Certainly, Not Perfect!

I was looking through Eat Clean, Live Well cookbook enamored, like I often am, by the beautiful images and delighted by the focus of eating food that are direct from the farmers. Terry Walters, the author and a leader of the clean food movement encouraged shopping at Farmer’s Markets or subscribing to a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to get a box of the farmer’s freshest produce delivered directly to your door. All the foods in this cookbook were vegan, gluten-free, low in sugar (the only sugar was maple sugar and not much of it). It looked like I would enjoy each and every recipe and I look forward to trying them. There are wonderful reasons to eat this way. The clean eating lifestyle has been shown to help boost the immune system and is now frequently recommended by doctors to patients fighting cancer. Luckily, I don’t have cancer, but I figure, I oughta eat clean anyway, but I don’t always…

Sometimes I do, and other times I still hold on to my years of culinary exploration. Though I grew up eating just to eat, food certainly wasn’t indulgent in my household (if you don’t count the plentiful ice cream options in the freezer). Meals were sufficient, but not delectable. However, as I began cooking on my own, I had a whole different approach to food. It was a place where I explored the world. I was indeed a “Foodie” dining at fabulous restaurants, tasting phenomenal wines, and learning to cook delicious meals. I followed the tips and insights from Cook’s Illustrated, The Culinary Institute of America and many others. I have a bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks and have some that don’t even fit on that three row bookshelf! Baking has always been a way to show my love for people, whether it was baking a cake for a friend’s birthday or bringing in cookies to the office for my beloved colleagues. But things change.

Now, I eat clean much of the time, but I haven’t given up my love for baking and cooking some of the things I loved back when it was the focal point by which I experienced life and it remains a way of showing love. I love having my family oooohhh and ahhhhh over freshly baked cookies and cakes. But when I am choosing what I want to eat, I frequently choose different foods these days. I am no longer in a chase for experiences that the foodie life brings with it and am finding a way to blend my past loves with my interest in healthy eating. My bookshelf has more and more healthy eating, clean eating, gut health cookbooks beginning to wedge out the traditional Joy of Cooking classics. These new interests are crowding out these other things, but they are still there.  It is like I said in an early post, I’ve got a 90-10 approach. Eating well most of the time and having these other things occasionally. I can remember when I thought it a bit insane to give up gluten, I am a baker after all, but now I have all kinds of alternative flours in my cupboard. For me, most changes are gradual, and then they begin to become the new normal.