Let Go: Hoodwinked by the Foodie Beast

(3-minute read)

My food becoming aggressive with me.

Foodie brain fog is an odd thing, often brought on by smell and memories. A hungry person can look at the food on their plate and the memories that come with the colors and smells pull the wool over their eyes.

Take the scent of sugar. Or butter melting through bread. Just the idea of these smells draw forth all kinds of memories. Sitting with friends at a beloved hole-in-the-wall diner, for example. The hunger is quick to be highjacked, and we’re suddenly craving foods we know are bad.

It’s a foodie brain fog, and it can totally erase the memory of morning headaches that grew up like crowns of thorns.

And so it goes.

Or how many times did I read about some food or another being “bad” for me — and then hear another report that contradicted that report? Like most people, I agreed to ignore not just one, but ALL of the reports.

Likewise, I shelved the complaints of my friends with their “sensitive stomachs, which they attributed to “the inevitable decline that comes with age”.

How many times did I whine myself? Like, the high expense of a new medication, or how to get the best nutritional supplement without paying an arm and a leg for it.

And yet, we carried on these conversations while rapidly washing down sweet crumpets with vanilla latte grandes, or salty onion rings with a margarita sal de lima.

Years of this. Until I turned 67.

I found myself seeing figures in the frying pan, like this man attacking me, and knew I had to face my relationship with food.

Something I was cooking, or the way I was cooking, might hold the reason as to why I always woke up in the middle of the night with headaches.

Perhaps the things I was feeding to the literally millions of microbes in my stomach were not good for them, or me.

This year the cultural confusion lifted. The foodie-beast unlatched it’s grip.

I realized that this body is the first barrier between me and death. It houses the only means for me to connect with my loved ones.

It’s really the only means I have to communicate with God.

That’s when I decided to start my friendship with food all over again. To literally play with food, but in recipes. After all, real friends know who they are playing with.

Tumeric Veggie Shake

Before blending…

Power Lunch

Tumeric makes it orange, chia seeds and cashew yogurt make it thick, the dates make it sweet, and the broccoli and berries make it… a one-of-a-kind lunch.

Orange peels, cranberries, and Alstroemeria blossoms meeting on a paper towel (not in my meal).