Nutritional Yoga

For the past 10 days, I have been doing a voluntary herbal detox. My detox of choice is the "Wild Rose Herbal D-tox". I had a few different reasons for doing it...

I usually eat what I want to eat, and just try to be healthy about it. This has worked well for me so far, but I have always wished that I would be more intentional about cooking for myself from scratch and had noticed a building trend towards convenience food in recent months. More granola bars for breakfast, going out for dinner, and that sort of thing. So when my friend Rebecca decided it was time to do "the cleanse", I decided to join her.

Basically, the cleanse entails cutting out all dairy, sugar, flours, tropical or dried fruits, reducing meat intake, and some other stuff. Mostly just eat lots of veggies and brown rice. Also you have to take herbs and tinctures twice a day. I felt like a total hypochondriac popping six pills before breakfast and dinner every day, but have gotten over it, and have improved my pill-swallowing technique in the process. I used to try to drop it into the back of my mouth to minimize yucky tastes, but realized the other day that if you let your tongue deal with the task of moving it to the back of your throat, then it takes care of orienting it properly to your esophagus and all that. Fascinating, the way our bodies work.

So anyways, I went on the cleanse without doing too much pre-planning, but it has been easier than I anticipated. Making cleanse-friendly meals takes a little bit more planning, but ended up being a really good exercise in eating better for me. I have been cooking lots of fish, eating things without dousing them in sauce, and have kicked the habit of eating something for dessert most nights (for now, we will see if that lasts).

I guess it has taught me that a lot of my food choices are out of habit or laziness, and not even because of strong cravings. I've hardly craved anything throughout. I think that knowing it wasn't an option made it a lot easier for me to say no. Especially since I knew there would be an end in sight.

Some favourites of the cleanse:

Basa filets cooked in lemon juice and butter with orange slices and chives
Apple and avocado salad with almonds and lemon-oil dressing
Chicken cooked with herbs de provence
Brown rice stir fried with beef and peppers and an egg. Tastes better than it sounds.
Bean salad (chickpeas, kidney beans, etc., combined with apples, corn, and whatever else)
Almond butter
Soy milk
Cherries (dessert substitute)

I think being able to eat meat has been a real key to my success. I have been eating tons of fish and quite a bit of chicken for dinners. I might have felt pretty hungry otherwise I think. Although they recommend not eating meat for more than 20% of your diet.

All in all, I would recommend the cleanse. I don't feel physically transformed, but I do feel more aware of what I am putting into my body. It's kind of like nutritional yoga. Awareness is hugely important in the process of making better choices, I think. Also, I just said "nutritional yoga". Eww.

Gardening is Lovely

Last spring, I planted a garden. Other than a small space at the side of my childhood backyard where I used to plant snap dragons and dusty millers around a flat rock that I had carefully placed in the centre, and a fairy garden that I once meticulously planted in a plastic tray, it was my first solo attempt at gardening.

This spring, while I was planning out my next garden, I realized that in one year I learned some practical lessons about planting a garden.

1) Plant tomatoes that will yield at different times of the season so that you don't end up with hundreds of them all at once. Sitting in a box. On your kitchen floor.

2) Start your squash early, or when the frost comes, your squash will only be the size of a walnut.

3) One person can not eat the fruits of two rows of green beans, and not everybody loves green beans as much as I do.

4) Growing onions is satisfying and easy.

5) Staggering your planting is a smart thing to do. Very smart.

I never thought of starting a garden as a tribute to my heritage of farming and loving the land. It wasn't that poetic in my head. It was more driven by the sense of well-being that I get when I take the time to slow down and help things grow. I grew up with gardening parents, and a granny with a glorious flower and vegetable garden and a cold room filled with canned goods. At my granny's funeral this spring, my sister reminded me of the way that she gardened. We both have images in our minds of our granny bent over at the waist at the age of eighty, weeding, harvesting, or just appreciating her garden.

The two summers I spent working on an organic vegetable farm were two of the most lovely summers I have experienced. Few experiences have made me feel more 'present' to my life than that. Being part of the sowing, weeding, watering, harvesting, packaging, and selling of the vegetables tuned me in to the process of market gardening which, in turn, tuned me in a little more to a process that was a way of life for my parents and grandparents.

Even if my garden isn't intentionally poetic, there is an underlying romantic gesture in the act of gardening. I found this poem via Elisabeth, who I met in Switzerland. Elisabeth was a girl who brought a suitcase full of books with her on her voyage to Europe because she needed them with her just that much. She showed me Louise Gluck's book of poems, "The Wild Iris", and let me borrow it. I love Louise Gluck's poetry, especially this poem.

The Garden (Louise Gluck)

I couldn’t do it again,
I can hardly bear to look at it—

in the garden, in light rain
the young couple planting
a row of peas, as though
no one has ever done this before,
the great difficulties have never as yet
been faced and solved—

They cannot see themselves,
in fresh dirt, starting up
without perspective,
the hills behind them pale green,
clouded with flowers—

She wants to stop;
he wants to get to the end,
to stay with the thing—

Look at her, touching his cheek
to make a truce, her fingers
cool with spring rain;
in thin grass, bursts of purple crocus—

even here, even at the beginning of love,
her hand leaving his face makes
an image of departure

and they think
they are free to overlook
this sadness.


So, my own garden may not be all that poetic, but there is something lovely about participating in the process. There you have it. My conclusion: gardening is lovely.

Here are some photos of my soon to be lovely garden in its early stages this spring:

To tide you over

To do:

1) watch the whole world with glittering eyes
2) blog more
3) eat more veggies

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places."

— Roald Dahl