Prioritize food and you prioritize yourself
Plus: Wild fermented soda recipe
How much space does food take up in your life? Is it important to you?
And I’m not just talking about having at least three meals per day or cooking for yourself.
But you’ve probably heard the term food is medicine before. Or you are what you eat. Meaning that what you put in your body is reflecting your overall health. So depending on what you eat, it’ll help you stay fit and healthy.
I’d go even a step further. I believe food, the preparation of your meals included, helps your mental health, too. Your soul anyway. That’s where the term soul food comes from.
It starts with getting the ingredients. Given that you decide to prepare your own food or cook for yourself that is. In purchasing whole foods, real ingredients, that means not processed or as little as possible, organic, local and seasonal, you start investing in yourself, literally.
I know how pricy organic produce and products can be, especially when bought at a farmers market or farm stand. Grocery stores can negotiate better prices, a farmer can’t. Most of them have to live off of the fruits of their labor.
Opting for whole foods allows you to truly see and understand what goes into your meals. No artificial colors or flavors, no additives, just real natural ingredients. If that doesn’t already give you a good feeling, I don’t know what is.
Just a little reminder, I don’t always get to eat healthy, don’t always get to buy real ingredients or whole foods. Plus I also love Pizza and a good (veggie) burger, French Toast and pancakes.
For me, it’s the balance. Not forcing myself into any diet or habit, but opting for a variety of foods. Since I’m a veggie, I’d often have a mix of lentils, beans, or other types of protein, such as Tofu. I like to eat various carbs, instead of having potatoes or rice with each meal, I choose to have Quinoa, millet, pasta and more. Fresh vegetables and fruits are crucial for me.
I’m very grateful that I’m mostly able to purchase good ingredients and have the ability to cook and prepare meals for myself most of the times. A lifestyle like this isn’t a problem for me.
Preparing my own food is also a way of taking care of myself, it’s self care. Why? Well, first in choosing the ingredients that go into the meal, then it’s consciously taking time to prepare my meals. It’s almost like a meditation for me. Cooking, baking or preparing meals for me makes my mind shut off.
But, it doesn’t stop right there, dear reader. How often do you rush out the door with your food in your hand, munching on your breakfast while hopping on the subway or behind your steering wheel.
Do you actually sit down and take your time while eating? Or are you watching a move while having your dinner, scrolling through Instagram maybe? I’m guilty there, too, some days.
In focusing on what’s right in front of you on your plate, though, you get to choose yourself. You choose to take time for eating healthy, treating your body with good food and thinking even better thoughts.
Lastly, do you actually enjoy the food you eat? I’m not talking about your cooking skills, here. I’m referring to how it makes you feel feeding yourself.
Do you believe the food you intake is good for you and is keeping you healthy? Do you allow yourself to treat yourself with good healthy ingredients, or even the Burger or the Pizza?
Or do you feel bad about what you’re eating? It’s all information. What you feed your thoughts and your mind, has an impact on your (mental) health, too, you see.
Treat yourself. You deserve it!
Wild fermentation project
In my previous post two weeks ago, I shared about the rose hips that I foraged on a hike nearby. I decided to make a syrup with them in layering halved rose hips alternating with sugar in a jar.
Well, the jar is still sitting there, but not much is happening really. I believe the rose hips didn’t have enough flesh and juice for this to work to begin with. The sugar hasn’t dissolved even half, yet. What do you think? Shall I give it another couple weeks?
As for my newest food related project. The area I’m staying in is known for its sea buckthorn. On a recent walk I’ve found a small shrub that currently carries plenty of fruit.
Today I decided to harvest them. If you’ve never picked sea buckthorn, don’t do it the same way I did today, trying to neatly cutting off the tiny berries off of the bush, scratching yourself with the gigantic thorns…
Instead do it as the folks at Metta Earth Institute, a Yoga Retreat Center in Vermont, are doing it. trimming off the twigs that carry the fruit, then freeze the whole thing and pluck them off coming out of the freezer. I wasn’t able to do that today, since scissors aren’t quite strong enough to cut off the twigs.
What am I doing with my foraged fruits? Well, I came across a wild fermented soda recipe the other day and decided to give it a try.
This is what I did:
I actually didn’t measure or weigh the little berries, I just divided them among the two bottles I used. I believe each bottle has about 4-5 tbsp. Getting rid of as much of the little twigs and leaves as possible, but not washing them, since I wanted to preserve the natural yeasts on the fruit.
I then used the raw honey that I still had in my pantry shelf. The recipe calls for slightly more than what I had left and what I used, but I just went for it. I used about 1/4 cups in total, so about 1/8 cups for each bottle.
The recipe called for either apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. I decided to use both and put one in one bottle and the other in the other bottle, about 1/2 tbsp each. I did the same for the herbs, sage and rosemary, about 1-2 tbsp each. So bottle no. 1 has apple cider vinegar and sage, bottle no. 2 has lemon juice and rosemary.
As per usual I’m winging everything here, the ingredients, the measurements. And even if this whole experiment is gonna turn out as a super sour soda, it’ll be worth it. For I enjoy the process, the foraging of the fruits, putting everything together, documenting it with my phone camera and observing the bottles for next 2-3 days now. Because that’s what’s happening. Topped with water (400ml each) the mixture needs to sit at room temperature to ferment.
Are you as excited how it’s gonna turn out as I am? I hope you are!
Until next time
Yours
Mel