The Doctor Cooks

Nourishing Your Joy (Sabbath Pancakes)

This article originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of the Kansas City Wellness Magazine.

The leaves have fallen from the trees.  The animal, plant and mineral worlds are settling down for a well deserved rest.  What about you?  Chances are you are doing the opposite, gearing up for a season packed with shopping, gatherings with family, friends and colleagues and other events.  How much is truly joyful and how much is obligation?  Are you being nourished or run down?

A few years ago my family abandoned its traditional gift exchange.  As we got older most of us didn’t really need or want anything and the children certainly didn’t need more toys. We really just wanted to be together, something that was getting less frequent as we got older, and to share our blessings with others.  So we make a group charitable donation instead of exchanging gifts.  Now we enjoy a good meal together, each other’s company and practicing generosity together.  I feel joyful and nourished.

Sometimes we live our lives in such a fast frenzy that go on auto-pilot, doing what we’ve always done.  Often we are out of touch and cannot acknowledge how draining it is.  We start the new year exhausted and a prime target for the flu, depression and other illnesses.  So how do we slow down, rest and get in touch with what is truly nourishing and joyful?

One way is to practice a Sabbath, a day of rest.  Many religious traditions recommend this.  Now biologists suspect we have a seven day circadian rhythm called a circaseptan. For my husband and me our Sabbath is a day to nourish our joy, recharge our spiritual batteries and rest.  We sleep late, take walks, make love, take naps, and drink tea together.  We meditate, and enjoy a spiritual book, article or DVD.  I like to play my guitar, write music or garden.  It’s almost always a no-car day. 

We take our time to mindfully prepare a special breakfast together--pancakes with real maple syrup, fresh-squeezed juice and tea.  We relax, savor the meal and deepen our connection to each other.  This meal sets the tone for our Sabbath day.  It wouldn’t be the same without it.

Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath is the best book I know on how to create a day of rest.  I also highly recommend Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness.   Here’s the recipe for our Sabbath pancakes to set the tone for your Sabbath day.

Sabbath Pancakes

1 cup plus 2 TBSP whole wheat flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 TBSP turbinado sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup soy or nut milk
2 TBSP ghee, melted
1 TBSP coconut oil, melted
½ cup finely chopped pecans
¼ apple finely chopped (optional)
Ghee to grease the pan

Heat a skillet to medium heat.  Mix flour and baking powder in a large bowl.  Mix the sugar, salt, egg, soy or nut milk and melted oils in a smaller bowl.  Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients.  Stir until the liquid is mixed in.  Do not over mix.  Fold in the pecans and optional apple into the batter.  Apply a thin layer of ghee to the skillet.  Ladle the batter onto the hot skillet with a soup ladle.  Turn the pancake when bubbles appear over the surface.  Remove the pancake when the underside is golden brown.  Serves 2 with one extra pancake for the birds—another one of our Sabbath traditions!

Hungry Belly or Hungry Heart?

This article originally appeared in the Kansas City Wellness Magazine. 

I know a woman whose job is total chaos.  Priorities are always changing and everything is due yesterday.  She comes home so worked-up that she delves into a bag of salty chips, her comfort food, to decompress.  By 8:00 pm, her hands and feet swell as she falls asleep in front of the television, exhausted.

This is stress eating.   This is a not a matter of making better food choices.  She is eating to fill a much deeper hunger.  Perhaps the ever changing priorities and rushed nature of her work deny her the satisfaction of a job well done.  Yet she can eat, and eat and eat and never satisfy this need.  Many of us try to eat our way out of emotional hunger.  Then we wonder why we are overweight, sick and tired.

It takes great presence of mind, or mindfulness, to tell the difference between a hungry belly and a hungry heart.  Mindfulness is the capacity to be aware of what is going on in and around us in the present moment.  It’s difficult to stay in the present moment because we are always ruminating about the past or anticipating the future instead of enjoying this moment.  That’s why it’s possible to consume a bag of chips or a quart of ice cream when you are eating to fill a hungry heart.  You are aware of your worries, not your food.

Stress increases the hormones insulin and cortisol.  These hormones occur naturally in our body giving us the burst of energy we need to respond to threats, such as a herd of wooly mammoths stampeding toward us.  The problem with 21st century life is that our day is full on non-life threatening events that we perceive as life threatening.  We respond as if the wooly mammoth herd is stampeding from minute-to-minute.  This leads to constantly elevated insulin and cortisol and can lead to conditions such as diabetes, obesity, dementia, depression, chronic fatigue and lowered immunity.

Sonia Lupien, PhD, from the Centre for Studies on Human Stress at McGill University in Montreal defines stress as “going N.U.T.S.”  We feel stressed when a situation is Novel, Unpredictable, Threatens our sense of self and leaves us with a poor Sense of control.  N.U.T.S. can help bring us back to the present moment.  When you are feeling stressed and are about to reach for that bag of chips or quart of ice cream ask yourself, “am I going N.U.T.S?”  That is, am I in a novel or unpredictable situation, or do I feel threatened or out of control?  If the answer is yes, then eating will not give you relief.

This takes us back to mindfulness.  You have to have some presence of mind to notice how you feel as you are reaching for that candy bar.  Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD offers this exercise for cultivating present moment awareness.  Take a single raisin and eat it. Ordinarily you might pop the raisin in your mouth, chew a few times and swallow, for the most part unconsciously. But mindful raisin eating is much different. Look at the raisin.  Consider its shape, weight, color and texture. Next place the raisin in your mouth, sensing how it feels on the tongue as the mouth welcomes it with salivation. Then chew the raisin slowly and thoroughly, focusing on its taste and texture. Finally, swallow the raisin noticing how it feels as it journeys to your stomach.

When you are present in this way, you can determine what you really need in this moment.  Perhaps a walk, yoga, meditation, journaling or a good cry are better choices.  Or maybe you need to use the raisin method to enjoy your chips.  Perhaps you won’t eat as many or may even realize that you don’t want them.

There a many ways to learn mindfulness, from formal training programs such as Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction to local groups that meet weekly to practice mindfulness together.  Please see www.bethanyklug.com right sidebar for links.  For more information on N.U.T.S. please see www.douglasrecherche.qc.ca/stress/.

The Three Awarenesses of Food Revisited

Many of you were moved by the Three Awarenesses of Food, published last September in my Kansas City Wellness Magazine column Meat is Not the Question.  I appreciate the positive feedback.  I did however receive some criticism from readers concerned about animal rights, disputing my statement about the dilemma of humanity:  we must consume the earth's beings to live.

The article reflects as much my own process as it does an invitation for readers to engage their own.  In the article I say, “Our lives depend on all the other beings on this planet, animals, plants and minerals.”  Many people think of animate beings as divine.  It’s a big shift to think of a grain of wheat as divine and even more so to think of limestone as such. 

MEAT IS NOT THE QUESTION

While waiting for a lovely dinner at Eden Alley (www.edenalley.com) last Saturday night, I couldn’t resist taking a peek at the brightly colored, glossy and prominently displayed Vegetarian Start Kit from PeTA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (http://www.peta.org.)   PeTA devotes six of 22 pages, with graphic pictures and descriptions to its main premise:  animals have feelings just like humans do, yet the animals we eat are raised and killed in horrifying ways; thus the average meat eater is responsible for the abuse and death of about 90 animals per year.

Whew!  That’s a heavy one right before dinner!  Of course this information is not new to me.  But, to eat or not to eat meat, that is not the question!

Happy Thanksgiving

The Three Awarenesses of Food

Aware that this food is a gift, the work of many hands past and present and the wisdom and experience of the earth over billions of years, I aspire to eat this food with awareness, so I may deeply touch the miracle of it.

Aware that this food shapes my body substance and the way I relate to myself and the world, I aspire to eat only foods that nourish me in the amounts I need, no more, no less.

Aware that food can be raised in ways that minimize harm to the planet and its inhabitants, I aspire to choose my food carefully so that everyone and everything may experience the health and wholeness I seek for myself.

STUDY SAYS FAMILY MEAL IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

From Organic Bytes:  Newsletter of the Organic Consumers Fund

According to a decade long study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), teens who regularly have meals with their family are less likely to get into fights, think about suicide, smoke, drink, use drugs, and are more likely to have later initiation of sexual activity, and better academic performance than teens who do not. Rutgers University anthropologist Robin Fox emphasizes the importance of positive intention in family meals. "It's like the American Indians. When they killed a deer, they said a prayer over it," says Fox. "That is civilization. It is an act of politeness over food. Fast food has killed this. We have reduced eating to sitting alone and shoveling it in. There is no ceremony in it." The CASA study also showed that eating with parents is also an important factor for the nutrition and eating habits of adolescents, with research showing that family meals and parental presence at meals is associated with higher intake of fruits, vegetables, and dairy products.

Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_752.cfm

Why Diets Don't Work

Consider this wisdom from Geneen Roth, author of Feeding the Hungry Heart and other books on getting to the emotional roots of overeating.  Read More>>