The swelling emptiness of substitutions

There are a lot of things I can no longer eat. I'm in good company, apparently, and I've heard enough horror stories that I'm not going to complain that I can't eat wheat, dairy, or soy when other people--some in my family--can't eat tree nuts, sesame, sunflowers (!), or oats (!!). These allergies were almost unheard of a generation ago, and as a chemo nurse told me that in her experience cancer was 90+% environmental, I feel pretty good that the same can be said for allergies and food sensitivities. (No, this does not mean that I think Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was a good pick for Health and Human Services.)

It has taken a long time, but for the most part I don't crave the foods I used to be able to eat. A lot of us--A LOT--are used to what my daughter and I jokingly called "delicious regret": you know you're going to feel awful later, but it tastes so good in the moment, you're willing to suffer through it. My dear readers, this isn't the stupidest thing in the world if we're talking about a stomach ache, but not exactly the smartest. Gas and stomach upset are not our friends, but most of us have lived through it. But it is a really, really stupid philosophy to embrace when you experience hives, especially around your mouth, a closed throat, or, in my case, closed sinuses. Please believe me when I tell you that while dim sum rice noodles bathed in sweetened soy sauce used to be my idea of heaven, now the thought of it makes my stomach cramp up. There is no taste in the world that makes not being able to breathe later tolerable. By the same token, when I know that eating wheat is going to give me digestive difficulties for five days afterward, vegetable tempura is not going to be remotely tempting. 

There are many foods that I can now walk away from--Cheese? Yogurt? Bread? No, thank you--but there are still a few that I remember fondly enough that I do still seek out their substitutes. Vegan ice cream is a big one, in large part because it is so readily available, at least near me. I have eaten more than my fair share, but for the last six months I have been left with a profound emptiness when I'm done. I can't explain it, but that is exactly how I feel. I have eaten nothing but chemicals reorganized to resemble frozen dairy, and, perhaps, I'm so aware of it that I feel as empty as what I have eaten. It's not a hole in my gut, but in my chest.

I admit, too, that I feel a great deal of envy when I see my family eating something like pot pie. Oh, how I used to love vegetable pot pie, back in those halcyon days when I was just a vegan but could still eat wheat. It is the marriage of texture and flavor that is difficult to get to with whole grains and stew. (If I may, I think it is texture we miss more than flavor.) Seeing my son get a very large chicken pot pie this weekend (that will linger in the fridge until after Thanksgiving, I'm sure) inspired me to try my hand at a home made version with the stew that my husband made this weekend. 

You will be happy to know that my vegan, gluten-free crust was more than credible. Yes, parts of it broke, but for the most part, it baked well. It also gave me that "bite" that I had been missing for so long...and then I remembered those other things I used to experience when eating pot pie, as well as shepherd's pie. Oh, that combination of vegetables and starch is really quite filling, uncomfortably so, in fact. I looked at my pie and started wondering how bad it would be if I put in soup or stew.

There's an argument that the way I eat now--you can check out the recipes section of nutritionfacts.org to get an idea--is lacking in the glamour and sex appeal that you find in a lot of cookbooks and blogs. It's very uncool, but then again, so am I. It is probably not the worst thing in the world for me if I eat banana or mango nice cream instead of the vegan substitutes, or if I top a stew with some whole grains. Yes, I have missed some things about old favorites, but I've forgotten how relieved my body was not to deal with some of the consequences. 

A lack of regret is perhaps something we don't realize we benefit from, but maybe now is a good time to review all of the things you think you miss and ask yourself what you're really missing.

Deb in the City

Cook Through Your Anxiety!

That will totally be the title of a self-help book in the next two or three years. Don't worry, I have no intention of writing it.

Thinking about food, as I did in my last post, makes me think about food, and on Monday night I took a close look at what I had in my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. I couldn't even face my over-stuffed spice shelves, and what I had was SO. MUCH. that I'm not going to list out everything. Just know that it was A LOT, and even after going on a cooking binge, it's still enough that I don't need to go shopping for almost a month (but don't worry, that didn't stop me -- more below).

I came up with no less than seventeen recipes that I could make without having to go shopping. When I say I could eat for a month, I wasn't kidding. On Tuesday, feeling anxious about my sons' food issues, the upcoming election, poverty, the environment, and pretty much everything else, I made: vegan, gluten-free sourdough bread (in my Instapot, no less), chocolate beet cake, tomato sauce, vegan chili, and lentil soup. That's just me cracking my knuckles -- seriously, I have twelve more dishes to go -- and the fact that I needed to do some homeschooling and other general parenting. The latter included a phone call with the nutritionist, during which it was decided that they both need a lot more protein. So, budget conscious though I'm trying to be, I spent more money than I'd like to confess to on animal protein sources. As I watched my husband and son devour one-fifth of what we'd spent in one sitting, I started to wonder if the mathematics of better food needed fewer times really works out when you're talking about two growing boys. 

 

I think even this picture is giving a good idea of the awesome texture of the cake and the for-real red velvet color.

(I'm making meat for my sons because they need it. And before someone wants to get on me for not giving them vegan sources of protein, please know that one of the things that seems to be bothering them is, yep, beans. Soyfoods, probably because of the fermented nature, seem to be bothering them less, but that's not cutting it for their growth. Before you say at least give them vegetarian options, they both have issues with dairy and one of them has issues with eggs. And to anyone who wants to argue that their growth and general health isn't worth what I'm feeding them, we don't have anything to discuss.)

Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear that stress-cooking doesn't actually make your stress go away. To really burn through stress, I need to move around, but I was confined to my home both Monday and Tuesday. By the time I got back from shopping I was ready to jump out of my skin, but then I found that my body bars (36 and 15 pounds) had arrived much earlier than I'd thought. Woo hoo! As soon as my husband cut them out of the boxes for me I did what I had been promising myself I'd do: deadlifts and squats (36 pounds) and overhead presses (15 pounds). Oh, my! You know how your body can just scream for something it hasn't gotten for a while? That's how I've been feeling for a very long time, but when I picked up those bars, the delicious ache in my muscles told me that it was finally getting what it needed. 

With the prayer that I will be able to avoid food shopping for, I don't know, a week, I attacked the kitchen this morning, making chicken soup stock and then chicken soup. (Did I mention we roasted a chicken last night? It happened.) After a little calculus and chemistry with the boys -- highlight of my day, I kid you not -- I think I'm going back for vegan, gluten-free mac and cheese and squash pudding. Or we'll see what else we can come up with that I can fit in the fridge.

Off to make someone an egg and vegan cheese sandwich on gluten-free bread,

Deb in the City