Food As A Medicine
I have just got back from Italy! And yes I now identify as Italian!
The food was insane. Even as a coeliac, I was able to eat some of the most amazing food I have ever eaten in my life. The food was simple & delicious. The portions were small and the flavours were intense.
I have always enjoyed food simplicity. Being coeliac and raising four coeliac children meant that reading food packets became part of everyday life. We used to play a game in the supermarket: if the kids could find an item with three or less ingredients, we would buy it. Let's use potato chips as an example. “Ready Salted” chips have three ingredients: potatoes, oil & salt. A flavour like “Sour Cream & Chive” can have as many as 19 ingredients!
The ingredients we ate in Italy were incredibly simple. Plates of mozzarella cheese layered with heirloom tomatoes. Pasta with olives and fresh herbs.
And then there was the coffee! I love coffee and for all of my adult life, it has been an essential part of my day. In Italy, we drank single-shot espresso. It was like having a shot at a bar! In Milan, we watched people walk into an ‘espresso bar’. They were served water and a single-shot espresso while standing at the bar. They would then swish out the door and get on with their day. They do not wander around carrying coffee. They do not drink milky coffee after 11am.
When I arrived back in New Zealand, the first thing I noticed was people walking from Auckland’s domestic terminal over to international all carrying buckets of milk froth and bad coffee! Surely an impact of marketing from international brands like Starbucks convincing us that large coffees to go would improve our lives.
I loved the impact of single-shot espresso. The coffee has to be great. It has nowhere to hide.
Simple, flavourful and thoughtful is how I want to eat. I was taught how to eat by a naturopath 30 years ago when my adrenal glands got completely overwhelmed and my body stopped working. Michael was the first naturopath I had ever met and he was incredible. Wise and calm, he taught me so much about the impact that food has on our bodies. He taught me the benefits of eating whole foods. Of enjoying food for the power and the benefit that they offered.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
Hippocrates
Here are my food principles:
1. Eat food that grows.
I asked Michael once if I could have takeaways and his reply was “there are no hamburger trees Lisa”. Whole foods have so much value. Processed ones not so much. Fish, rice and veggies - these were the three staples that Michael drilled into me. Easy to process, simple food with high nutritional value.
2. The food that we want the most is the food we need to avoid.
Michael asked me in our first consultation - ‘what are two foods that if I said you could never have them again you would want to punch me in the face”? The answer was out of my mouth before I could think! “Bread and Cheese” I replied. I stopped eating gluten & dairy from that day forward.
Gluten is not a problem for most of the population but the amount of it hidden in so many modern meals is ridiculous. It causes loads of inflammation, brain fog and fatigue. It's not until you try life without it that you realise how much it is weighing you down.
Dairy is another huge problem for many bodies. The amount of digestive and skin issues that could be solved if dairy was taken away is crazy. We are the only animal who consumes another animal's milk…doesn’t seem right to me.
We all seem to be wired to crave different things: sugar, carbs, caffeine, alcohol, dairy, energy drinks - Michael told me it was a way of sabotaging ourselves to give into the things we craved most. He said try avoiding them and see what happens!
3. Enjoy what you eat.
I see food as a celebration. A way to honour my body with nutritious inputs. Why would you sabotage your own body by filling it with substandard fuel? Michael taught me that if I wanted to get the best out of my body, I needed to put the best in!
4. Listen to your body.
If you don’t feel like eating, then don’t! If you feel like carbs, eat carbs. If you feel like something spicy, eat that. Our bodies are giving us messages all the time. The problem is that from a very early age, we are taught to disregard and override these messages. It starts by us being forced to ‘finish our plates’ and made to eat what's put in front of us. It disconnects us from our natural instincts. These instincts are our body's method of communication.
5. Take the day off.
Fasting has become very hip. But in my opinion it's used for weight loss more than the concept of allowing your body some time off. Starving your body is not kind. Delivering nutrients without making your body work too hard is a wonderful act of body kindness. I’m a huge fan of making and drinking broth. A nutrient-dense liquid that you can consume while your body restores its factory settings.
6. Use food to honour your body.
When you think of food as a way to honour yourself, it changes the way you view it. You are not a dog! Food should not be a reward system. It is for nutrients and pleasure. I enjoy eating for pleasure. I have no guilt about that. If 80% of my world is spent honouring my body with good nutrients, then I can spend 20% of my time eating things that coat my taste buds and light up my face with pure joy!