecan). Our chicken flock provides more eggs than we need, and sometimes the odd chicken when we have an aggressive rooster, etc. We supplemented this with a weekly meat order from a local farm that raises grassfed beef and pastured pork (shout out to Mahaffey Farms, we love you!), a milk co-op for raw milk, butter and yogurt, and then all the other kitchen staples-oil, rice, gluten-free flour and pasta, organic chocolate chips, you know just groceries at the local supermarket. I had my frustrated moments in the kitchen when it would be lunchtime and I didn’t know what to feed my kids, or tired at dinnertime and absolutely not in the mood to cook, but for the most part it was enjoyable.
And then Alpha-gal. You’d think that for a person with experience dealing in restricted diets, that I’d be up for the challenge. That’s where you would be wrong. I am NOT up for this challenge, or at least I haven’t been. Perhaps this reframing of my struggles in the kitchen into something that I am doing for myself first and foremost as an act of devotion to this body/temple (which it is) is the necessary step. Perhaps this reframing of our time spent in the kitchen preparing food for our families to include concepts like ‘self-care’ is what is needed on a larger scale.
It has helped that the garden is beginning to produce abundantly. There is a workflow that has to be maintained or else the food either rots in the garden or on the counter. At this moment, the cucumbers are overflowing. The summer squash is weakly producing, as are the various types of green/dragons’ tongue/yellow wax. The tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and trickling in. The thornless blackberries are coming in by the big bowlful. Herbs, both culinary and medicinal, are in need of daily harvests. Red clover, elderflower, apple mint, anise hyssop, bee balm, lemon balm, passionflower. The last of the late winter sowed carrots and beets. The irony is that within this labor-intensive garden situation, I have begun to feel more freedom and ease in the kitchen. I’m also feeling a certain inspiration, an itch if you will, to step up my game and do the damn thing here.
My greatest heart’s desire has been to live a life close to the earth, in tune with the rhythm of the seasons. This diagnosis took me away from that and it’s taken an entire year to get to a place where I can feel it again, as it manifests through my kitchen. Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good has been a theme throughout my life, and it has been through overcoming this conditioning and finding ways to get to the heart of the matter that has been a place of growth and healing.
Some of the foods and meals I am currently preparing to be nourishing on the deepest levels:
-Roast chicken and potatoes. I can get local chicken and we have an abundance of recently dug potatoes to use. This is classic, delicious and my entire family loves it.
-Chicken broth/stock/bone broth. Any and all of the above using the bones from our roast chicken, extra chicken feet from local farms, leftover veggies and onion scraps, herbs from the garden and whatever fresh or dried wild harvested mushrooms we’ve got going at the time. The best, and super versatile.
-Rice cooked in above chicken broth. I can cook a skillet of garden-fresh vegetables into a stir fry, and it is a balanced meal to have. Adding a scrambled egg ups the nutrition. Coconut aminos are an essential pantry staple for this.
-Getting into the habit of having the best quality salmon we can afford that week. I prefer wild caught anything NOT from the Atlantic Ocean. This can be eaten with those homegrown potatoes, or the chicken broth rice and a vegetable side for a complete meal.
-Dutch baby- these puffy German oven pancakes are super easy to make, can use up a LOT of eggs and whatever fruit we have ripe at that moment. It always ends up slightly sweet, custardy, eggy deliciousness for breakfast or an afternoon treat.
-Herbal pesto- Using whatever herbs are currently calling to me in the garden, along with garlic or perennial onion, nuts or seeds, olive oil, lemon juice and salt to make a super nutritious addition to our meals.
Some foods that I want to experiment further with are:
-chicken livers. I made a pate that I was underwhelmed with but will definitely try it again. I feel strongly about the inclusion of organ meats in our diets and a general more nose to tail approach to eating, but it isn’t easy for those of us born into a culture where we cut our teeth on diet coke and poptarts. I was taking a beef liver supplement and periodically adding small amounts of beef liver into our ground beef dishes with good success pre Alpha-gal.
-duck fat and more duck in general. I would love to find a source for locally sourced duck, or perhaps that would be in the future for Dan to pursue learning to hunt. Who knows.
-Fishing as a food source. We live right on a popular lake for fishing and Dan knows how. We have the equipment a fishing license. It just is a matter of spending more time doing it. It’s been a long time (since childhood) that I’ve had fried white perch. I’d love to make that happen.
-I’d like to take the plunge and order emu steaks and pot roast from Amaroo Hills Farm. I miss this type of meal the most.
-Replacing some of my vegan dairy products with homemade versions or finding replacements. The vegan butter situation is making me sad. I really miss real grass-fed butter a lot. Vegan butter is truly garbage- it’s essential margarine with an enormous marketing campaign to make you think otherwise. Also, I used to make a lot of cashew based nut cheeses so I can get back to it easily.
To be honest, I’m not really sure what the aim of this post is. Maybe more than anything it’s to document my thought process and journey with Alpha-gal. Food is important, but nourishment is even more important. If you have, or know someone who has Alpha-gal syndrome, perhaps this can serve as a bit of inspiration for them as well.
I have a number of herbalism related posts coming up, so now back to your regularly scheduled content!
