Transitional Foods (was Chronic Illness Meetings)

[Guest guest]

[snip] I would really love to be able to eat carrots, and to eat raw pickled

vegetables, but can't right now. Its essential in a basic diet and health

sense that I broaden my very narrow diet, and having a wider range of

recipes to choose from would definitely increase my satisfaction in eating.

So I'm starting to think over how to accomplish this, and it would be nice

to be able to talk it over with other people with similar concerns. [end

snip]

 

Hi Roger,

I just wanted to comment on the above since I probably won't be attending

the meetings (don't qualify:)).

 

Finding transitional foods that are satisfying but that don't have

unpleasant negative effects is a problem for most transitioning raw fooders.

It doesn't help that it's different for everyone so there's no way to escape

the need to experiment (altho exchanging ideas & recipes with others is

hugely useful too). The mistake that most people make is choosing foods for

their perceived nutritional value rather than their 'thrill quotient'. To

keep transition progressing in a forward direction, the top criteria for

choosing foods should always be satisfaction. The food only has to

represent improvement over what you used to eat in its place. If you go

straight from the unhealthiest foods to the healthiest ones, you'll have

missed valuable steps in between that you can go back to if and when you

need to make compromises.

 

Of course the satisfaction you get from a food always has to be balanced

against the negative consequences of eating it, and this will not only be

different for every individual, it's a moving target for each person as

well. That's because as healing proceeds and sensitivity increases (you

can't have one without the other), the point comes with each new

'replacement' food when the negative outweighs the positive, and that's when

you have to look for another (slightly healthier) replacement. In this way,

forward progress is not only practically guaranteed, it is relatively easy

and comfortable.

 

The moral of the story is, staying satisfied is Job #1 for transitioning raw

fooders.

 

Best wishes,

Nora

www.RawSchool.com

www.RawTreasure.com

[Guest guest]

Thanks so much for this Nora. You have explained food satisfaction in different

ways before, and I think I saw something this time I haven't seen before.

 

Likely part of it is that I used to be so close to the edge that I couldn't

afford even a slight loss of energy for a day or two. So if I felt slightly

worse the next day, or three days later after eating a particular food item,

then I had to cross the food item off the list regardless of how much I enjoyed

the food.

 

There are foods like tomatoes that I don't have any desire to eat at all. As a

test, last summer I got a fresh local tomato and put it in my kitchen to ripen

up. I was getting so nauseated from the smell of the tomato that I was getting

resistant to even going into the kitchen, so I decided not to even taste it and

put it into the compost. In the past I had the least reaction to tomatoes of any

of the nightshades, which is why I thought it was worth a test, and so it looks

like its still a good idea for me to avoid them.

 

Then in the middle of that spectrum is something like carob. I like the flavor

of carob, but after careful testing I'm now sure it has some kind of stimulate

in it, and I really hate the effect of stimulates on me (like caffeine and

related substances), so I dropped carob from my diet. I had thought it might be

the extra sugar that is part of carob (it is 50% sugars), but I eliminated that

effect through carefully designed test recipes, and so became convinced there is

something else in carob powder that has a stimulate effect on me. Likely I'm

already too wired in my typical state, so any artifact stimulate on top of that

is really unpleasant for me.

 

Also, next to carob on the food spectrum is fried food, which part of me still

thinks is wonderful. When I last tried fried food, part of my mind was happy

with the strong rich flavor, but another part was noticing the heavy harsh

rancid burnt underlying flavor. Then the fried food sat in my stomach like a

cannon ball for a long time, so all in all fried food wasn't much fun to eat

anymore. I even have this same kind of mixed reaction to the smell of fried

food, and get a chance to experience this each time I walk down wind from

certain kinds of restaurants. The smell of fried food is kind of like an

extremely unwashed person wearing perfume to cover up the unpleasant smells - if

you pay attention, the undesirable smells are still there.

 

The sense of taste and smell is very complex and more and more it seems to me

that the conscious impression of something " smelling real good " or " smelling

bad " is simply a conclusion and recommendation, like the executive summary,

passed up to the conscious mind from the lower levels of the body. The body is

aware of a lot more details than the conscious mind is, and its more directly

honest than a lot of conscious thinking is.

 

So I think what I'm really starting to sense is the importance of really

carefully listening to these subjective messages from my body about food.

 

In the case of tomatoes and nightshades, my body keeps consistently sending me

an unqualified NO about these foods, so that makes it an easy decision.

 

In the case of carob or fried food, I get distinctly mixed messages from my

body, but they lean towards no, so given my weak health, that is a pretty easy

choice.

 

I buy pears by the case now, and its amazing how in the same case of pears what

a wide range of different flavors there are between individual pears. I love

pears so much and am so attuned to them, I now get great enjoyment from the

diversity of flavors in a case of pears that are all the same variety of pear

and from the same orchard. This is a really easy choice

 

Now we come to the carrots. I quit trying them because each time I tried them,

the next day, after putting them into a smoothie, I was dragging a bit.

 

What is really interesting is that in spite of this, carrots still smell

wonderful to me, they still taste great to me, and I'm still very fond of my

memories of carrots. It seems like if carrots caused some real problem with my

body, then I'd at the least be getting some mixed messages from my body about

carrots - but I don't get these. I still get these messages from my body that

carrots are a desirable, enjoyable, and satisfying food to eat.

 

So now I'm thinking about what the implications are of this positive YES message

that I'm getting from my body about carrots. All of my different smell and taste

receptors are still saying yes to carrots. All of my organs are still saying yes

to carrots. My digestive and immune systems are still saying yes to carrots.

This is a lot of yes votes for carrots. Maybe later they will change their

votes, but right now I'm getting yes votes from my body about carrots, and the

executive summary of these messages is the sensation of " Yum Yum, this makes me

happy " as I smell and then eat carrots.

 

Since carrots aren't a regular part of my diet now, there are all kinds of

reasons why the day after eating them my body might be needing extra energy to

make some kinds of adjustments as it works to take advantage of carrots. If

something about carrots was hurting me, then something in my body would likely

be saying NO, so at the least I'd be getting mixed messages from my body about

carrots. However, this isn't the case, I'm still getting clear YES messages from

my body about carrots.

 

So even if I was dragging a bit the next day after eating carrots, I still find

carrots to be enjoyable and satisfying to eat the next time I would eat some

carrots - this is what I was overlooking before.

 

Maybe after eating carrots for a while, my body will get enough of what it was

wanting from carrots, and then likely I will be getting a different message from

my body about carrots. So in that case, I'll deal with that message then.

 

My parents were very abusive and worked hard to teach me to ignore my body. What

is really interesting is that I have a few memories from before they started

causing me to be very confused about messages from my body.

 

Even on days when I was feeling very miserable and didn't feel like eating, it

still felt good to eat pears. Eating pears felt soothing, pleasant, and

enjoyable. I felt better after eating pears, and life seemed to be more okay

after eating pears. Most foods made me sick to eat as a small child, but there

were a few other foods that felt very satisfying for me to eat.

 

Then through several kinds of abuse my parents forced me to develop an addictive

tolerance to the foods that made me sick, such as the whole nightshade family.

This totally scrambled my ability to listen to my body and take guidance from

messages from my body.

 

What is really interesting is that now that I'm making progress on unscrambling

all this and healing the underlying wounding, often the foods that are most

satisfying to me now, and most effective in nurturing my well-being now, were my

" favorite " foods when I was very young.

 

So while an easy starting point for picking foods to try experimenting with is

to take a look at what foods felt very satisfying when I was small, the bottom

line is to keep getting better at listening to all the messages my body sends me

when I eat a food now, so I can evolve my food preferences as my body's usual

needs change, and can also pick the most appropriate food for what my body needs

on that particular day.

 

The word " satisfaction " is a pretty good word for labeling the physical

sensation of feeling a lot of YES votes from different parts of the body as a

particular food is smelled and eaten. I think the trick is to learn to hear,

accept, and respect all of the votes from the body about a particular food.

 

Apparently this is one of those very fundamental lessons that takes a lot of

time to absorb and then to integrate. Its probably like the idea of tying the

laces on a shoe is pretty simple, but the skill set to do it is very complicated

and fundamental, so a small child (or an adult who has had a severe stroke) has

to struggle through tying their shoes hundreds of times to learn the skill set

used when tying the laces on the shoes.

 

As I reread your email again, and noticed the part where you mention the

importance of avoiding missed valuable steps in learning about food. This

reminded me of what I know about developmental cycles for physical skills like

tying shoe laces or emotional development. An adult who got stuck in a

developmental cycle as a kid, or missed an essential developmental stage, must

go back to where their learning was interrupted as a kid and then go forwards

through all of the steps for all of the developmental stages - this is the only

way to continue forwards, from where they are now, with solid personal growth

and improvement of their well-being.

 

It seems like a person, including their mind, emotions, and body, have a very

interactive relationship with food, and it takes time to learn to manage this

relationship well, and to learn to sense the subtle clues and to learn to

interpret them correctly. This is much like learning to manage relationships

with friends, but its with your self and food. So as long as there is a sense of

satisfaction for eating a food which later has negative side effects, while part

of the body (the mind) might recognize the food is less than perfect, this

understanding hasn't been integrated with the rest of the body, and this

integration has to happen before the body/mind can solidly move forwards to the

next step in learning about the relationship between food and health.

 

I just looked at my folder for raw related email, and today is the 5 year

anniversary of my joining this discussion group - wow.

 

Nora, based on my experience of learning curves for fundamental learning, if I

can remember that you mentioned the importance of food satisfaction several

times before, then you probably mentioned it dozens of times before. Given that

I have a lot of toxic programing about food to unlearn, maybe you've mentioned

food satisfaction hundreds of times in emails I've read in this discussion

group. I hope you have a good sense of humor about the tribulations we deal with

on the paths to better health

 

May your day be filled with clarity, grace, strength, progress, and warm

laughter,

Roger

 

-

" Nora Lenz " <nmlenz

 

Tuesday, February 09, 2010 8:50 AM

Re: Transitional Foods (was Chronic Illness Meetings)

 

 

> [snip] I would really love to be able to eat carrots, and to eat raw pickled

> vegetables, but can't right now. Its essential in a basic diet and health

> sense that I broaden my very narrow diet, and having a wider range of

> recipes to choose from would definitely increase my satisfaction in eating.

> So I'm starting to think over how to accomplish this, and it would be nice

> to be able to talk it over with other people with similar concerns. [end

> snip]

>

> Hi Roger,

> I just wanted to comment on the above since I probably won't be attending

> the meetings (don't qualify:)).

>

> Finding transitional foods that are satisfying but that don't have

> unpleasant negative effects is a problem for most transitioning raw fooders.

> It doesn't help that it's different for everyone so there's no way to escape

> the need to experiment (altho exchanging ideas & recipes with others is

> hugely useful too). The mistake that most people make is choosing foods for

> their perceived nutritional value rather than their 'thrill quotient'. To

> keep transition progressing in a forward direction, the top criteria for

> choosing foods should always be satisfaction. The food only has to

> represent improvement over what you used to eat in its place. If you go

> straight from the unhealthiest foods to the healthiest ones, you'll have

> missed valuable steps in between that you can go back to if and when you

> need to make compromises.

>

> Of course the satisfaction you get from a food always has to be balanced

> against the negative consequences of eating it, and this will not only be

> different for every individual, it's a moving target for each person as

> well. That's because as healing proceeds and sensitivity increases (you

> can't have one without the other), the point comes with each new

> 'replacement' food when the negative outweighs the positive, and that's when

> you have to look for another (slightly healthier) replacement. In this way,

> forward progress is not only practically guaranteed, it is relatively easy

> and comfortable.

>

> The moral of the story is, staying satisfied is Job #1 for transitioning raw

> fooders.

>

> Best wishes,

> Nora

> www.RawSchool.com

> www.RawTreasure.com

>

>

>

> ---

>

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