Let’s talk food. If you got dug into the 10-Day Body Bodacious Challenge I ran in January, you’ll have gleaned the perspective that my extensive trainings in energy psychology lead me to, around demonising food.

Identifying foods and our behaviour as good and bad is a tad futile, this is because issues with food are a symptom not a cause of an underlying issue.

In other words, poor eating habits, even allergies, are a far-from-ideal coping strategy

Plotting my way back to good health

I’ve been plotting my way to better health and eating is part of that. Does that sound contradictory? Basically we can much more easily make eating changes to ingrained behaviours / responses / triggers around food – for the long-term – by addressing what drives the underlying malarky. One way of identifying whether this is an issue for you is to look at your own evidence:

• Have diets worked for you?
• Did you lose weight and then regain it again?
• Having reached your goal do you still struggle with food choices?
• After a stressful (or happy) day do you still turn to food?
• Do you still tell yourself off about your food choices?
• Are allergy’s recurring?
• Are you developing more food sensitivities?

The underlying is what drove me into a decades worth of training in 10 areas. And one thing’s clear you do not need to become a practitioner in order to make substantial change.

As you start making personal change your awareness of the triggers become more visible

That route can indeed hold up your own progress through both the distraction of learning, and struggling to be a successful practitioner (to justify the tens of thousands you may end up spending on it) when in fact your fabulous skills live elsewhere. It often adds another challenge, i.e. putting yourself into another practitioners hands in order to get out of your own way.

My road to plant based

At this point I’ve let go of alcohol, which has delivered unexpected benefits, as well as red meat and dairy. My animal based protein comes mostly from fish now, and I’m wading far more into root vegetables, pulses, lentils, brown rice, fruits and salads.

I find substitutes a challenging concept as I aim to avoid replica foods, i.e. synthetic burgers and whatnot. As well as recipe development, nutrition and dietetics, my Home Economist’s degree visited the laboratory to pull foods apart, where one example stood out as to why natural is safest bet.

In 1991 Dr Paul Ainsworth (chemist at Manchester Metropolitan University – Dr A – as we affectionately called him) advised that decaffeinated coffee is more dangerous than regular coffee because of the chemical changes required to rid it of caffeine and reconstruct it for the cup

The old KISS adage Keep It Simple Stupid is the way to go in my book. And similarly hydrogenated margarine’s, why would you?

As for dieting products, apart from the complex challenges they serve up to your digestive system, think for a moment about how undermining their message is to you as a person regarding not being good enough.

Filtering out these sorts of products from your shopping list gives a clear message to your body, while developing a different mindset

Thinking about the processes food undergoes before it reaches the kitchen, my current replacement for butter on toast for example, is coconut oil, it’s surprisingly delicious. I don’t know if it’s a thing, I found myself reaching for it as the nearest replacement when I stopped buying butter. Let me know what you think if you decide to give it a whirl.

I don’t know if you agree but it feels important to use authentic identifiable ingredients, which means a welcome return to proper cooking

With this in mind this recipe popped up today and armed with all the ingredients, except Maple Syrup (a sugar) where I’ll use honey (while keeping an eye on the sweet factor). May also dive into playing with other substitutes as my tastes are not overly-sweet on the cake front.

The ingredients

These are the ingredients I’m planning to use for the chocolate chip brownies, can’t wait to see what it tastes like.

I look forward to publishing it on video, did I just commit to a moving video, technology withstanding? I’ll let you know how it goes and share once I’ve experimented.

Are you game, let’s compare notes?

Let me know if you’d like my help you with the gubbins around eating, food and allergies.

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