From dinner bases and boxed desserts: a journey to 'real food'

I think we're all on our own path when it comes to what we eat and our relationship with food; either consciously or unconsciously we choose certain foods to fuel our bodies and at times, indulge our emotions. These days, I strive to eat 'real' food - that is, food our great-grandparents would recognise as food, like organic whole fruit and vegetables, dairy, eggs and meat from pasture-raised animals, fish and grains. Food in it's most natural state. But it certainly wasn't always this way. 

When I was nineteen, I was a classic example of what they call ‘skinny fat’. I was working at a snow resort and fuelled that lifestyle of work hard, play hard with a steady diet of chicken nuggets, pepsi, pizza, curried sausages, and Sara-lee chocolate self-saucing pudding. Pretty much your standard 'edible, food-like substances' that fill supermarket shelves. I looked healthy, and felt okay, so I didn’t think much of it.

I also didn’t think much about where my food came from, except for buying free range eggs and chicken at the supermarket.

My mum would often lament where she went wrong, having raised us with home-cooked everything and no chips, lollies or soft drink to speak of. Our first cinema experience was going to see Milo and Otis and while every other kid was polishing off a choc top, we happily munched away on dates and celery sticks. I bet she was pretty chuffed at the time!

Fast forward to 2009, when, after coming off the contraceptive pill due to terrible migraines, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Although very common, many women need to take medication to be able to fall pregnant. With an aversion to taking more synthetic hormones, and time on my side, I investigated how to manage the condition through diet and Traditional Chinese Medicine. I discovered that eating foods with a low glycemic index (GI) would keep my insulin levels more constant and thus, my hormones more in balance. 

At the same time, I began to think more about where my food came from; the treatment of animals, food miles, chemicals and packaging.  

In 2011, my acupuncturist gave me an ebook by Cyndi O’Meara – I liked her approach & so I bought her book ‘Changing habits, changing lives’. This was a game-changer and kinda blew my mind. I read it while on an incredibly blissful yoga retreat in Thailand with my mum. We ate the cleanest, most delicious food I’d ever experienced and emptied our busied Western minds through seven days of challenging yoga practice and meditation - it was the perfect scenario to commit to real change. While there I stumbled on the book ‘Real food’ by Nina Planck. By the time the week was out, I was feeling better than I’d ever felt before, and had a new resolve to eat mindfully and nourish myself, particularly in preparation for trying for a baby. I fell pregnant straight away, but sadly miscarried at 12 weeks. 

Despite feeling like my body had betrayed me, my resolve to nourish myself grew even stronger. I scoured the internet for like-minded folk and found The Mindful Foodie and Econest and felt buoyed by their passion for conscious eating. At the same time I stumbled upon a local organic greengrocer and felt like I’d really found a community. They hosted monthly talks on different topics and we attended one with Steven Acuff on eating for longevity. With 30 years’ experience treating cancer patients through diet (alongside traditional medicine) he advocated whole foods, with a preference for macrobiotics and eating for your blood type. This was a little at odds with the Weston A. Price approach i'd been following, but we took it all on board.  

We watched Food Inc and Food Matters and learned about the politics of the food industry.

I devoured Michael Pollan’s books and we were fortunate to see him speak in Melbourne.

His mantra was simple: "EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY PLANTS.".

I became a more conscious consumer, shunning convenience for slow food, mindless purchasing of ‘stuff’ with more thoughtful consideration of needs and wants and the product lifecycle. I read and I watched things not just about food, but sustainability – I mention these here because it’s all connected. Once I became aware about one thing, it snowballed into another. 

I don't think there is any 'right way'. The choices i've made are part of my journey to understanding what values are important to me, so that I can move closer to living in alignment with them. And of course I fall off the wagon, but when I do it's usually because something else is out of balance (or I really just want that lemon tart or extra serving of ice cream!).

Now, as a mother i'm even more passionate about what we eat, where it comes from and the habits we create around food in our family. 

If your food habits have changed, what was the catalyst? If you're yet to make a change but want to, what is the biggest hurdle you need to overcome?

Inward and onward

That old adage "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" has been my guiding principle in looking for the positives sans baby-growing. Since we won't be up all night changing nappies this July we're instead going to hop on a jet plane to visit some very good friends in London and do a bit of Europe (Yay!).

While it's going to be all sorts of amazing, unfortunately sometimes a few weeks of holidays on the horizon isn't enough to lift me out of the holding pattern that is waiting to be pregnant again. So i've spent a lot of time reading and navel-gazing in an effort to find fulfilment and happiness in the everyday, because no one likes a sad sack and let's face it, life's too short.

The last few books i've read and enjoyed on the topic are:

I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Conversations with Richard Bandler: Two NLP Masters Reveal the Secrets to Successful Living by Richard Bandler and Owen Fitzpatrick

At the suggestion of both my acupuncturist and a friend who had a great experience with it, I've also had a session of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I went in with a healthy degree of skepticism given it's been largely discredited by science, however it has helped me to rationalise unhelpful thoughts and recognise how much our experiences of the world are shaped by the way we think. 


There were some areas of the NLP book I really didn't agree with (such as treating schizophrenics by 'going on a journey' with them - and in fact, believing it's wise to treat the condition with NLP in the first place) but there were some nuggets of wisdom, such as the idea that events are 'neutral' and gain meaning through the version of reality we project onto them. I've been finding this particularly helpful when dealing with the emotions of guilt and fear.


What about you, have you read any 'self-help' books that have really resonated? Or maybe tried some form of therapy or life coaching? 

A letter of loss

I've been debating whether or not to share this here; the vulnerability of these words exposing my fears and ultimately, my reality. But it's a reality that too many women experience, and too few share, so here goes...

Thursday 12 January, 2012, 7.20am

Despite that niggling feeling I had that you wouldn’t be there, today was to be the day we’d tell the world about you. My boss would know and we’d talk about maternity leave, the rest of Marcus’ family would know and I’d send my friends the happy message that all was on track.

But it wasn’t to be.

The biggest fear I’d had all along – a missed miscarriage – happened. All along I wasn’t concerned about the NT results or problems with the pregnancy, all I worried about was seeing that heartbeat and your wriggly web-like fingers and toes at the 12 week scan - the safe point. Increasingly at times I didn’t feel like this pregnancy was real, but I and others tried to brush it off as negative talk – and that’s not healthy for the baby. Maybe I need to give into my intuition a bit more; I think subconsciously I must have known you were no longer there.

As I read about miscarriage – a topic I tried to avoid because it scared the crap out of me – more spiritual people than me talk about losing a child. For us it’s the loss of what could have been; what was meant to be. Science tells me you were just a bunch of cells and on the ultrasound screen, that’s all you looked like. But you brought the promise of so much more and now it’s gone.

We tried to be pragmatic and not get ahead of ourselves, we didn’t buy anything for you or the nursery for fearing of ‘jinxing’ it. But we did imagine you in my swelling belly at upcoming weddings, beach days and housewarmings, gushingly telling people about you and the hopes we had. Those days are gone for now, but hopefully not forever.