Nevertheless, even feeling like crap, I had another argument with myself while driving past the coffee shop. I had to stop at the grocery, and I grabbed a package of raspberries to nosh on when I got home and I ended up eating them all -- they got good to me. Walking through the grocery store was the first time I felt overwhelmed. I'm sure it's because I was already feeling wiped out, but I went first to the produce, then to the meat department, then I turned around and realized there was nowhere else I needed to go. This should have been very freeing. I mean that's cool, right? Shop produce and meat and you're done? Pretty awesome. Instead, walking down the aisle to get back to the front, I felt the full weight of what I CAN'T eat. I've been working really hard to focus on what I CAN eat, but I've never properly mourned the loss -- the loss of so many different things that I love, the loss of the option to grab and go, most of all the loss of my health. It was really a moment of deep understanding that this is most likely going to be the rest of my life. Not nearly as strict as right now (I hope), but that mindless mentality of creating meals based only on what tastes good is never going to be mine again.
I do realize that, ultimately, being forced to eat the way I should have been eating all along, being forced to eat only REAL food, is beneficial both to my health and to the planet. I see a momentum gathering as more and more people are affected by digestive issues, the movement is back to the way our great-grandparents ate, back to a more sustainable model. But it is a loss, and far too often, in our quest to remain positive and stay focused, we don't really acknowledge what we've lost. We need to mourn in order to let go and move on.
There is a book called "Survival of the Sickest" (it's a fascinating read, if you're so inclined). It talks about how genetic predisposition for certain diseases have survived natural selection. For example, there is a blood disorder that causes all sorts of issues for people who carry it, and the treatment for it is, literally, blood-letting. In the old days you would go to a barber, today you go to the blood bank and donate. You would think that evolution would have weeded that gene out as not sustainable. Turns out, that particular gene gave its carriers immunity to the plague. So the majority of Europeans who survived the plague were carriers of this defective gene. In this was it was passed on propogated.
Also in this book, the author talks about how certain bacteria and viruses actually change the behavior of the carrier to help insure its own survival and spread.For example, the common cold doesn't make us really all that sick. Yeah we feel lousy, but we still go to work and go to the store, where we come in contact with other people and pass the bug on. Cholera or malaria on the other hand, don't need you to go out and spread it through contact; malaria is spread by mosquitos and cholera is spread in water. Malaria makes you an easier target for mosquitos since they hone in on the carbon dioxide we emit. Lying sick with fever, profuse sweating, and shivering chills emits lots of carbon. Cholera causes large amounts of watery diarrhea, making it more likely it will get into the waterways.
Even more fascinating (to me at least) is that some of these actually affect us on a personality level. They found that certain sexually transmitted diseases make the carrier more likely to be promiscuous. I know what you're thinking, maybe promiscuous people are just more likely to be carriers, but they tested it on rats and apparently this virus made the rats randy. I don't remember which virus it was -- it's been a while since I read the book.
I'm talking about this here because disease and digestion have such a huge impact on us, even at levels we don't understand. Before my Hashimoto's diagnosis, I was sure I was bipolar. We've all been on that roller coaster. Our digestive system is so much a part of every other function that takes place in our bodies and when it is out of balance, everything else is as well.
Anyway, on to dinner. I haven't fixed it yet, I wasn't sure I was going to but I'm starting to get a bit hungry. On the menu tonight is chicken soup. I have some chicken thighs with skin and bones on. I will sautee it a bit, then add some filtered water, a turnip in place of potato, carrots, rainbow chard, pink himalayan salt, fresh basil, cilantro, rosemary, and oregano. While I'm in there, if I see anything else that sounds good, I'll toss that in too. Pictures will be forthcoming . . .
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I tossed in a small zucchini as well.
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