The Wellness Bitch

When was the last time you noticed yourself eating?

Don’t answer too quickly. The fact that you answered so quickly leads me to believe you more than anyone needs to sit and think about it a little longer.

Think: When was the last time you noticed yourself eating?

When was the last time you stopped to slowly and consciously notice your food: the taste, the satisfaction of chewing it and swallowing, the relief that comes with quieting your belly and soothing your soul?

Even those of us (for example, ME) that pay attention to what we eat often have a difficult time paying attention to how we eat. Last night, I made myself a gorgeous dinner. Quinoa, with an assortment of sautéed vegetables (grated carrots, zucchini, garlic and onion), a little red sauce. I was so excited to eat this dinner.

My family had already eaten and were in the middle of bedtime routine. I was to eat alone. As I finished preparing my dish, I looked around for something to read. Perhaps the computer? The Kindle? The latest edition of the beginner’s Hebrew newspaper I get delivered each week? Then I heard the voice.

The voice belonged to my good friend Shira who is a yoga teacher and offers workshops in Mindful Eating. Hearing her voice in my head gave me pause. Hmm…I thought. Do I really need to read over this meal?

As I paused, I could hear a louder voice in my head. My own. Saying to Shira a few months ago, “I think it’s a great idea, this mindful eating stuff, and I know people will benefit from such a class, but I don’t really think I need it.”

The basis for this comment was the fact that I am pretty mindful of what I eat. But indeed I am not mindful of how I eat. The thing is, being mindful of how we eat is just as important as what we’re eating. For the same reason that people who exercise also need to meditate. Being mindful when we are in the act of eating = slowing down; paying attention; allowing the stuff that’s buried inside you come to the surface. It’s time to think, but more important to feel and experience.

I’m not suggesting that we all give up socializing with our loved ones at meals. There’s a lot to benefit from conversation and interaction. But I am suggesting the next time you have the opportunity to eat alone, try being with yourself. Try engaging yourself in the act of eating and noticing. In the 20 minutes it took for me to eat my quinoa dish slowly and mindfully, I had a lot of revelations. I also noticed things about myself and the world around me I would not have noticed with my face in front of my Kindle. I especially noticed how much I complain about not having enough “alone” time and then once I get “alone” time, all I want to do is be with others. (Other people and other people’s thoughts and commentaries, via their Facebook status updates or their blogs.)

I invite you to invite yourself over for a meal ( where the guest is you and you alone.) See what happens. What do you notice? What do you see? Taste? Smell? Feel?

Is the experience scary? Is it a relief? Is it agonizing? Is it a pleasure?

And, why so?

So many in the food movement will claim that we have become so disconnected with our food. I agree. But I would like to add that we have also become so disconnected with ourselves that we have forgotten how to be with food.

I consider myself very lucky to be past the diaper phase. All three of my kids were potty trained within reasonable, developmentally appropriate times; with my daughter (my third) achieving genius status. She was fully trained by 23 months. I thought babies who were trained before the age of two were simply myths, legends, or products of overactive imaginations of mothers who spent way too much time gushing about their children. Not so.

It’s been a year or two since I’ve had to think about diaper accoutrements. But today I asked my coworker for something to clean my computer keyboard with and she handed me a baby wipe.

I took it…reluctantly.

After wiping down my keyboard with the baby wipe, it was no longer sticky but it smelled like an eighty-year old women who forgot that she already sprayed herself five times with perfume. Not a smell I want to be spending my day with.

And, not something you want to be wiping your babies bottom…or hands with.

Before I had my first child, a friend of mine told me she made homemade baby wipes for her baby using paper towel and water. She said her daughter never had baby rash – never a one! Being the psychotic mom I was with my first (and by psychotic, I mean obsessed with doing things “right”), I made my own baby wipes, too, and taught my husband how to use them and make them.  And, just like my friend’s baby, my son stayed rash free for months!

The truth of the matter is poop stinks. But baby poop, especially breastfed baby poop, is NOTHING. My refrigerator smells worse than your breastfed baby’s poop! You do not need to be wiping her fresh bottom down with chemicals that are trying unsuccessfully to smell like the summer garden of St. Petersburg! Even if your baby is formula fed – trust me, those poops are nothing compared to what they’ll smell like once she’s eating meat. Even still, you really don’t need to wash your baby’s bottom with anything more than water, and a little natural baby soap. (We liked California Baby brand’s unscented baby soap for sensitive skin, but castile soap is great too, and a lot cheaper.)

Janelle Sorensen of Healthy Child, Healthy World recently posted this great article with tips for homemade baby products, including baby wipes.  If you are a new mom, or a mom with a new baby, please keep in mind that what you put on your baby matters as much as what you put in her.

And if you are a psychotic new mom-to-be like I was, just remember: If you’re reading this and thinking about it, you’re one step ahead already.

This morning I was cleaning out my bathtub with Castile Soap when a bit of my cleaning solution splashed back right into my eye ball.

I flinched, waiting for it to sting, but it didn’t. I quickly rinsed my eye and felt fine.

Then I thought to myself, “Phew! That would have hurt like a M-ther F-er if that had been Clorox.”

But at least my eyeballs would have been ultra disinfected, right?

I haven’t used a harsh chemical cleaner in about five years. I think in that time, we might have used real bleach once or twice to get at some stubborn mold in our basement. But that’s it. For the most part, I clean with vinegar, baking soda, castile soap,  BonAmi, and a few Ecover products, particularly our dish soap, our floor cleaner, and a multi-purpose spray.

And, guess what?

You won’t believe it.

I promise you are in for a huge surprise.

Ready?

My house is just as clean, if not cleaner, than yours.

Yes, my house, wiped and sprayed with non-toxic, natural or plant-derived substances, is CLEAN.

In fact, I think my house is cleaner now than it’s ever been. Mostly, because now that I know what’s inside all those cleaning products my mom used when I was growing up and I used up until a few years ago (ie. Lysol, Pine Sol, Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, etc.) I think of houses cleaned with those products as DIRTY.

Not the kind of dirty you can see or swipe with your hands across a cabinet, but the kind of dirty the clogs up your lungs when you breathe it in. That makes your asthma worse.

That burns your eyes when it splashes back into them.

Those products no longer “smell clean” to me.

They smell like poison.

I’ve been…reconditioned.

Before I had kids, but when I was adult enough to start thinking about having some, I knew their names would be Emma and Sam. Being a Jennifer, I always wanted kids with names that weren’t unusual, but were not so common to be on the list of the top 50 most popular names.

Why ”Emma” and “Sam” then, which were both easily in the top 25 by the time I had my own children? (None of whom are named Emma or Sam.) 

I’m a trendspotter. 

I liked those names in 1997: a good five years before Rachel Green named her baby Emma.

I tend to be aware of things before they become a trend. When they’re still a little unknown and even unaccepted.

Please understand: I’m not a trendSETTER. In general, no one gives a shit what I say, think, or do, except for a handful of you loyal readers. But, every now and again, I tell my friends and family about a new product or behavior, and before you know it, you’re reading about it in USA Today.

I sense this happening with American society’s concern about food coloring.

While unfortunately the FDA did not in March retract “its long-held position that the dyes pose no risk to children or anyone else;” more mainstream media outlets are reporting on the matter and more parents are reading and sharing these links on their social media networks.

I have my relatives forwarding me links from NPR writing, “You told us about this five years ago!” My husband looks at me with a proud smile when he sees the top story on CNN health is about new studies linking ADHD and food dyes.

I don’t want a pat on the back or a medal. I do, however, want to be able to walk through a grocery store in under an hour because I no longer have to read and monitor the long list of behavior-disturbing and asthma-inducing chemicals in my family’s food. I do want to be sure that the produce I buy is naturally colorful, not from Citrus Red 2, which is a carcinogen. I want to know that when my kids go to their friends house for a playdate, they’re not going to return climbing the walls because they ate Yellow #5- laced Kraft Mac and Cheese.

I don’t need my sister-in-law to call me and tell me she’ll no longer have fruit punch at her kid’s birthday party. Or my son’s preschool teacher to let me know she removed the Fruit Loops from school projects. (Though both would be dye-free icing on the cake.)

But I would like to see that this is a trend that takes. And benefits us all.

Once upon a time, I was a true, natural blonde.

No one understood where I got my blonde hair from. Those in the know knew my mom was a natural brunette and my dad, when he had a lot more hair than he does now, sported brown, too. Apparently, though, my dad was a blonde little boy and apparently I got the genes from him. All I know is that I considered my straight blonde hair my most winning feature (until I got boobs in tenth grade.) I felt lucky to be a blonde and never paid attention to the jokes we were victims to thanks to dumb celebrity blondes on shows like Three’s Company. 

Throughout my teenage and young adult years, I stuck vehemently to a belief that I would be a “natural blonde” and a natural blonde only. Even when my hair got darker in the winter, and my friends in college would highlight to last them ’til June, I abstained. There was a certain pride I maintained from knowing (and sharing with others) that my blonde was NOT from a bottle.

Often I would go into a new salon, and would smile when the stylist would ask, “Is this natural?” One time, I responded, “Does Sun-In count?” Because, to be fair, I did indulge in some squirts of “Sun-In for Blondes” each summer between the years 1989 – 1993.

I remained a blonde (without any salon-based alterations) until I had my second child. For some reason, whether due to hormones or old age, my hair turned from blonde to light brown over the nine months I was pregnant with him. Since then, I’ve been a drab in-between of light brown and dark blonde, depending on the season. And I know it’s drab because my mother and a slew of stylists have encouraged me over the years to highlight it. Most recently, my new Israeli hairdresser almost kicked me out of his salon when I refused his offer of highlights.

“Yes, I know it woud look better,” I told him. “But all those products have a lot of chemicals in them. And, plus, they’re high maintenance so if I do it once, I need to come back. So, no I don’t think so.” He almost laiughed me out of the salon. “Chemicals?” he said. “No, it’s nothing. It’s perfectly safe.” I suppose it is when you’re comparing lathering your hair with carcinogens with being showered by kassam rockets.

That said, I don’t know how anyone could truly believe that a products — from hair dye to hair straighteners — that smell so much like a combination of diesel fuel and rotten eggs could be so benign. They’re not.

Ava Anderson Non-Toxic, a company who produces non-toxic cosmetics, posted this article today on Facebook featuring Mary Louise-Parker’s claim in the New York Daily News that Brazilian hair straightening caused her hair to fall out. I re-posted not only on the WB’s Facebook fan page, but also on my personal profile. Why?

Because despite the increase in awareness and desire to be eco-friendly and healthy, people are still poisoning themselves to look younger and prettier.

I’m in my mid-thirties. And for the first time ever, I’m started to see really physical implications that I’m not getting any younger. So I get it. Believe me I do. I wish I was still a solid blonde, my boobs were as firm as they were in tenth grade, and I could count on two hands the number of “spots” I had on my skin.

But, I also know that it would be a big old waste of time trying to eat healthy, exercise, and practice mindful living if I were using toxic cosmetics and beauty care products every day; topping it all off with a quarterly visit to the salon of death.

Keep it real sistas. Be beautiful just the way you are.

P.S. Cutting down on the smokes, the sun, and the coffee will help; as will upping the water, omega-3s, and anti-oxidant-rich foods.

Food that comes from nature (as opposed to the laboratory or from laboratory-like processing plants) does not look perfect. Food that hasn’t been genetically modified or tained by pesticides looks irregular.

In fact, when I see big, beautiful, perfectly shaped strawberries, and I don’t know where they’ve been grown, I typically stay away from them, particularly since of all fruits and veggies, strawberries are on the top of the Dirty Dozen to eat organic.

This isn’t to say that all irregular looking food is organic or safe. Take “ugly tomatoes” for example. They sure are ugly, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t grown with pesticides.

This morning, as I was preparing to make myself a sunny side up egg for breakfast, I opened up the carton of organic eggs I had just bought from Eden Teva natural foods market. This is what I found:

 Six brown eggs and six white ones. Yes, they do seem to be a bit ordered (they came exactly as you see them in the picture.) But no one decided at the farm or wherever these eggs are packaged that the eggs needed to be uniform. No one decided that organic eggs needed to look brown or look white. No one indicated on the outside of the packaging that these eggs may be discolored or may be mismatched. All the packaging really says (save for 12 Organic Eggs”) is “Laid by hens free to move, perch, rest and feed.”

Weren’t they worried that when I opened up the carton to make sure the eggs weren’t cracked (which I didn’t since I wasn’t the one to go food shopping this time), that I would put these mismatched eggs back on the shelf?

No, they weren’t. Because educated, organic food shoppers expect their food to look like food, not like advertisements.