Food journal of a recovering carnivore…
Hi, I’m Bianca, and I’m a recovering carnivore…. I’m forty years old and for forty of those years my natural tastes have skewed highly Atkins. I ate meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and beef jerky for a snack. A high protein and low or zero carb diet really suits my body type and I never craved sugar or carbs or anything except meat. I love the taste of main stream meats, all types of game and organ meats and I am obsessed with meat preparation from smoking to braising to searing to roasting. These are not all, the list is endless. So, I know, this is the story of how I gave it up and here I am making myself drool! I had watched all the documentaries, and wholeheartedly agreed. My heart bled for all the injustices I saw. My thinking mind and heart were convinced, but my body and consciousness hadn’t yet joined the party.
I had begun thinking of at least trying ‘meatless monday’ when I got an email saying I’d been accepted into the vipassana program I had applied to attend in Sweden. I’d heard of this meditation technique while at my yoga teacher training in Bali. I know, I sound like a complete hippie, but I’m not! Not that there’s anything wrong with hippies! It’s another story, not for today, but I stumbled into yoga and found it really helped me deal with issues I was having with anxiety and social anxiety. What grounded me most about my practice was the meditation that I began to learn as part of the training. I found that I couldn’t get deep enough during that class, but I was hooked and I knew I wanted to learn more. When my teacher mentioned vipassana and we watched the movie The Dhamma Brothers, I began planning to go. Courses take place at dedicated centers all around the world over ten-day stretches. I applied to the closest one which was just outside of Ödeshög, Sweden. Briefly, the course is a ten day silent meditation that will challenge everything you know about yourself.
I’ll make another post about that at some point as I plan to go again soon. During the course, the food is provided and it is vegetarian and vegan. Perhaps because I was so distracted by the raucous din inside my mind as I tried to remain silent for ten whole days (and I’m not even a talker, y’all), or perhaps because the food was just that delicious, there was never a complaint from within me or without about the lack of meat. I just didn’t miss it and it was freeing. I survived my ten days and as we were easing ourselves back out into the world I made the simplest decision of my life. I would just keep it! I would just keep everything I’d learned and I’d stay vegetarian for a year and see what happened. My heart was bursting and I was so excited because I’d thought it would be hard and here I’d just proven it’s as easy as pie! Well, that was two years ago and the journey has certainly been more than I bargained for and yet well worth the trouble.
The main thing I discovered during the first year is that you cannot survive on takeout. No matter how good it is, it is not enough. I knew everything about preparing meat and nothing about vegetables or anything else. So I just ordered paneer tikka masala everyday from my favorite Nepalese restaurant and ate potato chips. Let me say, those twenty pounds I gained were a real lesson! It was easy for me to be a carnivore. I didn’t have to plan anything regarding nutrients or supplements or do any type of food combining or balancing. I didn’t even have to exercise. I’m a machine on meat alone. I am not the same as a vegetarian. I have to be much more responsible about what I eat, when and how. The second year’s lesson was about listening to my body and obeying. I had learned to cook for myself, and have a care about what exactly I was eating and in what proportions, but I was still not healthy. I decided to add fish back to my diet which precipitated my current frame of mind concerning how I want to eat.
“Always do your best.” It’s one of the four agreements and it’s how I think about the way I eat now. I think, I feel, I eat. My best right now includes fish in whatever amount keeps me feeling good. I try my hardest to choose the most sustainable, local option whether it’s fish or vegetables and I’m working at being more mindful of what’s actually in season. This blog will be a journal of the recipes I discover and develop as I continue this process of changing how I impact the world. I love a good restaurant, so there’ll be a few reviews, some wine tastings of course and some farm visits! Yes, farm visits! It’s really easy to be interactive with your food in Finland, so I want to go and see some of the places I’m supporting. I hope you’ll join me on this journey and I promise not to talk this much every time!
COMING SOON: Rustic Leek, Kale & Potato Soup
