Power Balls, Food, Spirituality, and the Culture of Shaming

[content warning: in-depth talk about food, mention of sizeism, mention of diets, talk about chronic illness, mention of diet-shaming]

***Before I begin I just want to name that my body is pretty "average" sized and that I don't consider myself a target of sizeism; I've also never struggled with an eating disorder. That is my background to consider while reading this. I welcome critiques, call-outs, and call-ins alike if you see anything I write that is questionable.***

Peanut butter, chocolate, maca powder, sun flower seeds, flax seeds, chia seed meal, molasses, honey, coconut oil, and coconut milk went into my food mixer today to make what I think will be my perfect compliment to my morning smoothie and coffee. I read recently that maca is great for people who have uteruses and need some serious love, nurturing, and attention when it comes to menstruating. So I decided to whip some of these up and help myself to one (or two or more) a day!! Yayy!! I might post pics tomorrow.

They were inspired by a dear friend and co-berry, Coco. She made her famous Coco Balls (its funny because her name is Coco and they are chocolate... get it?) for one of our harvesting trips and they were so incredibly perfect. I don't think they had maca in them, but they were some of the most delicious, sweet, nutritionally-dense things I'd ever had. I'm sure you'll come to find through reading my blog that I LOVE DESSERT!! I love sweets. So freaking much I do.

It's very exciting to me because they are sweet so they serve a double purpose for me. They can be a sweet dessert and a serious health aid all at once. As I said in an earlier post, I am just now learning how to treat my body kindly and nourish it with foods that it (not my mind) asks for. I am reading a book called Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth right now. Despite "god" being in the title, it's not about weird patriarchal gods or christianity. The main point of it is that we need to love ourselves, aspire to stop judging ourselves, and to eat in a way that nourishes not only our body but also our spirit. She says that sometimes we eat because we feel disconnected and malnourished... either due to trauma, pain, or disconnection from our spirit. I have critiques but all in all, it really resonates with me. It's very anti-diet (in the "I'm going on a diet!" sense), and extremely pro-self-love (two of my favorite things!). I feel uncertain about how body positive it is. She asserts that we have a "natural body weight" that we return to when we learn to listen to our bodies, but she doesn't say what that body weight is, leaving it open to the reader... I interpret that as a kind of health-at-every-size attitude. It's really hard because I know she's writing for the masses and maybe can't be as transparent as she'd like to be. She's subtly slipped feminist things here and there. Sometimes though, I wish I could just ask her myself like, "you think women are beautiful in all bodies, right?!" or "you believe that people can be healthy at any size, yeah?"... but I can't so like, I'm doing that thing where I deal with the mild discomfort of not knowing, and take all the gems from the parts I do understand.

Mostly what has totally transformed my life as of late is the idea that when I feel compelled to eat when I'm not hungry, I need to really check in with myself because those are probably places I need to examine and grow into. I know that sometimes I eat when I'm not hungry because it satisfies a place in me that I don't know how to care for. And that what I choose to eat when I do that is often things that make my body feel sick after or send me into fits of internal self-shaming. When I think about times when those parts of me feel nourished, I'm brought back to spiritual times mostly. Times when I felt loved and held, times when I felt connected to spirit- as if she were talking to me directly and whispering messages of love into my ear. I think of afternoon naps cuddling with my partner, our fluffy cat nuzzled between us, or sharing a laugh- remembering how and why we fell in love, or at the end of a conflict where I can reflect on how much we have changed and grown together. I think of times that I felt trusted and valued, generosity of friends and family, singing magical songs, saying prayers to plants and thanking them for sharing their wisdom and their medicine, being able to offer my love and support to others... And sometimes I think of a delicious and wholesome meal that engaged and livened all of my senses. I realize that food is a simultaneously big and small part of what truly nourishes me, and that I have a lot of work to do when it comes to figuring out this business of being healthy in a mind-body-spirit sort of way.

The second part is that when I am hungry, I need to listen to my body. I need to know what it wants, what it craves, what will nourish my spirit. Lately I've remembered that eating yummy, whole foods that are organic make me feel really good. Especially when they are locally sourced. I like knowing that my food didn't have to travel a gillion miles on a freighter to get to me. I like knowing that my liver won't have to work super hard sifting through the pesticides and crap on conventionally-grown produce. I like knowing that (at least some of) my food came from a farm that pays their employees a living wage. I like feeling assured that so much love and care went into getting those foods to me, and that I in turn will do right by this process by preparing the food with love and care. Canning my tomatoes, making tomato paste, making jars of pickles, preparing weekly meals filled with fresh produce, all of these things and so much more nourish me on a deep, spiritual level. Hearth work is spirit work. Hearth is the center. Spirit is the center. So what better way to get in tune with your spirit than by connecting with your food? Kitchen witchery is profound. This I know. So on one hand, I need to know how to nourish myself wholly... on the other hand, I need to know that when food is in the equation, I must make decisions that will not leave me feeling depleted in the end.

One critique that I definitely feel like I can articulate is that sometimes I feel like mindfulness practices around the body can be hard for people like myself living with chronic pain and illness. Sometimes being aware of my body brings attention to the physical pain I experience, or my intense fatigue, or dizziness and sometimes I really do need some space from awareness of that. Its hard because mindfulness practices have enhanced my life in many ways, and at the same time I am so aware of how extra-challenging it is when you have chronic pain. Or for that matter, for people dealing with mental health stuff. Or people with eating disorders. Or people with trauma related to the body. While I think mindfulness can have a healing impact, I'm not sure it's right for everyone.

But being real... this isn't about everyone else. This is a blog post about myself.

How anyone else deals with food, deals with mindfulness, with their bodies, isn't my business or anyone's business but their own. I want to say this because I see way too much diet and body shaming, and I do not think that is okay. Having been chronically anemic for many years, I've heard my fair share of "oh, have you tried spinach?" or "are you eating enough red meat?" when in fact the #1 cause of my anemia is the fact that I have long, heavy periods. I have those heavy periods likely because I have thyroid problems. The body's main source of iron is recycled from its own blood supply, and the biggest cause of anemia is massive amounts of blood loss. To boot, I have digestive issues which make iron absorption through food even more challenging.

My point here is that if you think you have something meaningful to say to someone about their dietary choices, or about their bodies, you should re-think it. Then re-think it a second time, and a third time, until you come to the decision that you actually shouldn't say anything at all.

Unless someone asks you, "what do you think about my diet?" or "I'm interested in shifting my relationship to food... do you have any input?" you should probably keep your mouth shut. And I shouldn't have to say here that commenting on people's bodies without their consent is a violating act.

So this blog is about me and I swear if I ever see some turd using my words to justify a shitty, passive-aggressive (and likely sizeist and ableist) agenda on anyone, I will put a curse on you that any place you sit to eat at the servers are rude and everyone around you gives you dirty looks.

And the only thing that can break the curse is understanding why your actions were wrong and never, ever doing it again.

Do not fuck with this witch.

Elderberry time! How I dried, froze, and made medicine from elderberries!

Hey!! It's elderberry time!!

I totally went on an elderberry harvest with my magical class full of beautiful people today.

First we sat with a tincture of the flower, then of the flowers and berries. The difference was pretty apparent to me. Meditating with the flower tincture felt like gentle push into a connection with spirit. It was bright lights and images of death. With the berries, it felt like a stronger connection to earth, spirit, and the cycle of the year. I saw spring air give way to a spark, that lit the burning fires of summer. I saw the waters of fall wash away the fire, and that give way to the dead, cold silence of winter. It was pretty epic.

Apparently, a precursor to harvesting elder's medicine is to make a pact that when you die, you will lay your body at her feet to nourish her, as her body nourishes us. So I made a pact today that I hope, with dear elder's help, I won't have to fulfill for many, many, many, many years. But the sentiment is there and it's sweet and it means a lot to me. I've always imagined myself buried under a tree when I die I just never knew what kind, and now it's settled. Elder is what I wish to be buried under. Not scattered in ashes... buried...

Then she asked for my very special moon necklace that I have had for a long time. It's been a symbol of my witch-hood, ever since reading the Wise Child series. I'm getting a new one with an amazon gift card I had (yeah, no, it wasn't forged in pewter by an elf queen in a far off land, but like, you know, poverty? maybe someday). I feel a little lost without a crescent moon necklace but since elder is so associated with the fairy realm, it seemed like a really valid request. And then I harvested so MUCH... I swear the abundance has to do with my offering.

This 5-gallon bucket was about 3/4 full by the time I was done

After the harvest we ate lunch, talk about the medicine of the plant, and had story time. Our teacher has this velvety-smooth voice and basically put us all to sleep. But it was a great story so I couldn't really sleep. It was a story about a story that an old man tells to a little boy and its kind of trippy and surreal (appropriate for a story about an elder tree). You can find the story here.

Eating leftover eggplant casserole for lunch. See my battlescars? I was so into harvesting that I barely paid attention to the scratchy things scraping up my legs. Yes I dropped an onion on myself.

When I got home, I had to make dinner (I made a curry with a bunch of bell peppers, broccoli, and onions from our CSA, plus some potatoes and chicken) and at the same time process a shit ton of those berries. And I was already pretty exhausted having gotten up at 6:30 am (I went to bed after midnight, yikes!) and harvesting in the sun and stuff. I don't do well on little sleep and the sun makes me sleepy.

Here's what I did with my berries:

• bundled some to dry
• picked some to make a honey syrup with thuja leaves
• started a fresh tincture
• picked some to freeze to make an elderberry soda
• left some out to start a fermenting bug

Drying the Berries

First I made nice little bundles out of the stems and tied rubber bands around them. It's a good idea to use rubber bands because they're stretchy. As the plant matter dries, it shrinks because water is evaporating out of it. Sometimes if you use twine, the plants can fall out and that's kind of a bummer. So I used rubber bands.

Then I ran some twine through the bundled stems UNDER where the rubber bands are. That way you can hold many bundles together to save space. I fit about 3-4 bundles per paper bag. I currently have three paper bags hanging from my ceiling. It works just fine in my room because the weather is warm and I constantly have my fan on. What's most important is air flow, not heat so much. So since I have my fan (actually, I use two fans to direct air around) on just about 24/7, things dry pretty quickly. I'll check on them in three days and see how they're doing. I've never dried berries before so I'm excited to see how quickly they dry.

This is what they look like hanging. Not so pretty but w/e.

Elderberry Honey//Precursor to Elderberry Elixer

Okay so this is going to end up in my very first elixer. I'm a pretty laid back, folk-method kind of gal so there's not a whole lot of measurements involved here. I dumped half a quart of honey into my crock pock, threw in a few thuja leaves, and filled the rest of the space with elderberries. All of the plant matter has been washed, of course.

So pretty!

I let it sit there on the low setting for maybe 3-4 hours. You can probably do it longer but the berries were looking a little squished and dried up and the thuja leaves lost a lot of their color by the end, so I strained it.

Glowing like a radiant jar of sweetness

I am keeping it in the fridge because the water content is probs high enough now that bacteria will start to like it. Normally honey is totally inhospitable to bacteria and little buggy things but if there's too much water in it, it just becomes a sweet, moist, sugar fest which is totally a fun time for buggy things. So this will have to go into the fridge until I can complete part number two.

As soon as I acquire some brandy, I am going to tincture some cinnamon, fresh ginger, and I'm thinking about throwing thyme in there as well. I might even put more in, I won't know til I do it. I'll let those infuse for a couple weeks in the brandy (about a half quart... where I'm going here?), strain that, and mix it with the honey. That should make the infused honey shelf stable again and I won't have to keep it refrigerated. I dunno why I just prefer not keeping my medicine in the fridge if I can help it. And I love the way "elixer" sounds. Its so magical sounding. 

This is going to be my homemade cough and cold remedy for the season (and hopefully for seasons to come- if it stays good and I or my partner don't end up needing it all this winter).

I'm planning on using some dried elderberries to make an elderberry honey (since they will be dried, it won't up the water content of the honey so it will be shelf stable) for tea and yummies, and an elderberry syrup for pancakes and things like that. The last time I worked with elderberries, I made a syrup and that was my medicine. This time around, I'll have the elixer so I can get creative with the abundance I harvested today.

Fresh Tincture

Sorry for the awful photo quality. :[

I did this folk method as well... mostly because Michael Moore's Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West only talks about making medicine from the flowers and leaves. Like, what? Ridiculous. So I just filled a jar with berries and covered it with 90% cane alcohol. Donezo. Shake it once a day for a few weeks, strain, voila! Elderberry tincture. Again, since I will have that elixer, I imagine I'll be using this for psycho-spiritual uses mostly.

Elderberry Bug//Elderberry Soda

Obviously, I have a few plans with things that I haven't started yet, so I'll write posts in more detail about those projects later. I want to briefly explain my plan though, to get it out there. So you may or may not have noticed a white-ish bloom on the berries. Well today I learned that those are natural yeasts!! Which is awesome because that means I can try and make a fermented elderberry soda!! I am literally just in the process of making my first ever ginger bug in an attempt to make fermented ginger ale. I imagine the process is very similar, if not the same. I can't find anything on the internet about it so I guess I'll find out. 

In case you're unaware, the basic idea is that you combine something that harbors a natural yeast (ginger for instance), with water and sugar. The yeasts eat up the sugar and the byproduct is like, alcohol I think. There are people who can speak to this way way better than I can. Long story short, it's so awesome and full of good bacteria, and great for preserving foods. Better yet, when you add the "bug" to something like, say, elderberry juice sweetened with honey, and allow it to ferment in a bottle that can't breathe, the yeasties make gaseous bubbles that would have otherwise evaporated into the air. Since they are trapped inside, it carbonates the beverage, making a naturally fizzy soda!! Again, if you want specifics, go somewhere else. I don't totally understand it yet. But damned if I won't try!

I'll have to hit up my dear co-berry, Jen... She is so smart at fermenting!!!

Eggplant Casserole- Gluten Free, Soy Free, and Vegan!

Recently my partner and I bought a CSA share. It works a little differently for us, since we're on food stamps. It's a great set up actually, we put a refundable $50 deposit down, and pay $24 in our EBT money every week when we pick up our veggies. Lately our shares have looked something like this:

• Three summer squash
• One cucumber
• Head of lettuce
• Bunch of herb (basil, parsley, cilantro)
• A ton of tomatoes
• Garlic
• Onion
• Romano Beans

They vary week-to-week but that's roughly what our fridge looks like. The farm- Dancing Roots Farm, is like a 30-minute car ride (according to google maps) from where we live. That's pretty freaking local. And of course, its organic, and yadda-yadda. So that's pretty freaking exciting for us. We both have a strong desire to eat whole, organic, sustainable foods. Not because we believe in ethical capitalism or any such nonsense but because we both grew up without a sense of what to eat to keep our bodies feeling good and healthy. So we're learning together how to do this, and food stamps really help. I'm grateful that there are CSA's that take food stamps. If picking up a weekly CSA is a possible reality in your life, and you get SNAP benefits, I strongly recommend checking out if there are any that take EBT in your area.

So we had an eggplant sitting in the fridge from last week and had done nothing with it. I've only cooked eggplant once in my life and it was with friends who had a better idea of what we were doing. I found a really simple recipe for a casserole and decided to veganize it. My partner and I both have lactose sensitivities and honestly, I think cashew cheese is kind of yummier than mozzarella. Also, its funner this way.

It took a bit of prep but it was so worth it. Many of these things you can prepare ahead of time and can or freeze them. I'll probably make separate posts about the things that went into it but I'll detail what I did here as well.

This recipe is vegan, gluten free, soy free, and low sodium. You can easily modify it depending on your dietary needs and preferences.

Eggplant Casserole

(the final product, half eaten)

Ingredients:

• One small/medium sized eggplant (sliced to 1/4" thick pieces)
• One yellow onion (sliced however you prefer)
• 2 cups mushrooms (sliced)
• Two cloves garlic (finely chopped)

For the sauce:

• One 24oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 3/4 stick of butter (we used Earth Balance)
• One yellow onion, cut in half (keep the skin on)

For the cashew cheese:

• 1 cup cashews, soaked at least one hour
• ~1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic
• dash each of:
• thyme
• rosemary
• basil
• oregano
• note: fresh or dried is fine
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Small handful of nutritional yeast (to taste)
• dash of salt (to taste)

Vegan Parmesean:

• One part Almond meal or flour
• One part Nutritional yeast
• dash salt (optional)

Topping:

• Pine nuts

Step 1: Soak the Cashews

Start by soaking the cashews. Cover them just enough so they're submerged, but not too much more. Set a timer for one hour.

Step 2: Begin the sauce

While they soak, start your sauce. Combine all of the ingredients in a cast iron pan. Let it stew, covered, for 45 minutes. When the 45 minutes are up, just remove the onion! That's it! It's so easy... Sometimes I notice with Earth Balance, it's a little too liquidy, so I'll take the onions out, uncover it and let it reduce on medium-high for anywhere between 5-15 minutes until its a consistency you like. I like it kind of pastey, so this is an important step for me.

Step 3: Prep the veggies

Lightly grease a baking sheet with olive oil, place the eggplant in a single layer, and brush oil over the tops. Cook for a total of 6 minutes, flipping in between (3 minutes on each side) at 375F.

Sauté the mushrooms, onion, and garlic in 2-3 Tbsp olive oil until the onions are translucent.

Layer the eggplant on the bottom of a bread loaf pan (or something similar in size). Cover that with the sautéed onions, mushrooms, and garlic.

Step 4: Make the cheese(s)

Strain the cashews, but save the water. Combine all of the ingredients, minus the water, in a food processor or blender. Blend until its pretty smooth, then add water one tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency. I use anywhere between 2-4 tablespoons.

If you want vegan parmesan, just combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and use a whisk to incorporate them well.

Step 5: Put it all together

Slather your sauce on top of the layered veggies. You can choose how saucey you want it. I used only half of the sauce I made, and ended up saving the rest for later in a tupperware. On top of the sauce, put your cashew cheese. I just used a rubber spatula to slather it on. If it combines with the sauce a little, that's okay. I like to cover the whole "loaf". Then I sprinkle on some of the parmesan, cover the pan with foil, and stick it in the oven (still heated to 375F) for like, 40-45 minutes or so.

Let it cool for 10 minutes, then serve!! I like to sprinkle pine nuts on top... yum!!!

And that's it!!

If you want to, you can make the sauce and the cheeses ahead of time. I want to try canning sauce, but that's for another post. You can certainly make it and it will keep in the fridge for maybe a week. More might be pushing it. As for the cheese, the vegan parm keeps indefinitely in the fridge, and the cashew cheese can easily be frozen and kept for many months, I'd assume! Just stick it in the fridge to thaw out a day or two before you want to use it.

Sorry I don't have more pictures, I didn't think I was going to start a blog today!!