cook to – in thriver words

Salad Jar

I’m sure you’re familiar with a salad bar, but what about a salad jar? Okay, I made it up, so I don’t expect you to know what I’m talking about. Let me explain.

Last weekend, I really wanted a salad. I had romaine lettuce, celery, carrots, red bell pepper, almonds, blueberries, apples, and ingredients for multiple dressings on hand. Did I fix a salad? No. It seemed like too much trouble.

I needed to wash the lettuce, celery, carrots, pepper, blueberries and apples before I used them. I’d need to let them dry. Then I’d have to chop everything. And I wanted some protein on top. I had shredded chicken, but I was tired of it. By the time I mentally walked through the prep, I was weary of the whole idea. I ordered a salad.

Was that expensive? Yes. Was it better than what I would have made? No. But it wasn’t overwhelming.

There’s an easy way around such dilemmas – a salad jar. What’s that you may ask? It’s a jar filled with salad toppings that are ready to serve atop greens. If all I had to do was wash the lettuce then top it with several items that were already cleaned and chopped, the task would have seemed much more doable.

Carrots, celery, peppers, onion, jicama, cucumber, squash, asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower can all be cleaned and chopped in advance. And they can be combined in a jar in proportions you find pleasing so that topping a salad is as simple as opening the jar.

In similar fashion, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries can be cleaned and jarred. You may want to slice the strawberries before combining with other berries if you’re going to use them in short order. Or clean and store a single type of berry. Prewashing the blueberries in my fridge would have made them more inviting.

Grape tomatoes require no slicing and can be washed before storing. Larger tomatoes can also be cleaned in advance even if you slice immediately before serving.

Toppings like nuts, seeds, toasted coconut, and dried fruit can be purchased ready to sprinkle on salad, but creating your own mix will ensure compatibility with specialized diets. I love a dried cranberry on a salad, but dried fruit is incompatible with a low histamine diet so many packaged salad toppers don’t work for me.

Clear storage jars allow me to see my salad toppers easily. They also stack well in my refrigerator and transfer well to the ice chest when I set out in my RV. I can use the same jars to store dressings mixed to compliment that week’s toppings.

You may argue that prep is prep and takes time. True. But there’s something about doing salad prep for more than a single salad when I’m cooking something else that makes it feel efficient and less cumbersome. And not every ingredient has to be put in a jar at the same time.

I can put a few chopped peppers in a jar when I’m prepping a sauté of peppers, squash, and onions. I might also capture a few slices of squash. The next day, I can add carrots while I’m preparing to roast a bunch or asparagus when I’m preparing some to steam. In other words, the salad prep doesn’t have to be a separate operation.

Some salad jars provide a good flavor combo for stir fry, frittatas, pasta prima vera, or pizza. Like any food prep, there’s fun in playing with new combinations.

At this moment when many of us feel overwhelmed, a salad jar is a simple solution with a variety of benefits. Try one!

Trauma and Abdominal Pain

My email inbox has seen an uptick in training opportunities related to reducing abdominal pain through trauma treatment. I haven’t attended any of these, but it’s entirely possible that some forms of abdominal pain are caused, or exacerbated, by a history of trauma. When that is the case, it stands to reason trauma treatment could help alleviate symptoms.

An interesting study is taking place in The Netherlands hoping to gain insight into the effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment on abdominal pain experienced with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). The results could bring the possibility of additional tools to the clinical treatment of IBS. Given that there are currently few effective treatment options, these would be welcomed.

EMDR isn’t the only trauma treatment that may be effective. Attachment healing could be helpful. Somatic Experiencing could be another option. These therapies can be used in combination or succession to create individual trauma treatment plans.

Will this mean that you can forget about restricting your diet and go back to eating whatever you want? Not necessarily. But it may mean reduced physical pain and less emotional stress without a need for pharmaceuticals and their side effects. And it could mean it’s possible to reintroduce some foods without dire consequences.

More research is needed before the scientific community can make any specific determinations. And research moves slowly. In the meantime, if you have experienced trauma, you may want to explore some of these treatments for relief from any lingering effects. Even if they don’t change the way you need to eat, treatment could still be beneficial.

Another option is to participate in a scientific study. As a participant, you will contribute to moving science forward. Not all studies require you to consume medication and all require informed consent. The NIH lists several resources for finding and being matched with a study that fits your circumstances.

The more we learn, the more options we have. That’s why scientific advances are so exciting! We don’t always get the specific answer we desire, but any progress is progress. I’m thrilled by the changes in trauma treatment and the possibilities they bring for expanding the number of foods I can enjoy.

While restrictive diets may continue to play a large part in eliminating various types of abdominal pain, it’s hopeful to see research that is exploring nonpharmaceutical alternatives that could have additional benefits. If trauma treatment can decrease physical abdominal pain along with emotional stress, that’s a big win!

Adverse Childhood Experiences Can Detrimentally Affect Health

Happy Foods

What are your happy foods? I don’t mean in a scientific, how does something affect your gut biome and elevate your mood. I mean, what are the foods that make you happy to take a bite?

Along with the need to eliminate additional foods from my diet has come a certain ambivalence toward meals. I still get hungry. And I still enjoy playing with recipes. But the everyday meal has become more about getting something in me so I don’t have a sugar crash.

Much of the pleasure of a meal gets lost in the uncertainty that comes with not knowing which day a food will affect me in an unexpected way or exactly why. My friends who have experience with oral chemo describe a similar phenomenon.

Feeling blah about meals can help you cut costs. It seems especially wasteful to buy expensive restaurant food when it doesn’t taste any more exciting than the tacos you have waiting at home. But it can also change your social life if you often gather with friends for food and drinks.

It also becomes more tempting to be less particular about balancing your diet or even eating healthy. Reaching for things that are consistently safe doesn’t always mean you’ll achieve a balanced mix of nutrients.

It’s easy to resort to cereal and milk if you know that’s the one thing that brings no ill effects. Who cares if you’ve eaten cereal for dinner 6 days in a row? Or in the case of my mother, lettuce with a squeeze of lemon juice was her go-to once she was past her Dr. Pepper and saltine cracker phase.

In retrospect, I’m guessing Mom suffered from mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). Her symptoms and the list of medications to which she had adverse reactions point that direction. Since it wasn’t a known or researched condition when she was growing up with “allergies,” it’s impossible to know.

But given her sometimes immediate and significant reaction to food, I understand how she could have reached a point that it became so difficult and confusing to try to choose a variety of foods that it became easier and more comfortable to stick with the few things she knew were safe. Although I understand how that could happen, I could also see how her health suffered from lack of nutrition.

One trick for motivating yourself to include variety when it’s easier to eat a grilled cheese sandwich again is to explore your happy foods. Let yourself get hungry. Not starving, but hungry. Stand in your kitchen and pick something you have on hand that you remember enjoying.

It doesn’t need to be a food you want right now. There may not be anything that appeals to you in the moment. Just pick something you remember making you happy. Eat it. Savor it. See if it makes you feel happy to eat it now. If so, add it to a list.

Later you can refine this list. If some food gives you a questionable reaction, note that in real time. If your list is filled with unhealthy foods, keep refining until it’s not.

Today, I have raw almonds in the house for the first time in a few weeks. I took a handful and ate them before lunch. It reminded me how happy I am eating almonds.

That tiny act then led me to eat a golden delicious apple. I’ve always known they make me happy. Their skin isn’t tough. I like eating it. The apple is sweet, but not too sweet. The texture is juicy and firm. And I remember picking them on a trip to the orchard when I was a kid.

The significance lies in the fact that choosing one thing I knew made me feel happy led me to eat another thing that makes me feel happy. And both of them are healthy, gluten-free, and well tolerated by my histamine sensitive gut. I doubled both my pleasure and my nutrition component simply by choosing happiness.

Could there be an easier way to make a choice? I don’t think so.

Will every happy choice be healthy? No, of course not. I might choose a chocolate bar and then later regret how it makes me feel. That’s the reason for keeping a list to remind myself in advance. But just like every top-down/bottom-up approach, when I choose happy, I’m more likely to choose healthy and when I choose healthy, I’m more likely to be happy.

Starting with happy narrows down the number of foods I need to research for health purposes and also makes me more likely to do that research later. It’s energizing in a way that’s similar to seeing sunshine outside your window. You may not be out in it yet, but you feel the anticipation of good things to come.

What better time than now to reach for some happy foods!?

Food and Mood

How would you describe the connection between food and mood? I attended a webinar last week on using nutrition to facilitate trauma healing. I haven’t had time to review studies on this subject so I won’t give you a specific regimen to check out or links to websites yet. What I will tell you is the message was powerful and visibly resonated with the audience. It’s the only time I’ve ever been in a Zoom call in which numerous participants wiped away tears as they listened.

The crux of the work involves noting sensations or emotions we experience (or are trying to avoid) at a moment when our bodies feel driven to seek stimulating or depressing foods. Are we attempting to pump up adrenaline or calm it down? What is underneath our desire to do this? Can we recognize eating habits we’ve developed to regulate fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses? What happens emotionally when we change our eating habits?

Why does any of this matter?

We know that a high percentage of people fail in attempts to follow a new diet regimen over a long period of time. This is true whether the diet is designed for weight loss or to avoid gluten. And it’s true in people who may be highly disciplined in every other area. Perhaps exploring what happens emotionally when we change our eating habits can give some insight that will lead to better approaches for lasting change.

What exactly would we explore?

The short answer is how food relates to us and how we relate to food.

We typically do this with a particular diet strategy in mind. We may be more successful over the long haul if we focus on rituals and culture and how food relates to feelings of safety or danger.

How can we discover that?

We can begin with habits – the foods we reach for regularly; times of day we reach for something; whether we tend to withhold food from ourselves, etc. Keeping a journal may be helpful.

What comes next?

Next, we can explore what we are feeling when we reach for the caffeine or chocolate or potato chips or fried chicken that we see regularly appearing in our journals. We can also record how we feel after we consume that food and how long the feeling lasts.

Looking at these patterns allows us to determine our relationship with food. Once we have a grasp of it, we can slowly build tolerance for feelings of uncertainty and danger that may result from changes in diet.

Why on earth would this work?

Food is a mood regulator. You can find plenty of scientific studies about the particular nutritional properties of food and how those relate to mood. In practicality, the specific properties don’t matter until the body is able to feel safe when we change our habits and rituals. This requires deliberately building a framework for safety.

For example, sugar is a stimulant. You can calm the body by limiting or removing it. When you do so, you’ll eliminate empty calories and lose weight. Easy, right?

Yes, but…

The body adapts to threats using the tools it has available for regulation. One of those tools is food. Another is swallowing. It is normal for the body to resort to an adapted response that may no longer be needed.

If a dieter lived with constant stress as a child, a high level of adrenaline may feel normal or “safe.” That person may consume large amounts of stimulants – chocolate, candy, sweetened coffee drinks, sodas, dried fruit – or skip meals in order to feel normal. When a high level of stimulation feels normal or safe, removing it will cause a feeling of danger.

That means removing sugar from the diet can send the body into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. Because this is an adapted physiological response, it will not magically go away on its own.

But it is possible to develop a framework for healing that shifts our relationship with food over time. It is the change in the relationship that will allow us to use food to improve mood in a healthy, lasting way.

So here’s what I’m taking away from the webinar: If you have struggled with any kind of dietary change, you are not alone. If you’ve ever punished yourself for resorting to old habits, you can stop. Once you recognize your body is trying to protect you from something unbearable, you can stop fighting yourself. Once you stop fighting yourself, there’s more time and energy for realigning the relationship between food and mood.

All of this feels right to me with or without studies to support the specifics. I can’t wait to learn more about my own food and mood!

Here’s to exploration!