Food Rules
This month has included a lot of kitchen time. I am making meal plans for a handful of clients, which means countless hours of sifting, marinading, baking, sauteing, searing, and chopping. I have been covered from head to toe in tahini and lemon. I have thought long and hard about my clients and their food rules, I have taken their tastes into deep consideration.
“How would someone who eats animal products feel about this cashew cream sauce?” I’ve asked myself. “How can I make authentic foods with a simple dedication to health in mind?” In addition to my food rules, I now have Adam’s food rules, and Teresa’s, and Laura’s on lock. I put myself into their shoes as much as possible and I just cook.
At the end of the day, it can be hard to remember not only who’s tastes are who’s (whom’s tastes are whom’s?) but which tastes are mine. The past couple of years have been almost entirely devoted to listening to my heart, my mind, and my body when it comes to how I eat. For posterity’s sake, I would like to share with you my non-negotiables.
–I eat at least twice the amount of recommended servings of fruit and vegetables per day, because my body is worth way more than the bare minimum, and because I like them. A fair amount of people have asked me why bananas are “so fattening” lately, and I’ve struggled to respond with anything but more questions. Who told you bananas are fattening? What does fattening mean to you? Have bananas proven to be “fattening” for your particular body? (no one has ever answered yes, although, I am sure people with very low tolerance to carbs may have difficulty with this fruit. ) I love bananas. I consume them almost daily, in addition to tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, kale, berries, cucumbers, lettuce, dates, and avocados. Some fruits and vegetables may not be my cup of tea, but I consider them all to be good.
-I don’t eat animal products. This is an ethical, environmental, and health based decision. I don’t want them, and I don’t need them.
-I eat a lot of carbohydrates. For a good year of my life, I fell pray to the idea that carbohydrates were inappropriate fuel that would destroy the lean body I have worked so hard for. That might be true for some people, it is not true for me. Grains, beans, corn, fruit, and starchy vegetables feel awesome to consume. I am not really into sweets, generally, and gluten feels like shit to me, so refined carbohydrates naturally weed themselves out of my diet for the most part. I feel great about that.
-I consider calories, but I do not obsess about them. I know that on the rare occasion that I want dessert, I probably want it to be a piece of raw vegan cake, and that 9 times out of 10, those will basically be a coconut oil block with nut spread as frosting. I am aware that even one slice has probably more calories than I usually consume in an entire meal, and that it might make sense to eat some lighter stuff during the times around my delicious cake, or maybe split the piece. I am not going to feel unnecessary hunger over a piece of cake I ate last week, I am not going to crave the cake relentlessly but not allow myself a bite. My body and calories have a very mutually respectful relationship, and I don’t distrust my body to give me appropriate messages about what I should eat. Part of my body is my brain, though. I listen to the whole of me.
-I enjoy fats. I am ambivalent about oils, but am remaining curious. For now coconut and olive oils are the only ones that I use and I am leery of canola oil. Soybean oil can go fuck itself, as far as I am concerned. Really, I prefer my fat be coconut, nuts, or avocado, as those are whole foods.
– I don’t drink. For me, there is really no use for alcohol. I think it is totally unfriendly to my body composition, it dehydrates people, and I feel hung over if I drink even a thimble full of boozy brew. I used to kind of like to get drunk, but now I feel significantly more stoked when I can find an uproarious good time completely sober. It’s true, it doesn’t happen as easily, but when it does, it feels more real.
-I eat dark chocolate daily. I am not tryin’ to be all I eat it for the antioxidants, because whatever, I eat tons of fruits and vegetables, it’s not like I need to supplement my diet with a chocolate injection. I just like it! One square always satisfies.
-I don’t eat high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oil. Like gluten, those things are bullshit for my body, and I am entirely comfortable without them.
I am someone who loves my body, as it is, right now, and I have food rules. This is not in opposition to my position as a body image warrior and an advocate for finding health with any body, at any size. I am someone who eats intuitively, who’s rules come from experience, not societal constructs. I don’t feel the need to break my food rules 99% of the time, because they haven’t been instated by someone aside from myself. No one else made these rules for me, and they don’t exist out of fear.
My rules for food exist out of love for myself.
(Some people will find my comfort with food rules to be an assault to body image activism, and I will respectfully disagree. Some people will find my food rules to be entirely too loose, and again, I will respectfully disagree. I tell you my food rules, because more and more lately, people ask. My food rules should never be your food rules, I hope you know that. What I do has almost nothing to do with what you will choose)
How do you feel about food rules? What are yours?
This has got me thinking! I think really my only hard-and-fast rule is no gluten. Everything else, I check in with myself (all parts of myself, not only my body) about what I want in that moment. And I check in with myself if I notice starting to feel critical, or complacent. Or if my allergies or migraines get really bad, or my energy changes. Or if I PR a lift or feel extremely creative and prolific. But I eat soy lecithin in my chocolate, evaporated cane juice in my sweet snacks, corn in whatever/everything corn is in (hello maltodextrin!). I also eat approximately four to six cups of vegetables and approximately 140 grams of protein a day because my body functions best with those two things being my staples. Love this Lacy, thanks!
Obvi, I share a lot of yr rules! I generally think of my “rules” more as “preferences” or even “lifestyle choices.” I don’t think it’s bad to call them “rules,” but I tend not to frame it that way (although I think some of my friends and former/partners would say that I have rules!). It’s funny, because I will sometimes say “Oh, I will “break” gluten-free” the same way people say they “broke edge,” and “break” leads one to think of “rules”, right? But….most rules, I *like* to break. Like normative rules, you know. Anyway, I’m rambling.
Regardless of semantics, I think it’s important and awesome to know what you prefer for your body, to know what you need to adhere to to feel your best. I do find that I am a bit more present in life if I am willing to let go of some of those rules once in a while and it is really fucking empowering to know that I don’t have to have a meltdown if and when I do. For example, I make clear to all who know me that although I don’t have Celiac, that I really don’t love how gluten makes me feel. So I walk through life avoiding it 95% of the time. But once in a while something happens (like, bread at a restaurant when i am hangry) and I’m like, #yolo. And if I feel more bloated the next day, it’s even cooler for me to be like, “This is temporary, NBD!” As long as it’s the exception and not the rule. (see what i did there? ;)).
This was also cool for me when it came to drinking. I drank to get drunk in undergrad (usually only on weekends). No bueno. Then I pretty much stopped drinking entirely for almost four years of grad school. Now I’ve found a happy medium and it feels AWESOME to be like “I can take this or leave this.”
The rules I will NOT break (even if #yolo is foreclosed), are things that are actually problems for my health in a major way and/or things that are bigger than me. Ethical things. So, for example, I will never buy/consume something that isn’t vegan. It’s likely that whatever it is will make me feel crappy AND it is against my beliefs. Same with processed shit–I’ll feel gross AND it was probably manufactured in a place with shitty labor treatment. Or is full of GMOs, or whatever.
So, if I had to make a list, I think it’d look like this:
-I must eat greens everyday, and almost always start with breakfast (and continue throughout the day).
-I drink a lot of water, and must start with lemon water in the AM and Natural Calm water in the PM. (I feel real off balance if I break this rule, so I pretty much never break it!)
-I don’t eat processed food.
-I don’t eat animal products.
-I avoid gluten. (so…not a “rule” if it’s just “avoid”?)
-I make (and eat) sweet treats, but never with refined sugars. I let myself have dessert if I want it (which, for me, is NOT rare ;)), but will only use sweeteners like dates or coconut sugar. I’ll only eat real sugar on VERY RARE occasions for vegan treats at restaurants or whatever.
-I drink green tea everyday, (and feel fine with my relationship to caffeine).
-I don’t buy shit I don’t want in my body, but will occasionally let myself enjoy those things if they were made by other people or at restaurants. I think this one sums it up for me. Like, 95% of what I eat is stuff I prepare myself. So if I can keep my kitchen totally Raechel-approved, I’m not going to freak out if I “break” some of those things outside my home.
THAT WAS FUN. xo
I’ve been trying to commit to more greens daily, and switching my greens up. But my one non-negotiable is healthy fats – give me ALLTHEFATS! I love them, they make my skin pretty, and satiate me. AMEN!! Great post.
My food rules are similar to yours. The only difference is that I will eat sustainable fish on a rare occasion (usually eating out once every 1 or 2 months). If I order a meal with no cheese and the server brought it out with cheese on top, I’ll still eat it, since the wasted food would make me feel emotionally worse. Is that normal to feel like an animal suffered in vain if their milk or cheese ended up in the trash in the end? I know sometimes staff will eat mess-ups, but I know that doesn’t always happen. Especially when the dinner might have faux meat in it, or no meat in it.
My body is pretty strong, and there isn’t many things that make me feel bad. The only things I know is that consistently eating dairy makes me phlegmy and sluggish. Aside from the ethics, I would still not eat or drink dairy products because how it makes me feel in the long run.
Sodas and artificial flavorings suck. I have found that I am more likely to get migraines when I drink diet sodas. It took me awhile to pinpoint it. To make it more confusing, I couldn’t tell you if it is the artificial sweeteners or the “flavorings.” On super duper rare occasions I’ll have agave or stevia sweetened soda, usually sneaked into a movie theater.
I “avoid” gluten not because it personally makes me feel bad, but because I think variety is SUPER important. It think it is weird that people eat wheat every single day. Aside from a banana or chia, I don’t think there isn’t any specific food product that I eat everyday no matter what. Making sure I eat some “gluten-free” options forces me to eat other grains or veggies.
And finally I try and stay away from foods with super long processed ingredient lists. I think some people assume I eat faux hot dogs and faux cheese made in a lab. I don’t. Yes I eat faux butter occasionally, but I never would pick something up that I couldn’t read.
Side note- I know some people “cave” to social pressure to eat food that makes them feel crappy, which I can understand. But truthfully, sometimes people don’t notice. I stopped eating my families birthday cakes for the past 4 years, and no one has noticed. In fact my sister made some comment about how she didn’t think I could eat the cake this year, and I thought “does she know I stopped eating her cake years ago?” If you don’t make a big stink, then no one will get on your case.