Eat What You Want

I am sorry I have not been present for a while. There were a few eyebrows raised regarding why have I been quiet for so long - I have explained myself and told them that I don’t want to push it when there is no inspiration. It is sad - I began feeling differently towards the blog after I have started working. I think the tiredness has won in the battle with me in many instances, but I am back nonetheless!

That does not mean that I have not been cooking or thinking about food. Not at all! There have been many new things I have tried, many new ingredients I have discovered and, sadly, many failures in my kitchen, which my boyfriend Hugo has been very English about and politely smiled a lot.

I have wanted to write about this topic for a while, but the frost today in the morning has pushed me over the edge and I have performed a handshake with myself over sitting down and actually putting pen to paper (i.e. fingertips to keyboard).

The frost was not just beautiful to look at; it has seriously frozen my fingertips while trying to take pictures, which meant I had a good excuse to drink a teapot of peppermint. Ok ok, it was actually 3 teapots. No, I am not addicted (I hope!), I just love what it does to you!

Getting back to the frost – do you ever find that when the weather changes you want different things on your plate? In the summer it is so nice to have a refreshing lunch of a salad with a zesty dressing, while after a walk on a cold winter’s day all you want is a hot cup of soup, don’t you find?

Sometimes these things are a lot more specific than just cold versus hot food and start wanting specific products. Sometimes one really feels like bread. Just bread with some bread and bread on top. Or salt. Or coffee. Or sweets. And this is where my point stems from – we should listen to our body and give it what it wants. Now this is a very dangerous statement to make so please don’t go off and have doughnuts for dinner and keep on reading.

We all understand that wanting McDonalds all the time does not necessarily mean that our body needs it (sometimes it does though!). This is where a lot of things can go wrong: if you’re craving for chocolate, that’s one thing, because potentially you need some carbohydrates. But if you’re craving for chocolate after having eaten 3 bars of it – that’s a different thing. Do you ever find that after munching on something like crisps or snacks out of a packet you cannot just stop? Do you ever find that after a while you still reach for some more because the flavour just can’t escape your mouth and mind? I am sure that a lot of big companies would not ever tell you about all the horribly disgusting things inside your food, but whenever you do have a bag or a packed of something flavoured, be aware that a lot of the spices and flavourings in there will leave you wanting for some more. The flavourings make you hungry even if you are not to start with. This makes things complicated: sometimes you’re peckish, but not hungry per se. And then you have a crisp. And then you finish the whole packet (if you’re like me and you don’t have large bags of self-control lying around).

This is why it is so difficult to listen to our bodies! It makes me so angry with the big corporations that just want to sell sell sell and don’t really care about the long-term impact that the additives have. If you eat REAL food, preferably foods that have gone through the least processing possible, that are as natural as available, you will realise that your body actually tells you what it wants! Some days you will want more potatoes, some days you will just want eggs and meat with nothing on the side, some days you will just want salads and some days you will want fatty and greasy food. You will most likely want those specific things because your body needs something that is in those products.

Furthermore, sometimes the cravings go a bit wild, especially when it involves naughty foods like chocolate and chips. These do not actually always mean that your body requires chocolate and chips to survive. Our bodies and all the tings inside get confused sometimes and all the additives in processed foods make that even more prelevant. So here is a table for you telling what your cravings really mean:

What you CRAVE	What you NEED	What you should eat to get it
Sweets	Chronium Carbon Phosphorus Sulfur Tryotophan	Broccoli, grapes, cheese, dried beans, chicken Fresh fruit Chicken, beef, liver, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, legumes Cranberries, horseradish, cruciferous vegetables, kale, cabbage Cheese, liver, turkey, sweet potato, spinach
Bread	Nitrogen	High protein foods: fish, eggs, meat, nuts, beans
Fatty snacks	Calcium	Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame seeds
Coffee	Phosphorus Sulphur NaCl (salt) Iron	Chicken, beef, liver, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, legumes Egg yolks, red pepper, muscle protein, garlic, onion, cruciferous vegetables Sea salt, apple cider vinegar Meat, fish, poultry, seaweed, greens, black cherries
Alcohol / Marijuana	Protein Avenin Calcium Potassium	Meat, poultry, seafood, nuts Granola, oatmeal Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame seeds Sun-dried black olives, potato-peel broth, seaweed, bitter greens
Carbonated drinks	Calcium	Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame seeds
Salty foods	Chloride	Raw goat milk, fish, unrefined sea salt
Tobacco	Silicon Tyrosine	Nuts, seeds, avoid refined starches Vitamin C, red fruits and vegetables
PMS	Zinc	Red meats (especially giblets), seafood, leafy vegetables, root vegetables
Lack of appetite	Vitamin B1 Vitamin B3 Manganese Chloride	Nuts, seeds, beans, liver, other giblets Tuna, halibut, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, seeds Walnuts, almonds, pecans, pineapple, blueberries Raw goat milk, fish, unrefined sea salt
Overeating	Silicon Tryptophan Tyrosine	Nuts, seeds, avoid refined starches Cheese, liver, lamb, sweet potato, spinach Vitamin C supplements or orange, green, red fruits and vegetables

(source)

I cannot really give my opinion on this because I don’t think I have tried it for long enough. But it would be brilliant to get rid of my cravings for chocolate during the holidays… I’ll try the broccoli and let you know how it goes. Have you ever tried to kill your cravings like this? Has it worked? Maybe eating all those appropriate healthy foods instead of the ones you crave could be the resolution for 2014?

Finally, nature is a very big and a very clever system where every single part of it knows how to work with everything around it. Your body is part off all that magic and it knows what it needs to take in order to feel the pleasure of balance. All you need to do is listen!

This leads me on to my next topic, so stay tuned for a beauty-talk!