21 Ingredients

During the past year I've been eating a lot of junk--like a lot of other people I know--because of quarantining at home and the D word (depression). I'm starting to climb back out of that hole and it isn't easy, but I do at least notice when I eat ingredients I can pronounce I'm more alert, I sleep better, I don't get foot cramps and I generally feel stronger, too.

I say this as someone who came down with a psoriasis-like illness in 2018. I take meds to control it and have read at least three books about nutrition. At first I didn't want to deal with any changes to my diet--full of sugar and diet soda--but eventually decided there was too much at stake not to try.

A lot of autoimmune diets (which I call the autoimmune police) are too draconian for me, but a functional medicine doctor I saw recommended The Wahls Protocol to Treat All Chronic Immune Conditions with Paleo Principles by M. D. Terry Wahls. Admittedly, I messed up the past year and am now trying to get back to it, but Wahls's plan is at least something I can follow without feeling deprived. I'm NOT telling anyone else to follow it--but I have my own reasons for liking it, and that's what I want to share.

What I like best is that it's not about dieting to lose weight; it's about getting clear of chronic illnesses that debilitate you and steal your life. And it's made me think about how I grew up and how my family has been eating--which has not been good.

My mother was a spectacular cook and we always had fresh fruit and salad, which was great. Unfortunately we also had boxed and processed foods with every sort of additive and diet soda throughout my childhood. I don't blame my mother at all for any of this. The food industry is exceptionally adept at selling us toxic substances--the most obvious one being sugar.

We all know how toxic sugar is--and yet somehow it's in everything we eat. I keep wondering why there aren't more treats made with honey or agave--which may not be great but are at least less toxic than sugar--and think the only reason is that sugar lobbyists must be lobbying endlessly. Because finding something made with honey instead of sugar can take years, if not months of your time.

I'm not saying (and would never say) you should try any specific diet if you have a chronic illness. But overall, I think if we can eat ingredients we can pronounce and limit sugar, we and our kids will be healthier. If I'd never had diet soda and drank water instead, I believe I'd be a lot healthier now. If I ate a lot less junk and the cookies or ice cream treats I had growing up were made with maple syrup or honey, I believe I wouldn't be battling with acid reflux now, either.

I'm also saying I hate how the food industry markets junk to kids and by extension to us, our parents. I bought Pop Tarts and other awful stuff because my son demanded it loudly and I gave in. He got into weight lifting as a teenager and his coaches helped him change his diet--thank God. But as a parent, I did little or nothing to insist on good nutrition at home, and I feel really bad about that.

I understand I was overwhelmed by work and life a lot of the time and didn't pay attention to what I or anyone else in our family (of two guys) to insist on better eating habits. I look at labels all the time now and am appalled at the ingredients of almost everything I see.

A friend once told me there are 21 ingredients in an Oreo cookie that are put there just to make you want another one. I have no doubt what she said is the truth.

I grew up being manipulated to eat sugar from day one, and the older I get, the higher the price tag gets in terms of the quality of life I get. But eating well isn't easy because the world conspires against it.

WHY is it so hard to find good food, even for your cat? WHY is it so expensive? I need a whole other post to try and figure that out--but today's takeaway is just that we need to eat food with ingredients we can pronounce--and dial down the sugar.

Easier said than done, I know--so the earlier you can start with kids, the better. We also need to keep encouraging ourselves and finding healthy ways to reward ourselves when we eat better.  I'm not trying to sound preachy here. I mainly want to encourage you so I can encourage myself.

That's why I found some eating ideas to share with you. I hope they give you some ideas and most of all, encouragement:

8 Things that can Happen to your Body when You Cut Out Sugar

Foods that Fight Inflammation

Stress, Food and Inflammation: Psychoneuroimmunology and Nutrition at the Cutting Edge

Healthy plate photo: Ella Olsson

The Yogurt Chronicles

In the beginning, there was yogurt, and as you probably know, it didn't have flavoring. When I was growing up, we had plain yogurt with bananas and sugar, which I loved.


(We also had diet soda, which my mother loved, and got so used to it I had a long addictive with it. Took all my will to break that addiction, and maybe I haven't yet, but at least I'm not drinking it any more).

But. 

Back to yogurt. As I got older, there were more possibilities for yogurt, including vanilla, and fruit-on-the-bottom options; then, as an adult, I fell in love, and it was really love, with Stonyfield Farm Chocolate Underground.

I ate this yogurt for years and years -- even though my mother in law made fun of it -- snatching the last one at grocery stores if I had to, though I always had a guilty conscience. (What if there was someone else like me, desperately needing a fix of this stuff)?

Second best was Chobani pineapple yogurt, which one of my colleagues at work couldn't stand, but again, was one of my favorites. And, dear reader, I could have been happy like this, forever, until I got a condition that forced me to give up sugar (which, by the way, is in nearly everything).

So, I switched back to plain yogurt, thinking how ironic it was that I was more or less returning to my childhood full circle, except without the sugar. I tried putting raisins in at first, and that worked pretty well, until I read that raisins are loaded with the kind of sugar that's bad for you (unlike fresh fruit) and I had to stop those, too.

I have managed to hang on for quite a while now using grapes and pineapple in my yogurt, and hoping the winter doesn't take the taste out of these sweet fruits. But what's interesting is that, while there was barely ever any Chocolate Underground on the shelves (and sometimes I had to go to FOUR grocery stores to find them), you would think plain would be available everywhere, right?

Because plain has basically no flavor. Because plain is not fun to eat.

But in fact, it is almost as hard to find plain yogurt in small cups as it is the chocolate kind. My sick mind keeps wondering why, because who in their right mind would be gobbling up plain yogurt unless you have to?

Then last week at a workshop in Door County, a male actor started talking about how he preferred plain yogurt with fruit to all the flavored kind, and other actors of both genders agreed.

I was eating yogurt at the time, and nearly choked on it.

Is this a new trend? Really? When there is all that lovely Chocolate Underground and Pineapple yogurt on the shelves?

Sigh. Not only do I have to eat a yogurt I hate, but I have to fight you all for it?

I can hear you all now, saying it is what it is. If there is a moral to this story, and I hope there isn't, could it be that parents should never give their children any flavored yogurt (or sugar) so they won't buy up pound after pound of grapes and pineapple, trying to approximate their flavored yogurt days?

I don't know, but that's what I think it might be. And if you actually like plain yogurt, I stand in awe of you.

And if you want to help your kids like plain yogurt better or you're looking for yogurt brands for your kids, I found a few ideas:

Great Ways to Sweeten Your Plain Yogurt

The Best Yogurts for Toddlers

Plain Yogurt Never Tasted So Good


Little Screamer: Greg Westfall

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He Said, She Said, O My Bread

Once again, my husband and I are moving - this time to a permanent home -- not that anything is really permanent, but we hope to stay for a very, very long time.

So, you caught me in the middle of a lot of turmoil and unpacking, and that means this is not going to be a longer (longish?) blog. 

I do have a question for you, though, if you want to comment below or contact me via private message on Facebook or my website (jennazark.com). 

Involving gluten. 

I'm battling an autoimmune condition I never expected; a most unwelcome and impolite guest. But looking at Amy Myers' autoimmune diet (and other AIP type diets) seems like depriving myself of food altogether would be a lot easier.

She decrees you must give up dairy, sugar and gluten, soy, corn, and nightshade vegetables, plus nuts of all kinds. Maybe not forever, but at least 30 days and then add these things back in one at a time.

I don't know how you can. Honestly. But I have given up a few things and here's how it's going.

I've given up as much sugar as I think I eat, except natural ones in fruit. I think I needed to do that because not only have I lost weight, but I also believe the autoimmune issues flare when I eat sweets. Giving up sugar helped me lose 15 pounds in 2 months, and I really, really do believe it is helping.

The dilemma I have now is about gluten. I am not sure I need to, but am willing to give it a try. But when I look at gluten free bread, it pretty much all has SUGAR. 

When I tried Ezekiel bread at the reocmmendation of a friend, I liked it and it has no flour or sugar. BUT it has gluten. So I don't know if I'm inflaming whatever the immune police think I shouldn't be inflaming by eating it. This seems to be putting me between a rock and a hard place.

I did find an allergy free sort of bread, though it looks like someone made it out of a desert rock. I will try it, though, because I will try a lot to get this condition to calm down.

But if you have advice on this gluten dilemma - I would really love to know. Do I eat flourless bread with gluten or gluten free bread with sugar or no bread ever? I can't do that. Thirty days, maybe. But I'm feeling grouchier by the day. 

Can I at least have bread 2 times a week for this whole thirty day trial thing?

What do you think?


Gluten free bread: Bryan Alexander


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Just Three Bites

When my son Josh was young, and by young I mean between when he started walking and age nine, he didn't much like eating, especially dinner. I think kids just want to move or run or sparkle or play and you can't do very much of that when you're tableside.

At first, I believed he'd starve to death if he didn't have a real dinner or at least get some kind of disease from malnutrition. Someone told me children would never starve if there was food on the table but being a first-time mom, I wasn't sure if I could believe that.

I tried all kinds of kid-friendly meals (which mostly comes down to pasta, strawberries and yogurt) but also hoped slipping some veggies in here and there where I could would help. Josh was a grazer, and luckily liked cucumber, which he ate while we were shopping. Berries and summer fruits seemed attractive to him too, so I slipped those into lunch boxes daily.

Still, we never did make much headway with dinnertime. After a while I made a deal. I'd try to get him to eat as much as he could (maybe 10 percent of his meal, if I was lucky), and then when he said he was done, I said he needed three more bites of something before he could leave the table. He took those bites, and that was how we left it.

Later, if he got hungry, I wasn't one of those moms who said, "You didn't finish dinner. Deal with it." Instead, I let him have fruits or veggies or even a little toast and butter. Milk or hot chocolate were OK at bedtime. And somehow, as children do, my son grew up and got big enough to play football in seventh grade.

By the time Josh was eight or nine, I decided I was done obsessing about nutrition. That didn't mean I wasn't obsessing about other stuff, though. My son was very active, and probably too active for a lot of his teachers' tastes. Several asked me to get him tested for ADD or ADHD. Health food store employees told me to cut out sugary juice drinks and never allow sodas.

I suppose I could have, maybe even should have, done some of this stuff. But the last thing I wanted was to give my son pills of any kind just because he was antsy. I worked with him a lot at home on homework and he knew we expected good grades and he had to pay attention in school, even if he didn't like it. I tried to minimize sugary drinks at night but I stopped obsessing about what he was eating and when.

I don't know if this was the "right" thing to do, but I can say junior high seemed easier for him than elementary school and high school seemed better still and he started to shine in college. In looking back, I feel lucky that all my coparents (husband, Josh's dad and his wife) were great parents too. I have a feeling my son's stepmother was responsible for Josh learning to try and eventually like a lot of new foods.

Seeing where my son is now (and wondering what he'll be like as a parent) makes me realize that most of the time, we parents are too hard on ourselves. Yes, we mess up (and I did a lot) but even with those messes, I still think our ledger falls closer to the "OK" side of things than not. And as for dinner time, well... I'm here to tell you (promise) -- those three bites really can be enough.

Me and Dr. P: Going Way Too Far Back

I probably should never have it. But I have it every day. I am nearly incapable (OK, incapable) of saying no to it.

Not alcohol or drugs. “It” is diet soda (probably worse)? Ruinous for your kidneys, I’m told, with God knows what organ-eating chemicals and additives running through it, but… hey. I can’t stop.

I’ve guzzled it since I was a kid–sanctioned by mom who drank it herself like it was going out of style—and found it an indispensable end to my day (and sometimes a lunch-time companion as well).

I DO drink water, I promise, at least three to four eight ounce glasses, sometimes more when I can rev up the will power. Tea and decaf coffee also make their ways into my stomach, but diet soda (specifically Caffeine Free Diet Dr. Pepper, Coke Zero, or Sparkling ICE when I’m feeling slightly more virtuous) are my drinks of choice.

The fact is, I would drink a lot more of them if I let myself. They are not just a guilty pleasure, they are a super-guilty pleasure. Now and again I get myself to drink plain sparkling water instead, and then I feel really good about my day.

Why am I telling you all this? Part of me is hoping you’ll convince me somehow to stop, but I know you won’t. 

Part of me is hoping I can convince you to keep your kids away from this demonic drinking practice. I didn’t let my son have it at home when he was growing up, though his dad and I both let him have it when we went out to eat. 

I didn't want to make it "forbidden" because I didn't want to tempt him too much. But I didn't want it to be a mainstay for him like it was for me growing up. And I believe I (mostly) succeeded with that very modest goal, at least.

These days,  I’m hoping he doesn’t drink it as much as I do. He works out quite a bit and is better about eating healthy than I am (I think)?

Maybe you can try talking to your kid about the evil that diet drinks do. That doesn't usually work, but I'm probably in a diet-soda haze, so it's all I can think of.

I’m writing this with an empty can of Diet Dr. P on my desk, btw. So, no, you probably won't be able to talk me (or anyone else) out of it. But maybe there IS one thing you CAN do.

Invent a better drink? You'd make a lot of money.

If you can't, well... I haven't read these but they might be helpful:

Children and Sweetened Drinks: What's a Parent to Do?

10 Reasons to Keep Kids Off Soda

And here's one I did read:

Why I Let My Kids Drink Soda--and I'm a Dietician

Photos:

Woman drinking: yomo 13

Diet liquid: frankieleon