A Different Word For Everything

An extemporaneous and slightly disheveled account of the misadventures and life findings of one Louisa Ann Borecki

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An Introduction to the Psychology of Food Choice:

It’s almost noon and you haven’t had breakfast yet. If someone offered you a banana muffin or a burrito, which one would you take? 

Would it depend on how hungry you are? 

What if you just had mexican food for dinner last night? 

Perhaps you’re intermittent fasting and have 43 more minutes and counting before you can break your fast!

Perhaps you’re lactose intolerant so you’ll have to weigh out the benefits of solving your hanger with impending explosive diarrhea. 

Every body has a different set point of nutritional needs. It is part of our life’s work to find a food life that suits our bodies, minds, and life in 2020. Understanding the neurobiological and behavioral connections that influence food choices can help us understand our hunger, satiety, and thirst in a way that allows us to tune in to our body’s needs and nourish ourselves accordingly.

To explore the factors that regulate hunger, satiety, and thirst, we turn to resident Baby in My Life, Dominic Lavery, my six and a half month old nephew. Over the couple months, Dom has started exploring the world of solid foods. His responses can tell us many things about our innate food preferences and how the world around us shapes our food choices.

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The Joy of Eating

What was the last meal you had that was so fabulous you were dancing on the inside? It is not uncommon in the field of nutrition education for food to be reduced to its “nutritive value”. Satisfaction can come from a four course feast or simply well seasoned broccoli, eggs and beans. Contentment depends on what your body needs to find homeostasis in its energy-balance system. What hit the spot for us yesterday may not hit the spot for us today. We might need more food yesterday than today. Some foods might taste sweeter or more bitter to us than others. The First Rule of Food Club is, There Are No Rules of Food Club. Our bodies are incredible complexities driven by biology and emotions. Understanding the psychology behind our behaviors can direct us toward healthier patterns.

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Hunger, fullness, appetite, and enjoyment signals provide a much more accurate monitor of your caloric and nutrient needs than calorie counting- and better support health and healthy weight regulation

-Linda Bacon, PhD  and Lucy Aphramore, PhD, Rd, from their book “Body Respect”

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How Do You Detect Tastes?

Here we have Dom trying some play doh. Play doh is squishy and colorful. His mom and sister are playing with it. The atmosphere is ripe to explore a new taste! Before his tastes buds fully register the salty experience he’s in for, Mom lets him know what he put in his mouth is ‘icky’. When he gets a negative response from his most trusted human, he starts to show concern and becomes upset, even before his taste buds process the salt lick he just put in his mouth.

We are influenced by what people around us think and say about our food choices. Ever feel guilty digging into a steak next to your vegan best friend? Feel ashamed ordering dessert when nobody else does? (There is research suggesting that guilt constricts metabolism and your weight-regulation system)!  For better or worse, our community influences our food choices. We are hardwired to seek acceptance and belonging from our external environment. In the current climate of diet culture, these messages are often at odds with what we want or crave.

Navigating our own cravings and preferences while balancing external influences is difficult. There is an emphasis in the intuitive eating movement on “tuning in” to what your body wants. This requires a degree of interoception (a sense of the internal state of your body). For people long separated from their innate eating patterns and habits, this is a long process and simpler said than done.

Tips to engage your own interoception when you’re feeling dysregulated in your eating habits:

When you find yourself thinking about food, notice if there are negative emotions or voices accompanying them. If so, why? (Are you hungry? Too full? Worried about what’s for dinner?). 

Take a yoga class or walk before dinner. Note if that changes your feelings while eating. 

Call up a friend and ask them what they’re having for dinner. You don’t have to be alone in your quandary. Seek inspiration and comradery.

Take five deep breaths before you begin eating. 

Take five deep breaths when you finish eating.

If you feel hungry or full, close your eyes and take five deep breaths while you think about how you are experiencing those sensations.

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Preference Makes Perfect

Here we have Dom trying out a new food: the lowly but vitamin packed carrot. A go-to vegetable in the world of healthy eating. As you can see, Dom is nonplussed. He thinks we could do better (perhaps more beans?). 

What happens when our food preference for sweet and salty processed foods lead us astray from the Gospel according to Wheat Grass (™)? When the body is out of balance, foods can be both the angel and the devil on your shoulder.

Tips for when the angel and the devil are having it out:

Let the guilt go. Whether you’re digging into fried pickle poutine or a fruit salad, imagine it fueling and nourishing you from the inside out. Calories are energy. Honor them.  (And perhaps offer a kind note to your GI tract for tackling the hard stuff for you).

The Satisfaction Factor (™) Whenever possible, eat what you really want in an environment that’s warm and conducive. Our digestion doesn’t work well when it’s constricted by stress or anxiety. 

Respect Your Fullness. Overriding or underriding (™) those signals will stress your body. Take your time. Find the sweet spot. If you didn’t catch it this meal, look for them in the next!

Feel Your Feelings. Sometimes with Food. Also without food. Try on different coping mechanisms for size. Yoga may or may not be for you! Jam on your tuba! Do You! 

The road is long and winding. Try one thing at a time. Let it sink in. See if you like it. Then move on to the next. Let go of what doesn’t serve you.

Our bodies are hard wired to work in harmony with what nourishes us. May your next meal be a good one (and a delightful one)!

Sources:

Logue, A. (2015). ​The psychology of eating and drinking​. New York: Routledge.

Bacon, L. and Aphramor, L. (2014). Body Respect. New York: BenBella Books, Inc.

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Nourish Your Resilience

The following posts are suggestions of practical wisdom. They have been gathered and curated by Louisa A. Borecki (life long artist, current student of naturopathic nutrition, and proprietor of this blog)

First- a brief orientation.

Who is this for? Any human navigating stress on their body. Narrowing that down a bit more from  “everyone in the world ever in the history of human existence…” 

Here are a few encounterable instances that trigger stress in your body (thereby all its wonderful organs, systems, and pathways):

Disordered eating

Chronic or yo-yo dieting

Physical injury

Emotional stress due to relationships, work, or tuning into politics

Trauma (acute or developmental)

Environmental pollutants and toxins

Fear and anxiety around climate change and ever mounting world unrest 

Some of these might hit closer to home than others. 

Stress is inevitable.

Our bodies are hard wired to handle stress. 

Our bodies are resilient. 

We can nourish our bodies with food, movement, art, and rest to support our internal systems that meet and mitigate our stress.

What is it?: Recipes, Artwork, Words and Wisdom, Yoga postures 

Why I am publishing this? As a celebration of the work and wisdom of my mentors who have shared their inspiration on nourishing their own resilience. And also for the food. 

Where: These invitations and inspirations are to be peppered in throughout your daily life. During your meal times, your free moments, your social media life, your quiet moments.

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Disclaimer

“Safety First. Fun Second. Work Third. But Safety Always First” 

-Brandon, My Trail Crew Boss

Things like disordered eating, trauma, and anxiety are heavy hitters. If stress on your mind and body is consuming you or your loved ones. Reach out. Ask google where there’s a good therapist or doctor close to you. Resilience doesn’t come from “defeating stress”, resilience is an integrative process between yourself and the people in your life.

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I try to remember that “resilient” is not synonymous with “always strong” or “always calm.” I try to honor feeling weak and tired, just as I appreciate feeling energetic and graceful. As one of my dear friends reminded me, “Sensation is the only way your body has to communicate with you,” so don’t get angry at it; listen.

Abby Kraai, Yoga Educator, Portland OR

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Forward Fold, By Louisa Borecki 2018

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Naps are lullabies smuggled in at midday.  They calm the body and soothe the soul - and subvert silly old rules about propriety.

Linda Borecki, Ethnodoxologist & Life-long napper

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The Recipes: An Introduction

What do all these recipes have in common and why did you pick them?

1. These recipes use many of the same ingredients (turmeric, ginger, garlic, tahini, green onions, squash, maple syrup, avocado oil, and Bragg’s amino acids). This is so you can make a variety of dishes from staple ingredients you always have in your fridge and pantry. This is my core tenet of home cooking- it is almost always more cost effective, time effective, and creates opportunities for creativity and variety in your cooking) 

To me, nourishing your body with food is as much about how you cook, how you eat, and who you eat with as it is about what is going into your body.

2. I chose these recipes because they are easy to make vegan or gluten free (if they aren’t already) which gives them the PNW Potluck Stamp Of Approval (™ pending). Potlucks create opportunities to eat with others. Eating with your community is a core part of participating in it. 

3. These recipes are warm. Literally and figuratively. Sensation is the only way our body has to communicate with us. These are meals you can feel. They are heavy with spices and flavor.

They are meant to surprise and delight your body with their warmth.

My Final Word On These Recipes: Trust your body knows what it’s doing. There are no serving sizes attached because it is up to your body to decide. These are not diet foods, nor “health” foods or recipes to “fix” your health. My bottom line for nourishing your resilience with food? Eat. Whatever you are hungry for. Whenever you are hungry. Honor your appetite.

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Eating emotionally, which conventional wisdom says is dysfunctional and even pathological, is actually just a normal part of being human. We don’t turn to food in response to negative feelings because we’re out of control, or because food is addictive. We do it because it’s one of the many ways in which we (even the most balanced eaters) cope, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty harmless one

Christy Harrison, Advocate of Intuitive Eating, Author of “Anti-Diet”