A study published in October’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association says that American children get almost half of their daily energy from fast food. http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/2403/20101005/40-of-american-childrens-diet-is-fast-food.htm
This is the one time where I think that it is positive that my family has food allergies. Those same allergies that keep us up at night also mean that it’s not easy to just grab fast food between activities. Therefore I believe that we eat more healthfully and with more thought and that’s definitely a good thing.

It’s the end of the week and I’m a slug. Yup, I’m barely hanging on to my chair and all I want to do is crawl home and indulge in a bunch of fat and sugar – my drugs of choice. And it becomes so hard to fight against when it’s dark going to work and coming home.

But I’m not going to do that, nope. I’ve booked myself a massage and will follow that with going home for a 20 second hug from husband and daughters. That should nourish me.

Why 20 seconds? A hug that is at least that long releases oxytocin which makes us feel good and strengthens our immune system. It’s easy, it’s fast and our family loves it. So go get hugging!

I’ve been feeding myself food. Of course, that may seem like an obvious statement but let me clarify that. Food is recognizable with few ingredients, preferrably whole foods that your great grandma would recognize if she could read the label. Clean food does not require a chemistry degree or learning a whole new language just to read the ingredient panel.

Enter in Food Processing magazine, one of many magazines that I subscribe to so that I can keep abreast of trends and issues as a food manufacturer. In Food Processing magazine, there is a section on Wellness Foods which I read with a rather jaundiced eye over the last few minutes. It certainly gave me enough fodder to come write this blog post.

Why? The entire section is about formulating kids food to be healthier. Sounds like a great plan, right? Well, some ideas are simple, worthwhile improvements but what if the idea of healthier food is about less, not more formulation? What if the world doesn’t need a hot dog bun that has microalgae in it or a chicken nugget with whole grain coating?

A healthier hot dog?

Maybe the question we should really be asking ourselves is whether we actually need to “formulate” such overly processed foods in the first place.

I’m getting my mojo back, yippee! I actually had enough energy this weekend to do all the usual groceries runs, soccer deliveries, child activity deliveries, teenager hosting sessions and had enough left to clean out my cupboards.

Whoohoo I’m sure you’re saying. And yet I’m thrilled that I had energy left over to clean my cupboards because I haven’t had any energy left over at the end of the day for over a year. And it wasn’t just any cupboard clearing, nope. It had everything to do with my Nourish project.

Basically, following the general rules of Michael Pollan, I pulled out everything from my cupboards and fridge that had ingredients my grandmother wouldn’t recognize, had GM ingredients in them and/or were high in sugar (like pancake syrup). I’d already separated most things but hadn’t completely followed through and either composted or recycled many items. I’m also going to be the new favourite of our local food bank.

What’s left actually fits in my one long pantry cupboard and I finally have room to bring up my breadmaker and electric skillet from the storage room downstairs. Although I will miss getting my exercise running those up and down every 3 days or so. Maybe it’s finally time for that Zumba class!

One of my goals for The Nourish Project was to eat good food but eat less of it. I’ve been doing that in various ways such as using goat cheese because it’s rich and satisfying in a recipe (like the omelette I had yesterday) but you don’t need a lot to get great flavour.

Research suggests that we North Americans use outside stimulus to determine if we are full compared to other cultures. In Europe, people relate that they eat until they’re full. In North America, we relate that we eat until our plate is clean. So what happens when those plates are getting bigger all of the time?

Since 1990, our standard dinner plates have increased from 10 inches to 12 inches. And have you checked out our glasses and mugs now too? On the weekend I went to the store with my daughter to try to get smaller dinner plates and smaller glasses. Not only could I not get any dinner plates under 12 inches, there were several sets that boasted even larger measurements as one of their features.

I also tried to get smaller glasses like my parents used when I was a kid (and still have). Those old glasses are about 8 oz (1 cup) for the large and 1/2 cup for the smaller, juice glasses. Again, I was thwarted. The absolutely smallest size of glass (besides a shot glass) was a martini glass of 10 oz – that’s a whole lot of liquor!

So today I got out a tea cup of my grandmother’s to have my morning cup of tea rather than a huge mug. It sure seemed awfully small but it was also really wonderful to drink out of a beautiful old real china cup with a saucer. I have 4 of them, all with different designs so maybe I’ll rotate through them each morning.

If you know anything about a nice 10 inch dinner plate that is microwave and dishwasher safe, be sure to let me know.

I have a confession to make; I didn’t make it through the weekend true to my Nourish rules. It’s not like the rules are meant to be torturous, just to truly Nourish myself in all ways.

I was just so darn proud of myself last week and I was feeling really good. I felt more “normal” (whatever that means) and when hubby got home from his business trip, he noticed my face looked different. It’s amazing what eating good food, getting good sleep and working on stress levels will do for a gal.

You might recall that junk food was in the house to appease the kids and friends for their rare movie nights. I didn’t escape unscathed which is really why I don’t want any of it in the house to start with. Not that I was hiding in corners and bashing children to rip the junk food out of their hot little hands, but it’s just so darn easy to check to see what they had in the cupboard that they didn’t finish.

And it’s not like I ate a ton but it’s amazing how once you’ve greatly reduced sugar in your diet for a week how a bowlful of vanilla ice cream and Ghirardelli caramel sauce on Friday night will reduce your sleep to a hot mess. Once sleep is messed up, it’s also harder to nourish yourself because nourishing takes a little extra thought.

Some great parts of the weekend were to be had though include dinner with friends Saturday night, watching my youngest play soccer on Saltspring Island and putting a few meals into the freezer by doing some cooking and baking. In turn, that will make crazy work/soccer weekdays easy to put a healthy meal on the table before 8 pm. And one we can all sit down to.

So here I go again, bravely going where plenty have gone before, just not me.

Remember how rule #1 of The Nourish Project was to get my family on board and I found it surprisingly easy? I heard the first rumblings of revolt yesterday.

As a little background, one of the things we’ve tried to do for our allergic child (now 16) is to have an open door policy at our house. This allows her to have a safe place to have movie nights, etc. with her friends without worrying about food issues from what they’re eating to whether she sleeps over on a couch where people have been eating (and dropping into the cushions) peanuts and almonds.

Ironically, my allergic child at the same time is not terribly social outside of the school setting and while she loves to go to neutral places with her friends (i.e. the movie theatre), she rarely has people over and rarely goes to others’ houses, even when invited. Go figure.

So in the interests of having a child who doesn’t turn out to be a social recluse, we’ve been gently prodding (okay, maybe not so gently) her to invite her friends over, even if every 3 months.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when not only had she planned a movie marathon with her 2 closest friends that had been put off for a year (yes, really) but that they weren’t doing it at our house. Why? Because we don’t have junk food in the house and so nobody wanted to come over and she was quite content to go elsewhere to get her junk food fix. Oh heaven help me!

So we are now getting enough junk food for a movie marathon to be held at our house – no more, no less so that there’s nothing left over for a midnight raid by other desperate household members (me). We did already keep some beverages like fruit spritzers in our bar fridge for guests anyway so it’s not like we’ve gone completely back to the 1800s despite the rebel theory.

So peace has been restored for this day. Let’s see what happens tonight

Yesterday was day 2 of The Nourish Project and I’m starting to figure out the realities of what I’ve undertaken.

For example, when we finally sat down to dinner last night with my girls (husband being away on a business trip), it was 7:40, not exactly the best supper time. Note to self: become friends with the crockpot again.

Around the dinner table we went back to our policy implemented when the girls were first starting school with sharing what the best part of our day was. My girls shared funny moments at school that they’d had while relaxing with friends. The best part of my day was a meeting on our new website. I really am excited about our new website but really, can’t I come up with something more personal than that?

So today I’ve made an effort to see the wonderful things that are right in front of me: gorgeous sunrise, the way the 5 year old girl at the bus stop dances with joy onto the bus; she just wiggles and it’s a beautiful thing.

For breakfast, I actually did sit down and eat my oatmeal but I had to sacrifice blow drying my hair so now I’m air drying into my least favorite look: poodle. It might be best to hide in my office today.

Goal for tomorrow: make time to sit and eat AND blow dry hair!

Nourish: provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition

I’m embarking on a new strategy that I’ll call The Nourish Project. The subject of this project is me.

Why create a project? Really, it’s not like I have a lot of extra time in my life but that’s actually the point. Here I am, a 43 year old founder of a company that I created to help other people yet I’m not really helping myself. I spend my day creating new foods, educating customers, speaking to groups of people about eating healthfully within the constraints of a special diet yet I admit, I’m really unhealthy.

Here’s the list of what I’ve become: overweight, tired, wife, mother of 2 teenage girls, entrepreneur, Rotarian (and former president), mentor to 3 younger entrepreneurs, Parent Advisory Council member, Snacks coordinator for soccer, etc., etc. I’m sure that many of you can come up with a similar list.

But here’s the problem; how can I look you in the eye and tell you to take care of yourself when I’m not even close to doing it for myself? I truly believe that good quality food costs more money and that we should have the right to know if there are genetically modified ingredients in our foods. Yet, I was grabbing what was quick and easy at the grocery store and spending less time reading labels beyond food allergens. I’ve always had a full freezer of items that I’d cooked (I’ve never been one to have things like fish sticks in my freezer) but my freezer was shockingly empty of all of those good meals. I was also riding the “sugar train”; ups and downs always seemingly solved by more chocolate or sugary tea.

So I began reading and listening to others and trying to pay attention to what I actually needed rather than what I thought I should do. I’ve come up with some rules about how I’m going to run the project, many of which I have to credit Michael Pollan after I reread (and actually finally absorbed) “In Defense of Food”.

1. Engage Family (this was surprisingly easy)
2. Choose food that will nourish all senses
3. Choose good quality food so that I eat less of it
4. Eat more plants
5. No shoulding on myself. Just one day at a time.
6. Stop watching tv
7. Listen to music
8. Sing again
9. Move my body in the way I want to, not what I think I’m supposed to do

That’s pretty much it. Seems simple, right? Not so much if you take a look at what we emptied out of our fridge and cupboards. And what am I going to do without my weekly dose of The Amazing Race and The Good Wife when I’ve also decreed watching episodes online off limits? What happens when I get off of the treadmill and take a zoomba class and dance like no one’s watching (do these classes come with blindfolds)? I used to sing all the time if just in the shower but I haven’t done that in forever to the relief of my neighbor’s dogs.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to put myself first. It’s time to Nourish: Body, Mind and Soul. I’ll keep you up to date on how it’s going but feel free to join in and share your own Nourish Project.