Paleo “Timbits” Recipe

Paleo “Timbits” Recipe

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Being on a diet makes it hard to snack, especially when on the road. Any true Canadian will tell you that no road trip is complete without a stop at Tim Horton’s, our favourite roadside coffee hub. And, of course, no Tim Horton’s coffee is truly satisfying without a delicious box of “Timbits”, or assorted doughnut holes, by its side. Every Friday, while teaching English in the summer, I would bring in a box of Timbits for my students to sample some “authentic Canadian cuisine”. They loved them, not surprisingly. Sadly, most people on a naturopathic diet – whichever naturopathic diet you follow – can’t eat Timbits, which are basically little balls of gluten and sugar. But don’t despair, this snack makes a delicious grain-free, whole foods substitute. And the best thing about these coconut-covered balls? They’re good for you!

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Rosemary and Olive Grain-Free Flatbread

Rosemary and Olive Grain-Free Flatbread

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This recipe is based on the one provided to me by my colleague Amy, who is currently putting together a cookbook. It’s a fabulous idea for a good-for-you flatbread made of 3 simple ingredients. When my cousin came to visit from Calgary, she brought homemade focaccia made with rosemary and olives. Not being able to eat gluten, I was tortured by that bread for the entire weekend. The sense of deprivation inspired the need to create a gluten-free version of her forbidden bread, using Amy’s grain free recipe as the bread base.

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Chicken Curry with Cauliflower “Rice”

Chicken Curry with Cauliflower “Rice”

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My family and I have been doing Natasha Turner’s Hormone Diet for the past few weeks. The diet mainly consists of eliminating all sources of starch (grains and root vegetables, mostly), sugar, caffeine, alcohol and processed foods, and eating a whole foods diet. While we thought it would be hard – there are a lot of rules to follow – it’s not too bad. We’ve helped each other get through it as a family, taking turns cooking and preparing meals. And as a family, we’ve become healthier: I feel lighter, more energetic and have  experienced less cravings for sweets or “unhealthy foods”. I also find that my blood sugar is more stable throughout the day.

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Dark Chocolate and Coconut Gluten-free Birthday Cake

Dark Chocolate and Coconut Gluten-free Birthday Cake

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Wednesday was my mom’s birthday and, to celebrate, I made her a very chocolate-y gluten-free cake. Since cake and chocolate are not exactly naturopathic (although dark cocoa has been shown to modestly lower blood pressure), it’s important that, when eating and preparing dessert, we make sure we create a 10/10 on the delicious-ness scale. Making sure that birthday cakes are as chocolate-y and delicious as possible makes it worth it and justifies the extra sugar and calories. I hope this one was a 10.

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Gluten-Free Holiday Fruitcake

Gluten-Free Holiday Fruitcake

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Christmas fruitcake. I’ve always hated that dry, brown loaf with its bitter, plastic-tasting chunks of “fruit”. Only my dad would eat it; I guess nothing says Christmas like dipping a piece of dry, tasteless plastic/bread into an espresso cup, and then picking the gummy fruits out of your teeth for days afterward. It’s all a part of the holiday cheer! This Christmas fruitcake, however, is not like that. It’s even (dare I say it)… good!

Now that my family is gluten-free, it seems like the skies have opened and baked goods (baked at home) have become reinvented. Old, store-bought staleness has reinvented itself as warm, moist deliciousness.

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Let Food Be Thy Medicine

Let Food Be Thy Medicine

Even when it reflects your passions, it’s not often you find yourself in a truly inspiring lecture while studying for a post-graduate degree; hey, it’s sad, but true. So, imagine my excitement at feeling completely touched by our third year Clinical Nutrition professor, Dr. P’s, incredible Thursday lecture.

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A Pizza of Inspiration: Blog Award + Recipe

A Pizza of Inspiration: Blog Award + Recipe

First of all, let me thank Mark at Endless Love and Light for my 2nd Very Inspiring Blogger Award nomination. That makes 4 blog nominations! While I’m not exactly sure what these nominations really mean, I’m grateful for the recognition from the blogging community and appreciate the love that’s sent my way (every time someone hits “like” or leaves a comment, or even reads a post). It’s a wonderful feeling when someone shows that they’ve resonated with a post, picture or thought that you’ve shared and it serves as a great motivating factor to keep on blogging. So, thanks, Mark!

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Body Love

Body Love

This post was written in the summer of 2012. Although I hate Mayor Rob Ford, I have to hand it to the man; he must really have a strong sense of self to not get himself down over the very open disdain most Torontonians hold for him.  I wonder if my ego would take that kind of repeated assault over and over again, especially that whole business with his weight-loss.

I was always kind of a chubby kid and, when society started make me conscious of the fact that this was not the way to be I decided to exercise and, essentially, begin dieting.  This has led to a life where I rarely get through a day without at least having the notion weight sail through my mind’s seas.  This seems kind of depressing when expressed, but it’s a concern that I work to push through, taking from it what serves to make me healthy and striving to leave behind the parts of it that lead to obsession and self-loathing.  Many of us deal with similar mental struggles; young women are brought up in a society where nothing less than perfection is accepted.  We have many emotional battles to fight.

Just the other day I was sitting in a Yorkville cafe, near my work, being kept company by my (closed) USMLE Step 1 review book and being kept entertained by watching passersby through the window.  Yorkville is an interesting place to people-watch because everyone who struts by looks like they’re trying to find their way to a fashion runway, but got lost and then walked into Holt Renfrew, and then into Starbucks and now they’re back to looking for the runway they’re supposed to be walking down.  Everyone is wearing an outfit that probably costs more than my student debt and, most of all, it seems that everyone is skinny.  

That day, however, I contemplated my surroundings while sipping my coffee and I thought, while observing a fashionably, particularly stick-like woman, we’re told that that’s the body that all women should live in, regardless of profession, personality or personal health history.  We live our lives obsessing over how to squish our own shapes into the size of clothes that woman wears, giving little thought to the organs, tissues and vis medicatrix naturae, or life force, that actually lies inside each of us.  As I marinated in this little personal revelation, I took another sip of coffee and admitted, She looks nice, fashionable and healthy and maybe that body shape is good for her.  However, there are many shapes of beautiful and I don’t think that shape is good for me.  

I leaned back in my chair and felt the contentedness of having released part of a great mental burden.

Fast forward to a few days later:  I give my class a speaking and writing assignment partly to kill time, to foster creativity and to improve their language skills, especially writing, which is always abysmal.  I have each group generate a list of 10, random, unrelated words and then hand the list over to the other group, who must create a short story using all the words. As a class activity, it actually worked out quite well.

However, one of the groups, headed by a stronger student, who has a rather witty, yet dark sense of humour, created a story featuring, you guess it, me, their teacher.  Sometimes I enjoy the limelight of teaching, other times I shy away from it, passing the buck onto the students, which actually works to their favour.  Most of the time, however, I appreciate working with other people and getting to know these interesting students from a variety of different countries.

This incident, however, made me want to revert back to a student hiding in the back of the classroom.  The gist of their story was that I, Talia, am invited to a party but can’t go because I need a new dress and I can’t find a beautiful dress to fit me because I’m too fat.  Urgh.  On the outside, I figure it must be a joke, an attempt at being funny.  They just didn’t realize what a loaded word fat is for me. I laugh it off, correct some grammar mistakes and make a joke about it.  I know deep down that most jokes resemble some form of truth and on the inside my emotions resemble some kind of amusement park ride, beginning at shock then surging between anger, down to hurt and even lower to despair.

It’s not the first time someone else has openly criticized my body.  Each incident, while stinging at the first impact, can usually be cooled off with some deep breaths, body work and a few self-loving affirmations.  However, it does deepen the contempt I have for how women are viewed in society.

From being lectured by a professional exerciser and dieter for Women’s Health Week at CCNM (she was supposed to discuss body image and the media and instead focused on the existential importance of jumping on a trampoline and limiting grains to rid the body of that “unsightly” stomach pooch) to being the recipient of comments about people who eat healthy but don’t look it, it’s no small wonder that the word weight has set up permanent neural synapses in my brain and, most likely, the brain of every other woman who has ever lived in society.  Why is it our job to please those around us by conforming to the correct societal ideal of the times?  Is it not enough to be fit, happy and healthy?

So while I wait for the next person to deliver a blow to my apparently fragile ego by pretending they know something about me by judging by the size of my behind, I will be sitting in a cafe, philosophizing about body image and maybe, just maybe, feeling a little bit of extra sympathy for Rob Ford.

Paleo Bread Recipe

Paleo Bread Recipe

Just for the record, I don’t follow the Paleolithic diet, nor any diet for that matter. Not to a T, anyways.  I enjoy eating legumes, I consume whole grains such as brown rice and quinoa, and I also enjoy eating root vegetables, most of which are eschewed on the Paleolithic, or primitive, diet.  I know that many people feel great on the paleo diet, but at this stage in the game that is my personal health journey, it’s not for me.  Maybe one day it will be, but not today.

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