Photo Courtesy of King Arthur Flour
Can one be an advocate of both National Chocolate Cake Day and of eating healthy – to the extent that you have purged your body of toxins and inflammatory effects, and thereby minimizing the effects of aging?
Before you start reading this, just know that I do not come to any conclusions here……. For many years I have been trying to solve the mystery of eating well. What exactly does this mean? Does eating well mean to satiate one’s desires, eat carefully but wisely, minimize portions, but include most foods, always avoid all starchy carbs at all costs, eat only raw foods, minimize blood sugar impact, or as I read in this month’s Bon Appetit interview with Kelly Wearstler: hit the gym every morning at 5:30, have water with something called “Miracle Reds or Miracle Greens”, water with plankton, lemon and cayenne extract, have a latte, juice all day including something called E3Live juice, have 1 meal per day of some semblance of solid food and go out to dinner once a week for pizza on Friday night? This regimen apparently gives her the proper energy to run her design empire. (She is 45 years old and does look great.) Really???? Surely, this is not what we are destined for, is it? Do I have to hang up my apron and throw away my baking pans?
I also read recently that Gwyneth Paltrow does not eat: eggs, dairy, sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, and just about everything else ……… except an occasional piece of fish and an avocado….. (I am looking for the article). And yesterday, I read the cover story of last week’s People magazine about how Paula Deen and her family have all lost so much weight – but each one did it by a different regimen! This is all more than a little confusing and creates a tremendous amount of conflict in my life. For example, Sunday was National Chocolate Cake Day. Does this celebration fit into any of the above for a person such as me, for anyone with being “healthy” as their prime motivation? Are we destined for the “you can have one forkful of chocolate cake once a month” world of healthy eating? IDK and UGH – to quote some typical text lingo.
When I was in London last week I caught part of an interview by Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN with a Dr. who was saying that exercising does not result in weight loss – it can only change the way your body metabolizes calories – either burning them (does this mean you have to burn more calories of any sort day after day than you eat to result in a net weight loss?) , turning them into fat or eliminating them through your urine which is extremely dangerous as in Diabetes. Sorry to get graphic here but it is an important point. I confess I was half asleep when I heard this and I have to find the Doctor’s name and the transcript to check my recollections. Basically, he said losing weight is a matter of what and how much we eat. I have also read books which talk about the body’s metabolic clock and what you eat at what time of day affects how and how well it is metabolized. Let us face it, as we age our bodies do not metabolize food as well as when we were younger. This is as a result, I personally believe, of the loss of hormones, less physical activity and well, maybe even too little vitamin D – but I am no Doctor. There are so many theories out there, one can’t possibly keep up with them. Over the years I have read about: Fit for Life, The Zone, Dr. Atkins, The No Grain Diet, The Body Type Diet, The Blood Type Diet, The Anti-Aging Diet, The Anti-Inflammatory Diet, the Anti-Cancer Diet, The Hunter-Gatherer Diet, The Mediterranean Diet, The Macrobiotic Diet, The Perricone Prescription and now there are articles from Dr. Oz on just about all of these. Why is this so complex and difficult? Why hasn’t the medical community come out and taken a stand on this? Isn’t this their job? One thing most of these regimens seem to agree on: too much insulin-raising food and drink, as in sugars and starchy carbs and alcohol causes the pancreas to convert sugars into fat and that eating healthy fats do not make you fat – in fact you need fat to protect the lining of your brain. If this is in fact the case, can’t the medical community at least say so? I have written here on a number of occasions about friends and family with serious disease never being instructed about their diet – and worse yet, never having their nutrition or weight even come up in discussion with their Doctors – much too easy (and profitable) just to “prescribe”.
Disturbingly, I was sitting next to a man on my plane ride home on Sunday who was working on a presentation about a drug regimen I won’t mention the Company or the affliction) – it appeared to be all about maximizing sales and expanding their potential market. Obviously, it was this person’s job to make sure they got these drugs used by as many potential persons as possible. I am sorry and yes, I was eavesdropping a little (I couldn’t help it) but this made me uncomfortable – this wasn’t the first time I’d thought about this. I couldn’t help but think from what I saw, that his compensation potential was directly linked to some impersonal, non-holistic product-pushing protocol and potential marketing effort rather than some needs-based, after all other organic methodologies had been exhausted-based effort. I am one who agrees that drug companies have way too much influence over the medical protocols (and government) in this Country and there needs to be a major push-back on this. Yes, pharmacology is a great benefit to our planet – but shouldn’t drugs be considered secondary to any possible holistic or organic therapies if they are useful and the situation warrants and only be the out-of-the-box-go-tos only when they absolutely have to be? (Is this an existential question or a moral question?)
Yesterday I saw on tv that Doctors are advocating children taking insulin injections “early” when they are at risk for type 2 diabetes! Surely, this isn’t the right solution – I am sure Dr. Joel Fuhrman is having a fit about this! Why is the food pyramid still dominated by the food production lobby in this country, i.e., pro-dairy and pro-grain? How can we possibly make any sense of this amazing and often conflicting information? Much fodder for thought here. But, what about the Chocolate Cake, you ask?
So, when you are a bona fide baking addict and in love with the world of cooking and baking, how do you reconcile your urges and passions with eating and feeling well? Does one have to resort to Kale smoothies and, as Ryan says, “Have a slice of air”? I am terribly discouraged by all of this and need to find a “way forward”. He knew of a Mom in high school who didn’t eat anything all day but then had one scoop of ice cream every night…… This is crazy isn’t it?
Let us just consider the potential pleasures of National Chocolate Cake Day. At least we can say, with relative assuredness, that some quantity of Chocolate is “good” for us – that is today’s generally accepted take. Take that together with the extreme sensual pleasure of baking a cake, frosting it beautifully with chocolate buttercream and serving it up with a healthy dose of love to one’s family and friends……. is this some sort of unfair and cruel trickery? There are real sensory pleasures here – ones which feed the heart and soul and human senses, no?
Let us also consider the all too public travails of Oprah and Kirstie Alley…..vs. say the secrets of French Women Don’t Get Fat…… I mean, seriously, Oprah has tried everything, hasn’t she? This is clear testimony to how hard it is to solve this dilemma…….
Eating “well”, to me, anyway, implies a degree of satisfaction in relation to one’s palate – not just the satisfaction of “knowing” you did the right thing. Doing the “right thing” all day, day after day, can result in relative starvation, can’t it? And isn’t this an all out rejection of some if not most of our senses? After all, God gave us taste buds for something, didn’t he – or perhaps more practically, these were just the survival mechanisms we evolved with, no? I am sure this debate will go on for a very long time. Maybe we are all destined for the vitamin pill diet??? Maybe I should just move to that Greek island where everyone lives to 100?
Well, surely, I can not solve this problem here and today. After all, I am jet-lagged and everything is all bollixed up for me still. Ok, ok, and so, as I sit here at 6:50 am, and I can hear a bird chirping outside, I am contemplating what I should eat today. I need to get my system back on track.
So, for today, I put out the question to you —— what is your best answer to this dilemma? We can all clearly see the people who eat badly and those who evidently eat healthy……but, are those who obsess about every morsel which passes their lips every day actually healthy, or happy? Is it about ultimate control or obsessing about one’s appearance – or is it about truly being able to indulge in one’s passions and finding inner peace? Give me your best input…….. And then, tell me what I should do with my vast baking book collection!!!!!!! All I can say is, I hope I don’t wake up at 3am again tomorrow! Meanwhile, I will peruse all my inputs on National Chocolate Cake Day and then try to learn to settle on having some sort of a virtual experience……….