food to glow

The nearly needle-less tree lies forlorn at the curb; shiny baubles are carefully wrapped and stored away; work clothes are strewn in a messy heap on the bedroom floor.

Gah! Nothing fits!

Pick up a magazine: “New Year! New You!”…”Get Your Best Body Yet!” …””Drop 2 Pounds A Week With Our Celebrity Diet and Exercise App!”

Turn the magazine face down and sob quietly into your coconut milk latte.

Repeat millions of times over, for it is January, the traditional month of dietary penance and angst.

At this time of year diets and healthy eating plans vie for our attention, and wallet. At the best of times it can be confusing to know what to eat, but January takes it to a whole new level of uncertainty. There are many different ways to eat, ranging from plants only to eating mainly animal foods – raw vegan, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, paleo, primal {and here is the difference}, Mediterranean, gluten-free, grain-free, sugar-free, flexitarian, vegan before 6, etc. And all points in between. Advocates of each diet proclaim theirs has the most scientific backing, the best “results” – however that is defined.

With all of the chatter created by competing interests over the past five or so years {by my reckoning}, creating healthful meals has changed from a normal, almost hum-drum, activity that our ancestors have been engaged in for millennia, to a stressful, confusing puzzle that never seems finished.

Basically we have too many options; choices our ancestors never dreamed of having.

I am not claiming to have any answers to this confusion. I claim no particular expertise. But what I see as an over-arching theme – albeit with differing emphasis – is whole foods. Two simple, self-explanatory words: Whole. Foods.

If we strip away the ‘rules’ for each of these diets, the minutiae that is only a tiny speck of what it is to be healthy, therein lies whole foods. Foods in their natural, unrefined, gloriously healthy state: vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, whole grains, meats, fish, legumes; throw in the trickier-to-categorise spices and herbs too. Not the mucked about with, “grown for flavour” {shouldn’t that be a given?}, “lower fat”, “with added Omega-3” nonsense. Just actual food. Real food. Not something that has a long list of ingredients. Or obfuscating labels and layers of packaging. Varied, colourful, balanced real food. The stuff from the edges of the grocery store not the heavily packaged and advertised packets in the inner aisles. Or, better yet, a local market, co-operative, allotment, or backyard.

But even with that simple motto for eating well, it can be confusing. What of the rise of the superfood – that marketing term to denote a food with especially high amounts of key nutrients? If a little is good for us, then how about a lot?

With each ‘newly-discovered’ food {think chia seeds, acai berries, soy} comes hype and ubiquity. Working as I do with cancer patients the issue of soy comes up a lot {and I will be writing in depth on it soon}. While there is some research that soy can help prevent some cancers, these findings have catapulted a simple, relatively unprocessed food into highly processed meat-like chunks, powders for drinks, sweetened milks and yogurts, flours for commercially-made protein bars and diet meals. In China and Japan soy is a whole food eaten in its healthiest, naturally fermented form. I imagine elders in Japan think we are rather silly eating our protein bars and chocolate-flavoured soy yogurts rather than a bowl of miso or a bowl of fish and sea vegetables.

So, variety and balance with our whole foods and our so-called super foods.

Another piece of the puzzle is digestion. Our bodies are unique and so is our digestion. A way of eating that suits me may not suit you, and vice versa. In my cancer nutrition classes I ask participants to keep a food diary until our next class. The purpose of this is not to grade everyone on how nutritious – or not – is their diary. Instead I reassure them that it is a tool for them to use to help them gauge if what they are eating right now is helping them right now. Digestive difficulties are a frequent side effect of cancer treatment, with people often needing to eat less fibre rather than more. You would think I would be exhorting everyone to get loads of cancer-fighting fibre-rich veggies in, but if they can’t be digested, and cause pain, then intake needs to be modified. I tend to recommend juicing vegetables to get much of the nutrients without the discomfort.

But we all have our own digestive idiosyncrasies and food sensitivities. My nemesis is chickpeas. I just cannot digest them. I can make them marginally more tolerable by peeling each little pea, but they still cause me to nearly double over in pain. Maybe you have extremes like this, or worse.

The best thing we can do – from a dietary perspective –  is to listen to our body and find a way of eating that works best for us. For some people that may mean eating vegan, for others that may mean replacing meat with easier-to-digest fish. For others adding more pulses will give more energy and better digestion. We are all unique. I really advocate keeping a loose food diary for at least a short while, noting any digestive issues or fluctuations in energy and cognition, to try and fine-tune the diet. Even dieticians and nutritionists engage in this form of self-checking. See a registered dietitian or nutritionist if you need guidance, especially if you have health issues. Here are some tips from Web MD to help get the most out of keeping a food diary.

So, my take on Jumpstart 2015 is to encourage you to use this month to find out what foods make you tick. Hopefully it involves adding more vegetables to your diet, cutting back/out processed foods, and ditching added sugars. But whatever you do, I hope it gives you more energy and makes you feel more positive about eating. Food shouldn’t be something to beat ourselves up about or a fad we follow until the next one comes along. It should be about what makes us feel like our best selves. Without a label – for our food or ourselves.

So, enough jibber-jabber from me, let’s get eating…

I know the rest of my Jumpstart 2015 gang are straight out of the blocks with gorgeous smoothies, but perversely I will begin with a soup – New Year, New Soup!  A warming, gently spiced soup. It is especially odd of me seeing as I am still in warm and sunny Florida. Prime smoothie territory. Not to rub it in, of course. 😉

Enjoy.

More Jumpstart 2015 posts to enjoy {these bloggers will be posting regularly for the next few weeks so do bookmark them!}:

Franglais Kitchen – 2015 Food Trends

Tinned Tomatoes – Slim Down with Jumpstart January

Smarter Fitter – An Easy 3-Day Juice Feast to Jumpstart 2015 (Monica is my go-to gal for gorgeous smoothie and juice recipes)

Utterly Scrummy Food For Families – Jumpstart January for Smoothies and Soups

Fuss Free Flavours

Ren Behan

Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary

Veggie Desserts

London Unattached (mainly soups)

Maison Cupcake

And more posts of mine with freekeh!

Lebanese Freekeh and Fig Salad

Freekeh and Greens Soup