Diet soda

This was also where my mind was in August of 2013:

As a person who struggles with anorexia nervosa, I am a master at restricting my food.  Evidenced in a previous post, I understand and embrace a monotonous diet, eating the exact same foods everyday.

But I don't understand and embrace celebrating.

When I first started having symptoms of anorexia nervosa (AN) and restricting my food, I told myself that I was not going to link food and relationships with people.  For me, that meant that I could sit at a table with friends or family and not eat but still fully participate in the relationship and the celebration.

I was going to completely separate food and people.

I've sat at many celebratory tables--Thanksgivings, Christmases, weddings, birthdays--and either did not eat at all or restricted what I did eat.

This idea that I can somehow make food devoid of any meaning is not healthy nor achievable.

By trying to make food not have any meaning for days of celebration, I have effectually made food the most important part of a celebratory day.  I spend most days of the year restricting and not allowing myself food that I would like to have, so when a celebration day comes around, I begin obsessing about all of the foods that I could let myself have.

I fantasize about Subway sandwiches, bananas, fruit, salad, ice cream, bagels with cream cheese, peanut butter.  My mind obsesses about the possibilities, the calories, what I will have to give up to choose one of these other options, the next time that I can let myself have a celebration.

I don't "affirm faith and relationships as the basis for celebrating" (Longacre).

When I do allow myself a food as a way to celebrate, I also co-opt it into my restrictive pattern and turn it into something completely devoid of joy.

Over Christmas, I had my first diet soda.  Before that, I had almost completely restricted soda since high school.

I do enjoy these zero calorie beverages, but I have changed them from a part of a celebratory day, like the last day of school or Christmas vacation, into another part of my system of restricting.

Instead of sitting down with my husband and drinking a diet soda to celebrate our ten year anniversary, I spend the day planning when I will drink it, worrying that caffeine is bad for me, Googling the effects of caffeine, feeling guilty that I spent 50 cents for the diet soda, and feeling sad that I will only have one and wishing that I could have more.

But I further strip any joy out of the experience once I actually drink the diet soda.  I will watch the clock and only drink at certain times, hoping to prolong the enjoyment of the drink, therefore not enjoying the actual celebration.  And wanting to hold onto these feelings of joy and excitement even longer, I will save the diet soda and drink it all week.

This allows me to think about it every day and plan when I will drink it and be excited about getting to drink it and hoping that I will feel the same elation I felt when I was celebrating with people I love.

So, instead of enjoying a nice 15 minute time of sitting with my husband to celebrate our ten year anniversary while I enjoy a diet soda, I will spend the next week guiltily gulping sips of it out of the bottle while I stand in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open.

By trying to make food devoid of any meaning for celebrations, I have made it carry all of the meaning of the day.

We create special food days to try and make a random day like the first Friday in June special.  But everyday can't be, and doesn't need to be, a celebration.  We don't need to cling to a feeling of joy or falsely manufacture days to celebrate.  Life is full of beautiful relationships and amazing faith worth affirming. 

Since I have discovered that food cannot be disentangled from relationships with people and celebrations, I want to re-prioritize what it means for me.  I want it to play a complementary role as I affirm faith and relationships as the basis for celebrating.

Reflections on the word "diet"

Here is something I wrote on August 6, 2013 while working on this blog and before the hiatus and brain re-wire work.

When I encounter the word diet, my mind sometimes follows this trajectory: losing weight, eating less, being healthy, working out, bathing suits, obsession, scale, my stomach feels fat, I am fat, I need to work out more, I should work out right now, How can I eat less today?

Sure, most people have had these thoughts run through their minds.  You're walking through the mall, and you see a display of swimsuits and wish that you were in better shape.  There's an ad on TV for the latest weight loss plan (gimmick), and you entertain the idea of learning more about it or maybe even trying it.

But my mind didn't use to stop with those thoughts.  My mind would latch onto a word, an image, an idea, a thought and not let go of it.

If someone mentioned that they were starting a diet, my mind would eventually lead me to think and believe that I needed to start a diet.  Depending on the day, I may have even convinced myself that the other person had hinted or even suggested that I too needed to go on a diet.

But before I drag you further into the dark creveces of my mind, I want to talk about the word diet. 

I would like to say that I understand and use the word diet as defined on Wikipedia as : "(nutrition), the sum of food consumed by an organism or group," as opposed to the definition of dieting: "the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake.: 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet

But I do not feel that I even talk about food in a healthy way, let alone think about, or eat it in a way that promotes health and well-being.

You may argue that it is a game of symantics, that my word choice does not matter.  But to me, it matters immensly.  Using the word "food", "nutrition", or "nutrients" for what I consume can feel as important to me as if someone calls me "white", "anglo", or "American".  These words feel very different as they are applied to me as a person.  The same is true for the words that I use for the stuff that I put in my mouth that I consume to survive.

Come journey with me on the path of re-wiring

I definitely took a hiatus. I'm not sure you can count multiple years as a hiatus, but that is what I called it. Since my last post there have been numerous Lenten seasons, life-altering moments, and many monotonous moments. So goes the life of human beings. I have done some very hard work with re-wiring my brain, which I wrote about a couple of years ago and just posted tonight. I just wanted to say that I am here. I am re-starting my writing. The format and content are changing, but the theme and message will remain the same. My project of cooking through the Mennonite cookbook did end with my last post in 2014, but I have so much to share from my journey to health and recovery. I plan to take you with me on this journey as I share what it was like to re-wire my brain through journal entries from the past few yeas and stories that have shaped my life. Thank you for reading.

Is four years still considered a hiatus?

I wrote this in 2018, and I am now ready to post it:

Wow, four years ago I took a hiatus from this project. From 2014 to the fall of 2015, I was on a slow trajectory of becoming more unhealthy and getting stuck in Anorexia. I am grateful for the people in my life who spoke into this and asked me to get help. I went back to my doctor to do blood work and began the slow and difficult process of re-feeding, yet again. I felt somewhat defeated as I had done this cycle before. But I also felt hopeful because I was doing it more because I wanted to and desired health for myself.

It was a process of re-gaining my physical health as I would still restrict and then reactive eat. I tried Whole 30, and a metabolism diet because I thought I was binging on sugar and thought I might be developing bulimia or a sugar-addiction. I tried the intuitive eating idea after reading the book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. I made up a food plan that consisted of the exact same foods everyday, with the bulk of my food being a Subway sandwich and cookie. The people at Subway know me and my order. All of these things were me attempting to find a safe way to be healthy, to make my brain less anxious, to feel in control around food. But I was still eating only my foods, and only after 7PM when my kids had gone to bed. And I still wanted to avoid places and things with food.

Then, I rediscovered the blog by Tabitha Farrar in May and have been on a completely new path since then. In the past year, I've been able to express that sometimes my brain feels like I've gotten on the wrong path, I've gotten more anxious and narrow-focused. It's hard not to be obsessed with food and the anxiety surrounding that. When I read Tabitha's blog and book, Rehabilitate, Re-wire, Recover, she confirmed this feeling. Anorexia nervosa is a brain-based mental illness. My brain has been wired to fear food. And when my brain is around food, it shifts into the Parasympapthetic Nervous System, which is fight or flight. My brain was usually screaming at me to get away from food, to get it out of my house, to get it away from my husband and kids. Farrar explains that this was probably originally a mechanism that some people had during the days of migration. A person whose brain was wired with anorexia would go into migrate mode when put into nutritional depletion. So, I would have been the person that told the others to put the food down and move to a new area where the food was plentiful when we were running out of food or the herd was moving. All of this really resonated with me: the extreme fear around food and wanting to move away from it and get it out. I recognized all of these behaviors in myself.

But I had been going about recovery completely wrong. I thought that to feel safe around food, I had to completely control it. I asked my husband not to buy foods that I thought I would eat without control. I used to call these binges but have since learned that if I have a restrictive eating disorder, these are not binges. They are reactive eating experiences in response to restricting. So, I would try and eat only foods that I deemed safe. And these safe foods and safe experiences have changed so many times over the 20 years that anorexia has been activated in my brain. My brain always found a new way to change and adapt, so that I would continue restricting and be ready to migrate. But during the days of migration, the restriction served a short-term purpose to get the group to migrate to abundant food. And then people ate, and there wasn't nutritional inadequacy anymore. But for me, I kept going back to the restrictive and depleted nutritional state.

And when I would allow myself to eat unrestricted, it was still while in the Parasympathetic Nervous System. My brain and body were still aroused and anxious, and I was continuing to dig the trenches in the channels of my brain that said food is to be feared. And when you do have the foods that your body is asking for, you end up eating them in a quantity that is past satisfaction.

I started reading Farrar's book about re-wiring in May, 2018 and realized that to recover, I had to do all of the things that my brain is afraid to do. My brain is wired to fear food. I can re-wire it to not be afraid of food.

Some people may read this and misunderstand what I am describing with the general cultural hatred of fat and gaining weight. They are two separate issues, both worth addressing, and both very serious. A culture obsessed with weight, and food lifestyles, and ethical eating, and prolonging our lives, and our outward appearances creates an environment that is easy for eating disorders to get activated in those people pre-disposed to them. But there are many people who will go on diets and lose weight who do not have eating disorders, and their brains will not then be wired to fear food. Food will not become a threat to be avoided.

Here's an example to share how an anorexic brain responds to a food that it believes to be a threat. In May, 2018 we had teacher appreciation week. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to have candy or other sugar foods in my box or in the teacher's break room. One morning, I was teaching a reading lesson in a small group, and an e-mail popped up that said "Donuts in the break room". It was instantaneous. I read it. My brain perceive a threat, and I went into full-on, high alert, fight-or-flight mode. I was trying to plan the rest of my day to avoid walking anywhere near that room.

Ten-Minute All-In-One Meal

Recipe #9: p. 143, Ten-Minute All-In-One Meal--Flo Harnish, Akron, Pennsylvania

whole wheat bread
tomato
onion
hard cheese

This meal was very simple and very fast.  It tasted good and can be eaten with a fork or fingers!

I closed my previous blog with this statement: We do not live in isolation, but we act as if we do, which leads to lack of empathy, which in turn leads to violence.  To counter this destructive chain, we must actively seek to follow Jesus and his example of empathy and compassion towards others.

I left readers with a challenge to actively seek to follow Jesus, and now I would like to offer ways that this can be accomplished through Mennonite Central Committee's Relief Sales and Penny for Power campaigns.

Information about Mennonite Relief Sales:
Beginning in the late 1950’s, Mennonite Relief Sales began for the purpose of raising funds to support the projects and programs of Mennonite Central Committee, a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches. MCC shares God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice. Forty three relief sale events in the U.S. and Canada raise over five million dollars annually. Sale events are hosted by  local communities with the help of thousands of  hundreds volunteers who contributing their time and resources. Relief sales today are festive events, enjoyed by large crowds that come for the food, fellowship and  opportunity to support the relief, development and peace work of MCC. Attendees can purchase  hand crafted quilts, wood products and a variety of other donated items. Some events include fun-runs, music and childrens activities.  Learn more about relief sale locations and how you can get involved by browsing through web page. http://reliefsales.mcc.org/aboutus

More resources about MCC relief sales and food and water shortages around the world:
http://reliefsales.mcc.org/

Every five seconds a child dies because he or she is hungry.
https://resources.mcc.org/sites/default/files/site-configuration/field_attachment/Foodbasket_GivingCalendar.pdf

Did you know people can survive 2 months without food, but will die in 3 days without water?
https://resources.mcc.org/sites/default/files/site-configuration/field_attachment/MCCWaterWorks_GivingCalendar.pdf

No-Bake Cereal Cookies

Recipe # 8: p. 287, No-Bake Cereal Cookies--Rosemary Moyer, North Newton, Kansas

brown sugar
light corn syrup
vanilla
peanut butter
cereal flakes
flaked coconut (optional)

I made these no-bake cereal cookies for my children's three-year old birthday party, and they were easy to make and a huge success.  My children's birthdays in August and my upcoming birthday in October has caused me to reflect on my own childhood.

By nature, I was an anxious and sensitive child.  I was easily overwhelmed when I heard stories of people suffering.  When I was about five years old, I remember seeing a cartoon with a character wearing a barrel held up by suspenders.  That night, I have a distinct memory of praying for that man to get clothes.

Whenever I saw a person holding a sign asking for money on the side of the road, I would ask my parents to go buy food to give to him or her.  We did this quite a few times during my childhood.

My feelings of wanting to help others were out of kindness, but more than anything, they were from guilt.  Why did I have things and other people didn't?  Why were people mean to others?  Why don't people share the food they have?

As I moved into my teenage years, my intense desire to not see people hurting continued, but the world began showing itself to be more cruel and unforgiving than I could handle.  Life seemed overwhelming, chaotic, scary, and unmanageable, and I did not feel prepared to face this world as an adult.

According to the book Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky A. Bailey, there are seven powers for self-control necessary for individuals to learn and practice. I always had family, friends, and church members who loved me and let me know that they loved me.  But there was a disconnect that did not allow me to learn the powers of self-control that Bailey writes about; the powers of: attention, love, acceptance, perception, intention, free will, and unity.  Being ill-equipped with the powers of self-control, I turned to other forms of surviving the overwhelming feelings of fear I had.
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Love-Difficult-Discipline-Cooperation/dp/0060007753

As a young child, obsessive compulsive thoughts and behaviors had already manifested, and by the fifth grade, those obsessive compulsive thoughts became centered on my physical body.  I have memories of asking my mom and my sister multiple times a day if I was fat or pudgy.  After my sophomore year of high school, those thoughts became obsessive compulsive behaviors.

I went on a diet to lose weight the summer after tenth grade, and that was the beginning of me engaging in eating disordered behavior.  It began a long road of isolation, self-hatred, and continued guilt.  

After many years of therapy and recovery work with people who love me deeply, one of the things that I have discovered about having an eating disorder, is that it does exactly the opposite of what I intended it to do.

I wanted to be in control of my body, how I looked, how people perceived me, and what they thought about what I looked like.  I wanted to be perfect and not do anything that would allow people to be upset with me for any reason.

It numbed the sensitive, caring side of me that allowed me to see people in need and want to help them.  Instead, it made me only able to think about myself, about my body, about my weight.

My ability to empathize was diminished, which consequently lowered my ability for compassion.  Empathy is "the capacity to recognize emotions that are being experienced by another sentient or fictional being. One may need to have a certain amount of empathy before being able to experience accurate sympathy or compassion." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy

And being in a state of semi-starvation did not allow for me to expend any energy on recognizing the emotions being experienced by those around me.  All I could focus on was my need to restrict calories, exercise more, and lose more weight.

The article "Empathy and social functioning in anorexia nervosa before and after recovery" by Robin Morris, Jessica Bramhan, Emma Smith, and Kate Tchanturia, comes to the following conclusion:
    "Results. The acute AN (anorexia nervosa) group reported lower levels of empathy than the recovered AN group and  HC (healthy control), but they also reported less antisocial behaviour. No differences were found in emotional recognition or social conformity.

Conclusions. These results suggest that emotional empathy is reduced during acute AN. Lower levels of antisocial behaviour may reflect a contrasting desire of people with AN to minimise presentation of antisocial behaviour in the acute state."
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/empathy-and-social-functioning-in-anorexia-nervosa-before-and-after-recovery%28f4af3016-2076-4964-8cce-c9af828ef2ec%29.html

So, according to this article, I was able to recognize emotions and artificially conform socially to fit in with the people around me, but I was unable to fake it with being empathetic.

Once my body, brain, soul, and spirit were well nourished with food and love, I was able to learn how to empathize with people in a way that allowed me to show compassion not based on guilt. 

Empathy is a skill that is essential for individuals to learn but seems to be increasingly difficult to teach to our children.  Lack of empathy comes from a focus on self for whatever reason and getting one's own needs met.

A comedian named Louis C.K. was recently in an interview where he said the following about his hatred for cell phones:
"And they (kids) don’t look at people when they talk to them and they don’t build the empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it’s ’cause they’re trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, 'you’re fat,' and then they see the kid’s face scrunch up and they go, 'oh, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that.' But they got to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write 'you’re fat,' then they just go, 'mmm, that was fun, I like that.'" http://lybio.net/louis-c-k-hates-cell-phones/comedy/

 As a person with AN, my empathy was hampered by my isolation within my physical body.  Many of us today are experiencing this same isolation due to our computers, cell phones, single-family dwellings, individual cars, and the ability to do everything for ourselves. 

Isolation diminishes empathy, which leads to less compassion, which allows for violence.  The violence that I inflicted was on my own body.  Other people's isolation becomes violence turned on others.

The More-with-Less cookbook challenges us as disciples of Jesus to empathize with the hungry of the world and show compassion on others by recognizing that the choices we make about our own food are not isolated decisions.

As Longacre states,"Communication happens swiftly in our world.  How can we continue overeating in the face of starvation and be at peace with ourselves and our neighbors...Jesus recognized the desire to get more and more as a destructive force when he asked, 'For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?'" p. 24

 We do not live in isolation, but we act as if we do, which leads to lack of empathy, which in turn leads to violence.  To counter this destructive chain, we must actively seek to follow Jesus and his example of empathy and compassion towards others.
   

Mashed Potato Casserole

Recipe # 7: p. 230, Mashed Potato Casserole--Helen June Martin, Ephrata, Pennsylvania
potatoes
sour cream or yogurt
salt
pepper
sugar
margarine
milk
dill seed
chives
cooked spinach
cheddar cheese

I made this recipe a couple of weeks ago with no real anxiety leading up to it, while cooking it, or when I tasted it.  It was very easy to make and came out great.  I hadn't allocated enough prep time to skin the potatoes, so it wasn't finished baking in time for our family dinner that night.  But it re-heated really well the next couple of days, and the family all enjoyed it.

In the past, this recipe's name alone would have scared me away.  Mashed potatoes conjure up memories of butter and holiday meals with an excess of food surrounding me.  Too many people would inevitably comment on my appearance and small amount of food consumption. 

Casseroles represented a place for secret fatty ingredients like butter, cream, and many other "scary" foods to hide.  I imagined that people would add things to recipes to cause me to gain weight, and casseroles were a great place to hide calories.

Although I sound like I was paranoid, well-meaning people in my life have resorted to these types of methods in an attempt to do what they thought it would take to save my life.

When we love people, we resort to extraordinary and ludicrous acts to protect those people.  Sometimes they are healthy for the relationship, and sometimes they are not.  Regardless, they are an attempt to put that love into action.

When a family is affected by an eating disorder, the whole family suffers.  So do any of the people who love the individual with an eating disorder (ED).  Many people look for a cause for the ED.  They search for a treatment and a cure.  They want answers to questions like: Why does this happen?  What causes it?  How can we stop it?

But what they really want to know is: Did I do anything that led to my loved one's ED?  Did I do something wrong?  Didn't I love her/him enough?

In short the answers are: Yes, you did something that eventually influenced your loved one to use an ED as a coping mechanism.  Yes, you did something wrong in your relationship with the person you love.  No, you didn't love her/him enough.

Before you get mad and think that I am blaming parents and other loved ones for EDs, keep reading...

There is not consensus on what causes an eating disorder.  The National Eating Disorder Association list various psychological, interpersonal, social, and biological factors that may contribute to eating disorders.
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/factors-may-contribute-eating-disorders

The infuriating and depressing thing about not knowing what causes eating disorders is that we do not have a guaranteed way to treat them.  And when you also know the following facts, it is almost more than a person can handle:

 Between 5-20% of individuals struggling with anorexia nervosa will die.  The probabilities of death   increases within that range depending on the length of the condition.

Anorexia nervosa has one of the highest death rates of any mental health condition. http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/anorexia-nervosa

But back to what I said earlier:
We ALL do things that influence our loved ones to use unhealthy coping mechanisms.
We ALL do things in our relationships that are not loving.
We ALL will never be able to love a person enough.

I am not trying to excuse people's poor attempts at loving one another, just pointing out that many of the things in our relationships that cause conflict are motivated by our love for others.  But sometimes we try to love others by controlling them. 

I can choose to remain angry and resentful that the people who love me sometimes tried to control my actions, or I can choose to acknowledge that they were loving me in the best way that they knew how.

Only God can love us in a way that is always healthy and supportive and patient.  The rest of our relationships will be full of blundered attempts at putting our love into action.

The important thing to remember for people with anorexia nervosa and those who love them is that we are not working against each other.  We are on the same side.  We must work together  more openly and honestly, so that we can heal wounds, reconcile resentments, and find healthy ways of loving one another to ensure that the people with AN can live long, joyful, lives; lives that can be dedicated to being disciples of Jesus.

*The National Eating Disorder Association has many resources to help people as they are supporting their loved ones recover from an eating disorder. 
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/parent-family-friends-network

Quick Chocolate Pudding

Recipe #8: p. 264, Quick Chocolate Pudding, Grace Whitehead, Kokomo, Indiana

sugar or honey
cornstarch
cocoa
milk
vanilla
margarine (optional)

"After being diagnosed with cancer, Doris started keeping a journal. Some of the entries addressed the writing of Living More with Less, and her frustration with how her illness prevented her from working on the manuscript."

"Journal Entry—November 4, 1979 (written from Hershey Medical center)
I so much want to complete this book, one of the creative works of my life. But weighed in the balance against more time with Paul, Cara, and Marta, (husband and daughters) the book is like a dry dandelion ready to blow. But I shouldn't have to make such choices. If I get well enough to work on the book I will have time with my family."

 "Doris died quietly, peaceably, and surrounded by family on November 10, 1979, the manuscript not yet completed.
But the unfinished manuscript itself may be symbolic. The task of living responsible is never finished. In her preface to the More-with-Less Cookbook Doris describes the search for more responsible eating as a "kind of holy frustration." This holy frustration for more-with-less living needs to continue in our households, travel, recreation, and church life."
http://www.heraldpress.com/Bios/Longacre/journal.html 

Doris kept a list of things she felt were the frivolities of life—things one should not let get in the way of the enjoyment of living.
Life is too short to ice cakes; cakes are good without icing.
Life is too short to read all the church periodicals.
Life is too short not to write regularly to your parents.
Life is too short to eat factory baked bread.
Life is too short to keep all your floors shiny.
Life is too short to let a day pass without hugging your spouse and each of your children.
Life is too short to nurse grudges and hurt feelings.
Life is too short to worry about getting ready for Christmas; just let Christmas come.
Life is too short to spend much money on neckties and earrings.
Life is too short for nosy questions like "How do you like your new pastor?" Or—if there’s been a death—"How is he taking it?"
Life is too short to be gone from home more than a few nights a week.
Life is too short not to take a nap when you need one.
Life is too short to care whether purses match shoes or towels match bathrooms.
Life is too short to stay indoors when the trees turn color in fall, when it snows, or when the spring blossoms come out.
Life is too short to miss the call to worship on a Sunday morning.
Life is too short for bedspreads that are too fancy to sleep under.
Life is too short to work in a room without windows.
Life is too short to put off Bible study.
Life is too short to put off improving our relationships with the people we live with.
 http://www.heraldpress.com/Bios/Longacre/

If anyone is following my posts, you may have noticed that I skipped from Recipe #6 to Recipe #8.  I have already made Recipe #7, but this one feels more timely.

Today, my daughter turns three years old, and I made chocolate pudding for her birthday.  The recipe called for very few ingredients, and the instructions were very simple: Combine ingredients.  Cook.  Stir constantly unti thickened.

This sounded simple enough, and, in reality, it was.  I just did not have realistic expectations for how long it takes for pudding to thicken.

I really enjoy stirring pots of cooking food, and I always have.  I have fond memories of stirring pots of sauce or holiday foods when my family was cooking.

And the process of watching cornstarch turn powder and liquid materials into a thickened substance, was really quite intriguing for me.

But it took forty-five minutes of constant stirring for my Quick Chocolate Pudding to thicken.  Those were forty-five minutes that I could have been reading a book with my daughter, or tickling her, or telling her stories about her first three years of life.

While I agree with Longacre, that Americans in general overeat sugar and processed foods (More-with-Less p. 21), I also believe that she is correct when she says, "There is not just one way to respond, nor is there a single answer to the world's food problem.  It may not be within our capacity to effect an answer.  But it is within our capacity to search for a faithful response" (More-with-Less p. 13).

This search for a faithful response must also take into Longacre's list of Life is too short...

And for me, life might just be too short to make my own pudding in the future.

Quick Fruit Cobbler

Recipe #6: p. 273, Quick Fruit Cobbler--Jocele Meyer, Brooklyn, Ohio

sugar
flour
milk
baking powder

salt

"A dessert is (almost by definition) a food containing sugar.  But before getting into dessert recipes, let's remind ourselves that not all meals require a sweet ending.  The daily dessert habit is firmly entrenched in North America, but not with most other people.  In many countries sweets are used for celebrations only, not to top off everyday meals."  More-with-Less, p. 261

My son turned three about a week ago.  He loves food and eating, which is both helpful and difficult for me as a person with anorexia nervosa.

It can be difficult  when he gets down from breakfast and immediately asks about snack.  It can be difficult when I ask him what his favorite part of the day was and he names a food he ate. It can be difficult when it seems like so many of his thoughts revolve around food.

It can be helpful when I realize that he is learning to care for his needs and his body. It can be helpful when I realize that he shows as much joy and exuberance for food as for everything else in life.  It is helpful when I realize that so many of my thoughts also revolve around food, but at least his are about his enjoyment of eating.

So, when I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, "cake" was his response.  He also listed play with cars, and sing "Happy Birthday," but food was definitely part of his desire for his special day.

I used to believe that I could engage in a celebration with other people and not partake of the food.  It was my way of saying, "The food has nothing to do with my relationship with these people.  I can be a part of this relationship just as much as everybody else, regardless if I am eating with them.  My family and friends should love me for me, not for what I do or do not eat."

But over the past 10 years of therapy and recovery work that I have done, I have come to understand that my belief was false.  Eating a meal with someone is a way of sharing life with them, loving them, and letting them love me.


Of course, for food to be a healthy part of a relationship, people have to be healthy and mature enough to not use food as a way to guilt, manipulate, or shame themselves or each other.

My son's birthday offered an opportunity for me to choose a dessert to share with him to celebrate the day of his birth.  It also allowed me to support Longacre's view about the over-consumption of sugar and desserts in the U.S. by choosing a dessert that limits the amount of sugar and takes advantage of the natural sweetness of fruit.

I chose to use Granny Smith apples in the recipe, and it tasted pretty good.  The edges browned more quickly than the middle, so I did not cook it for as long as the recipe indicated.  Next time, I will cook it for the correct amount of time and try a glass baking dish instead of a metal pan.  

So, along my journey to recover from disordered eating and to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, I am learning to eat during celebrations while also thinking about the foods that are part of the celebration.  I do not have to buy a traditional U.S. birthday cake loaded with sugar and frosting.  I can make a cake or cobbler from More-with-Less that provides recipes that value celebrating and caring for God's earth and people.

As Longacre shares, "Sugar never was good for us...We've long been aware of sugar's role in tooth decay, diabetes, and obesity."
 "Much land now devoted to sugar should be used for other crops yielding proteins, vitamins, and minerals." More-with-Less, p. 260-261

Sitting around the kitchen table with my son and the rest of my family enjoying cobbler was a moment free of guilt, manipulation, and shame as I ate a dessert that tasted good.  It allowed me to use food  to celebrate in a way that felt joyful and also faithful.

Six-Layer Dish

Recipe #5: p. 137, Six-Layer Dish--Bonnie Zook, Leola, PA; Martha Buckwalter, Lancaster, PA; Fern Lehman, Kidron, OH

potatos
carrots
uncooked rice
onions
ground beef
canned tomatoes
brown sugar



"Much of the what's-wrong-with-us material relating to world food needs centers on overconsumption of protein.  While protein is widely lacking in poorer countries, most people in Candada and the United States eat much more than necessary.
    Much of the protein we eat, in contrast to poorer nations, comes from meat, milk, and eggs.  Beef cattle are poor converters of grain to food protein." More-with-Less, p. 20-21


 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-03-18/news/0403180191_1_pedro-alvarez-cattle-cuban-economy

"In communist Cuba, only the state is allowed to slaughter cattle and sell the meat. Citizens who kill a cow--even if they raised it themselves--can get a 10-year prison sentence. Anyone who transports or sells a poached animal can get locked up for 8 years.
"My brother-in-law got a 12-year prison sentence for killing 12 cows," said an accountant who lives in the cattle-raising region.
But it's not unheard of for Cubans to sneak into a pasture at night and butcher a cow on the spot. Residents have been known to descend on a cow struck by lightning, carving it up in minutes even though the meat often is charred and they risk a fine if caught by police.
The same thing can happen if a cow is hit by a car or dies of illness or malnutrition, in giving birth or of old age, even though residents admit the law requires them to leave the carcass alone and notify local officials."


Last week, I cooked this Six-Layer-Dish that had one pound of ground beef for 4 people.

Recently, I learned about the rarity of beef for Cubans.

Granted, Communist Cuba does not accurately reflect the same realities of all of the poorer countries in the world, it does highlight the extremes with regards to protein-consumption between the U.S./Canada and many poorer countries.

As a person who has battled Anorexia Nervosa (AN) for years, beef has been for me one of my "scary", "off-limit" foods due to so many news stories and conversations about red meat being bad, ads for double quarter pounders with cheese, and the idea of the typical fatty high school lunch of burgers and fries sending me into near-panic-attacks about gaining weight.

So, when I read Longacre say that people in the U.S. and Canada need to limit their intake of beef, it is easy for me to rationalize that this statement pertains to me specifically.  It is also easy for me to live out this limitation since I probably eat beef one to two times a year.

But my restriction of beef is not with the altruistic motive of helping people in other countries have access to more protein.  It is based on fear of being fat or unhealthy.  It is just as self-focused as someone who chooses to eat a double quarter pounder with cheese a few times a week.

In Cuba, the government is choosing to restrict beef.  In the U.S., the government chooses not to restrict the overconsumption of beef. 

Restriction and overconsumption (or lack-of-restriction) have the same outcomes:

obsession, numbness, selfishness, greed, sadness, hopelessness

Somewhere between the extremes of having unlimited access to beef and scraping a lightning-charred hunk of beef off a road is a healthy, faithful way to eat and enjoy beef.  And I hope to find it one day.


*By the way, this recipe was amazing, and I enjoyed the little bite of beef that I allowed myself.

Beans with Sweet-Sour Sauce

Recipe #4: p. 99,Beans with Sweet-Sour Sauce--Helen E. Reiger, Newton, Kansas
navy beans
fat
flour
sugar
corn syrup
salt
vinegar

An excerpt from an e-mail I sent to some of my friends:
"I'm preparing to make my next meal from More with Less for my blog, and I am such a cooking novice that I need some help! The recipe calls for 1.5 T of fat.  What do I use?  I don't have leftover fat from meat or anything, so I don't know if I use an olive oil, crisco, butter.  Can any of you help me?"


"Characteristics of anorexia nervosa include self-starvation and a strong fear if being fat." "I'm Like So Fat!" Dianne Neumark-Sztainer p. 11


"Rollie: I feel so fat.
Kathy: You feel fat?  I feel really fat...

When teenagers, particularly teenage girls, engage in fat talk, they're often looking for reassurance...

What does it mean to "feel" fat?  Author Sandra Friedman (When Girls Feel Fat...) correctly states that fat is not a feeling...Unfortunately, dieting won't erase the feeling, because being fat is not the issue."  "I'm Like So Fat! Dianne Neumark-Sztainer p. 59-60


FAT
Talk about a terrible word for a person suffering with Anorexia Nervosa and one with so many meanings, memories, and feelings associated with it.

I distinctly remember in fifth grade beginning my eating disordered thinking.  I had always been an anxious child and had tendencies toward obsessive compulsive behavior, but in the fifth grade my anxieties became centralized in my body.

Many stressors in my life compiled along with actual physical changes related to puberty during that time period, and I began linking my negative feelings with being fat.

"Do I look fat?" was a question that I asked my mom countless times during that time in my life and would ask many other loved ones over the next 15 years.

As you're reading this, you may think: "I've felt fat before," but the feeling is extreme for people with AN, and it leads us to take extreme measures to ensure that we do not become fat or are able to reverse these fat feelings.

The fat feeling used to compel me to restrict food, to exercise a few more minutes, to obsessively plan ways to cut calories, and to imagine how much calmer and happier I would be if I didn't feel fat.

Now that I'm further along in my recovery, fat no longer holds the same power over me as it once did.  I can stand up straight and not "cover" myself with my arms hoping that no one will see my fat.  Fat is not something that I need to avoid or remove from all of my food and from my body.  I am able to look at fat as an ingredient in a recipe instead of as something that I embody.

And for those of you who are wondering, I ended up using a butter-substitute in the recipe, and the family and I all really enjoyed the beans.  We highly recommend them! 

Willow Wands Who Bend Whichever Way the Wind Blows

"I sometimes think of victims of eating disorders as willow wands who bend whichever way the wind blows...I have heard many people describe eating disorders as a consequence of low self-esteem...I believe the problem goes far deeper.  In fact, I find that individuals with eating disorders have no sense of self or identity except for the fulfillment of their extremely subjective perception of others' expectations"  The Secret Language of Eating Disorders  by Peggy Claude-Pierre p. 42-43

 http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Language-Eating-Disorders-Understand/dp/0375750185/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376692731&sr=1-1&keywords=the+secret+language+of+eating+disorders

"I broke free from Ed, my eating disorder, through a therapeutic approach I learned from psychotherapist Thom Rutledge, which involves thinking of the eating disorder as a distinct being with unique thoughts and a personality separate from my own...In order to change my relationship with Ed, I had to learn to stand back and separate myself from him.  I had to make room for my own opinion, which created the opportunity for me to disagree with Ed.  I realized that my food obsessions and my condemnation of my own body were coming from Ed, not me.   To this day, recovery is about making room for the real me to exist."  Life Without Ed by Jenni Schaefer Introduction xix, xxi, xxii

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Without-Ed-Declared-Independence/dp/0071422986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376692781&sr=1-1&keywords=life+without+ed+by+jenni+schaefer

I read both of these books and have revisited them at different points during my recovery journey.  They are great resources to help understand and treat eating disorders.

But while I found both of these books to be helpful resources for myself and for loved ones in my life helping me with recovery, I also found both of them to be lacking something necessary for my recovery.

It wasn't enough for me to be able to discover my identity and things I value and enjoy.  It wasn't enough for me to no longer base my life on what I thought about other people's views of me.  It wasn't enough for me to be unconditionally loved by people in my life.

I thought my life's purpose was to do something "meaningful", which for me meant helping people who were suffering.  Along the way, I suffered with a dangerous mental illness, anorexia nervosa and wasn't able to do anything to end my own suffering.  I thought if I could just work hard enough to end other people's and my own suffering, that would be enough to help me recover.

But I realized somewhere along that journey  that the purpose of life (yes, I am making the bold declaration that I may have discovered the purpose of life!) is not to end suffering.  That in itself is not enough.
 
When I read Dorothy Day's book The Long Loneliness last year, it was life-changing for me.  She writes about her early years starting the Catholic Workers' Movement, and the line that captivated my heart and mind was Day explaining that life is about "human flourishing".

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Loneliness-Autobiography-Legendary-Catholic/dp/B0075IB4AA/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376692870&sr=1-3&keywords=long+loneliness+dorothy+day

I had assumed that life was about the absence of suffering, restricting my enjoyment so that others might not suffer as much.  And that was the attitude I brought to my first encounter with More-with-Less by Longacre.  If I can just limit my food a little more, than other people will not suffer as much.

But I missed the point.  As Longacre writes, "There is a way, I discovered of wasting less, eating less, and spending less that gives not less, but more." p. 18

She also points out Jesus "entering wholeheartedly into times of joy and feasting". p. 26.

It's not enough for me to work hard to end suffering, be that world hunger or my own hunger imposed by an eating disorder.

Dorothy Day writes in The Long Loneliness, "What we  (The Catholic Workers' Movement) would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world."  

I must remember that this cell of joy and peace that Day refers to is the redemptive love of God lived out through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  God intends for us to live lives of joy and human flourishing.

A Poem to Ponder

You have heard it said
    that because of hunger in Third World countries
    we should not overeat.
But I say unto you
    that the abuse of your body, mind, and soul
    is never justified.

You have heard it said
    conserve for the sake of the crisis
    because of limited amounts available to use.
But I say unto you
    the only wise use
    is that which brings glory to God.

Let not your hearts be troubled by this kingdom
    but let your bodies and energies be dedicated
    in service to God and man.
Surely you will find
    the future kingdom
    already being fulfilled in your life.

  --Martin Penner, Recife, Brazil
More With Less p. 16

Apple Snack

Recipe #2: Apple Snack p. 306
Peel, core, and halve apples.  Shred apples coarsely and put on buttered cookie sheet.  Bake until dry.

Confession #1: Recipe #2 was doomed to fail from the beginning.

I chose to make a snack instead of a dinner food this week because I knew we were having friends over to play a board game. It was also a decision I made based on eating disordered reasons.  I chose a recipe with the least amount of ingredients that I could find and then planned to eliminate even some of those.

So, going into this recipe with the intention of altering it, it's no wonder that it did not turn out well.  I just now realized that I didn't even prepare the apples correctly.

The recipe gives the following steps:
1. Peel.
2. Core.
3. Halve.
4. Shred.
5. Put on buttered cookie sheet.
6. Bake until dry.
7. Store in air-tight container.

This is what I did:
1. Core with apple slicer that cuts 8 slices.
2. Peel.
3. Oops, already cut them into slices
4. Shred--How on earth do you coarsely shred apples?  I tried a carrot shredder and a cheese grater.
5. Put on toaster oven tray.--I decided not to use the full-size oven.
6. Bake until tired of checking on the soggy mess.
7. There's no way I'm trying this or keeping the leftovers.

I told Matt and our friends that the apples weren't going to turn out very well, and they didn't have to try them. My friends graciously tried them, but Matt didn't.

Matt asked if I followed the recipe, and I immediately got defensive, felt guilty, and was angry with him for interfering.  My friend asked if I had put the butter on the tray.  Then, she asked if I had sprayed the tray to keep the apples from sticking.

I hadn't.  I know the label says the fat free cooking sprays have zero calories and zero fat, but there's a little note that says one of the ingredients adds a trivial amount of fat.  Therefore, my AN brain won, and I didn't spray the tray.

Matt responded that of course it didn't work without the butter.  My immediate response to that comment was to ask him if he was mad at me. 

My guests and Matt were gracious and kind for my failed apple snacks.

Confession #2:  I think I had already decided to find a way to not eat this recipe and therefore sabotaged it. 

When the apples didn't turn out perfectly, it seemed like an easy excuse to not try them.  Unfortunately, my kind friends tried them, and one even said it was like apple pie.  It's hard to justify not trying them after that.

I knew the apples weren't inedible, and they actually smelled pretty good.  But I told myself they weren't good, therefore I didn't have to eat them.  My justification in my head was that I already restrict and punish myself with food, so I refused to "waste" any of my calories on something that didn't look great and I didn't feel like eating. Therefore, I consciously chose not to try them.

Lesson #1:
Matt jokingly reminded me that the cookbook is already called More-with-Less.  He old me that I don't need to take out any ingredients because it's not like a mainstream cookbook asking me to add a bunch of junk to the recipe.  If the recipe calls for butter or onions, then use butter or onions.

The lesson here for me is that I do not need to be in charge.  I can trust the cookbook and the people with whom I will share the fellowship of the table.  I do not need to alter the recipe to "protect" myself from fat or ingredients that I may or may not like.   

My blog is called http://morewithmuchless.blogspot.com/ because that has been my worldview and decision-making motto, but I don't want to continue living from that paradigm.

Lesson #2:
I need to find a different way to decide what recipe I will cook next week.  I had already chosen one based on my previous requirements of:
1. Very few ingredients with very few calories or fat
2. Something that I can alter in some way

I have decided to choose three different recipes that I would actually like to try and then have Matt chose the order that I cook them for the next few weeks.

"The Fellowship of the Table"

Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting a sequel to the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings.  This is actually a section heading in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together published in 1954.

As I said in an earlier post, the idea behind the More-with-Less cookbook is to find ways to faithfully share our table and food, in the literal and metaphorical sense.  I've put together some quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, and Longacre.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

These quotes do not need me to expound upon them other than to say that as a Mennonite and someone who struggles with AN, I hope to find ways to faithfully eat my own daily bread, share my daily bread with others at my table, and remember that Jesus Christ is the Eternal daily bread for all.

Bonhoeffer, p. 67
"Every mealtime fills Christians with gratitude for the living, present Lord and God, Jesus Christ.  Not that they seek any morbid spiritualization of material gifts; on the contrary, Christians, in their wholehearted joy in the good gifts of this physical life, acknowledge their Lord as the true giver of all good gifts; and beyond this, as the true Gift; the true Bread of life itself; and finally, as the One who is calling them to the banquet of the Kingdom of God.  So in a singular way, the daily table fellowship binds the Christians to their Lord and one another."

Bonhoeffer, p. 68
"The table fellowship of Christians implies obligation.  It is our daily bread that we eat, not my own.  We share our bread.  Thus we are firmly bound to one another not only in the Spirit but in our whole physical being.  The one bread that is given to our fellowship links us together in a firm covenant.  Now none dares go hungry as long as another has bread, and he who breaks this fellowship of the physical life also breaks the fellowship of the Spirit."

 Longacre, p. 25
"As Christians dealing with human hurts, we have to remind ourselves again and again that we are not called to be successful, but to be faithful.  Our first directions come from the way Jesus told us to live, not from what we think will work...Wayne North, then a Mennonite pastor, made his point in an editorial entitled 'Can We Really Help Hunger?... For however they may have felt, the disciples responded in obedience.  They shared what was available.  Though it seemed totally inadequate, they brought the little lunch for distribution.  Their act of faith was to share and let God take responsibility for the rest."

 Bonhoeffer, p. 69
"So long as we eat our  bread together we shall have sufficient even with the least.  Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.  This is a strange divine law.  May not the story of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand with two fishes and five loaves, have, along with many others, this meaning also?
    The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage.  But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house."

Broccoli Rice

Part of the quote from Raymond Sokolov that introduces the topic of Main Dishes with Rice on p. 125:
    "In the short term, there is probably nothing anyone can do to forestall mass starvation in some
    rice-dependent areas.  But the very least we can do is to take a symbolic stand and cook rice with
    reverence...Perhaps we could even inaugurate our own rice ritual: a moment of silence for those
    who are not getting enough."

I wish that my thoughts about rice included reverence and a moment of silence for people who are not getting enough to eat.  That is my hope for future times of rice-cooking.

But last week and yesterday, my mind was ruminating on more mundane and eating disordered thoughts, mixed with glimmers of hope and excitement.

Now to the recipe:
The idea for this Blog came about through discussions over the years with my husband and took shape more specifically over Christmas vacation 2012.  I even picked out this recipe much earlier this year.  I chose it based on the ease of preparation and the relatively few and low-anxiety-causing ingredients.

It just took me awhile to get the courage to actually begin the process of cooking from this cookbook.  It also took me a little while longer to be completely sick of my diet of bread and yogurt!

This is what I decided to make:

Recipe #1: p. 128 Broccoli Rice

Sauté in small skillet:
    margarine
    chopped onion
Add:
    broccoli, cooked and drained
    grated cheese
    milk
    cooked rice
Bake for 45 minutes.


Back to the running commentary this past week and yesterday as I prepared to make the first recipe:

Last week: I have the option of just preparing the recipes and not actually eating them.  The challenge I posed on the blog says nothing specifically about me actually eating the food.

Last week: If I do eat it, I can just really overestimate the amount of calories in it, so that I will end up eating less calories than my regular diet.

Sunday night and Monday morning: I need to stop at the store and get skim milk because all we have left is 1 percent, and I don't want those additional 10 calories in the recipe.  I know that those 10 calories are going to get split between the whole recipe, and I'm only going to have a tiny bite, if any, but if I can get away with having less calories in it, then I will.  I'm also not going to do the part with margarine and onions because I don't like onions (or margarine because it adds fat to the recipe).

Monday 10:15 AM: I feel guilty that I am stopping at the store after teaching my class because I didn't ask Matt if he minded if I was 10 minutes later coming home.  I can justify it by saying that he encourages me to not ask his permission to do things that I need or want to do.

Monday 10:16 AM: Now that I'm in the store to get the milk, I notice that the small containers of yogurt that I'm trying to buy less of are on sale at this store.  But I don't have a basket or a cart...I can go get one...but then I'll be even later.  I'll just carry as many as I can and grab the milk on the way out.

Monday 10:28 AM: I feel guilty that I'm trying to get in the house and put away the groceries before Matt notices that I stopped at the store, but I know that I'm also going to tell him that I stopped.  I just don't want him to see that I bought more yogurt for me and feel disappointed in me.

Monday 1:00 PM: I feel like I should use nap time to cook this meal so that I'm not rushing at the end and in case anything goes wrong.

Monday 1:05 PM: Right now, I feel excited about cooking, and I plan to eat a small bite.  I feel strong and courageous.

Monday 1:07 PM: I feel pretty dumb that I'm looking up how to cut and cook broccoli on my Kindle.

Monday 1:10 PM: I feel energetic, enthusiastic, idealistic.  I should cook like this everyday!

Monday 1:30 PM: I notice a burning smell, but I think it's probably just water  going down the side of the rice pot.

Monday 1:32 PM: Yep, I burnt the rice.

Monday 1:34 PM: Why on earth did I decide to make this recipe on my busiest day of the week?  I teach, watch another family's baby, tutor (but not this week), and have people over for dinner.  Why did I decide to do this cooking project in the first place?  It's easier and faster to have sandwiches and just do what I know and what feels safe.

Monday 2:00 PM: The house still smells like burnt rice, but at least the broccoli is cooked, and the second pot of rice looks good.  But will the food turn out ok since I'm not going to cook the onions and margarine and then add the other ingredients?  What if I cook it, and it's a disaster?  Will Matt be mad that I changed the recipe?

 Monday 2:15 PM: I'm more obsessive about making sure that I've measured things correctly since I'm planning to eat this than when I make foods for other people.  Correction, I don't measure them correctly; I measure them to ensure that I skimp a little bit on all of the ingredients.  But I hope that the recipe still turns out alright.  I hope it's not a disaster and that I anger or disappoint people. 

Monday 4:00 PM: I don't feel too much anxiety right now thinking about tasting what I made.  I like the smell of the cooked broccoli and rice, and I'm proud of myself for making something new.  I'm also really proud that I didn't spend all week asking Matt to reassure me or make the decision to go ahead and follow-through with cooking the first recipe.  And I'm even more proud that I'm planning to taste it.  I feel kind of excited.

Monday 5:30-6:00 PM: I'm really enjoying the conversation with our friend who is over for dinner.  My mind is surprisingly focused on the conversation, and I am looking forward to trying the broccoli rice.

Monday 6:15 PM: Even though I only have a dollop of plain yogurt and a miniscule bite of broccoli rice on my plate, I feel like part of the fellowship of the meal.  The broccoli rice is pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Monday 7:00 PM: I know that I barely ate enough of the recipe to justify it in my calories for the day, but since I already planned to, and I feel a little anxiety about not counting it, I will adjust my calories for today.  I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't risk trying a little bit more of the broccoli rice or at least more accurately estimating its caloric content.

Monday 7:00-10:00 PM: I'm surprisingly calm, not-obsessive, and really enjoying my evening.

Monday 10:16 PM: Well, I'm going to bed.  I count it a success that I didn't let my negative, obsessive thoughts keep me from following through with preparing and tasting my first recipe.  But did Matt and my friend like the recipe?  Did they notice that I ate any?  Were they proud of me for trying it, or were they disappointed that I didn't risk a bigger challenge?

Copyright and recipes

I don't know copyright laws, and even if I did, I don't feel very comfortable posting entire recipes that I cook.  So, I will post the ingredients and the cooking preparation and process without specific amounts and times.  I will also give you the page number that corresponds with the book edition that I have--Updated Edition, Copyright 2011.

I like to support Mennonites in meaningful work, and I encourage people who are interested to purchase the More-with-Less cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre.

It's available on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/More-With-Less-Cookbook-World-Community/dp/083619263X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370974866&sr=8-1&keywords=more+with+less+cookbook

National Doughnut Day

"Be willing to celebrate.  Around the world, people who must live on monotonous diets still manage an occasional celebration.  Undoubtedly their celebrations bring enjoyment in proportion to how much they vary from the daily routine.

The four Gospels show Jesus entering wholeheartedly into times of joy and feasting.  We celebrate with family and friends when a holiday or special occasion brings us together.  But the fact that in North America we tend to feast nonstop can dull our festive joy.  We feel guilty about a Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings when we have not lived responsibly in the weeks preceding it.  We require more and more trimming to turn any celebration into a meal distinguishable from our daily diet.

A wedding, a daughter or son's homecoming from far away, an aged parent's birthday, Christmas or Easter--food can help express what these days mean to us.  But there are simple ways to turn meals into celebrations.  Hold in clear perspective the reason for celebrating.  Don't expect food to be the total experience.  More with less means affirming faith and relationships as the basis for celebrating, and letting food play a complementary role."
                                 p. 26-27 Doris Janzen Longacre More-with-Less (italics added for emphasis)


 Today is National Doughnut Day.

The only reason I am aware of this holiday is because I heard a short blurb about it on National Public Radio (NPR) the other day.  The story explained how Dunkin' Donuts will begin offering its new sandwich on National Doughnut Day: fried eggs and bacon on a glazed doughnut.

Intrigued by National Doughnut Day, I began my scholarly research via Wikipedia and Google searches to learn about this day and other food days.

Here's what I discovered:
"National Doughnut Day started in 1938^[1] as a fund raiser for Chicago's The Salvation Army. Their goal was to help the needy during the Great Depression, and to honor The Salvation Army "Lassies" of World War I, who served doughnuts to soldiers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Doughnut_Day

Many countries have specially recognized food days.
Italy has National Espresso Day.
The Netherlands have National Pancake Day.

Depending on which list you look at, the U.S. has somewhere between 175 and over 300 food days.  Some days even have two special foods.  August 2 is National Ice Cream Sandwich day and National Ice Cream Soda Day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_days
http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/National_Symbols/American_Hollidays.html

We have essentially made National Doughnut Day's real meaning irrelevant because we've created so many other pointless days.
The reason for celebrating has been lost.  We don't know that we're supposed to be honoring the women who volunteered with the Salvation Army.  We're just having a doughnut.

And to compound the issue, we're "just having a doughnut" many mornings.   One statistic claims that more than 10 billion doughnuts are eaten every year in the U.S.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_doughnut_get_eaten_each_year

As Longacre pointed out, "celebrations bring enjoyment in proportion to how much they vary from the daily routine."  If we have a doughnut every morning, the celebration is lost when it comes time for National Doughnut Day.

Not only do we not remember the reason we're celebrating, our joy has been dulled so that a regular glazed doughnut won't satisfy.  We have to continually create new exciting doughnuts, like the egg, bacon, glazed doughnut to make the celebration feel any different than a regular day.

I eat almost the exact same thing every single day of the year

Since my first post was quite a long introduction to myself and the project that I am beginning on this blog, I plan to post a shorter piece today.

First, if you don't know much about eating disorders, there are certain aspects about them that make them similar to alcoholism or drug addictions.  They are primarily a mental illness, but they manifest in ways that affect the physical body.  People who have a substance addiction, and people who have eating disorders can be triggered by things they see, hear, taste, smell, touch, think about, remember, etc.  When a person is triggered, they have a strong desire to engage in their addiction.  For me, it actually causes physical feelings and sensations in my body.

While I cannot predict what will trigger other people with eating disorders, I will follow the guidelines used in group therapy sessions for people with eating disorders.  To the best of my ability, I will not do the following things on my blog:
1. Use numbers when talking about my weight currently or in the past
2. Use specific calorie amounts when I talk about food--mine or other people's
3. Use words that rank the severity of my eating disorder or the eating disorder of other people

That being said, you still need to have a vague picture of what a typical week of food looks like for me, so that you can understand the challenge and risk that I intend to undertake.

The following list is what my entire diet consists of: (See a future post for musings on the word diet).
flatbread, English muffins, yogurt, green beans, cheese, frozen meals, tuna, chicken lunch meat, vegan burgers, applesauce, oatmeal

Except for the applesauce, all of my food come pre-packaged, with a specific calorie amount clearly labeled on the package.  This is to allow myself to ensure that I get the calorie amount that I say that I am getting.  I also rarely, if ever, eat food that other people have prepared.

So, my husband has never made a meal for me.  We've been married ten years as of last month.  While this may sound very nice to some people who don't like to cook, I know that he would love the opportunity to make me a meal because it would mean that I trust him to make food for me.  (See a future post for musings about trust.)

While providing some benefits to my health and well-being, my diet also allows me to stay in a rut, to continue my addiction/habit, to not try new things, to let my anxiety get the best of me.  I have anxiety just thinking about making a change to my diet.

When I get coupons for Subway, I really want to use them and eat a sub sandwich.  But the mental energy that I expend deciding how I will change my meal plan, thinking about how I will feel, feeling sad about the food that I won't eat because I'm eating the sub instead, thinking about if I really like Subway...it gets to be overwhelming.

So, for the time being, I eat almost the exact same thing every single day of the year, and it's a very limited list of foods.

I'm tired of my diet.  I miss other foods.

This is not the only reason for taking on this project, my challenge to cook a new meal every week from More-with-Less, but it is part of the impetus.

Here's to fresh fruit, beans, salad, grilled chicken, ice cream, rice, crackers, chili, soup...

More-with-Much-Less: An Anorexic's Guide to Mennonite Cooking

My name is Michelle, and I am a thirty two year old Mennonite who has anorexia nervosa (AN), and I almost didn't become a Mennonite because of the food. 

I have been officially diagnosed with AN for longer than I have considered myself a Mennonite.  I grew up in a Christian home and made two professions of faith as a child and a teenager, but I did not become aware of the Mennonite tradition until my husband was working on his Master of Divinity and I was teaching Spanish in New Jersey.

Actually, in my undergraduate years at Oklahoma Baptist University, I went to church with a girl who was a traditional Mennonite with the long hair and long skirts.  Like most people, I knew Mennonites had something to do with the Amish, but I didn't know much else.

 But during our years in NJ, as my husband worked on his MDiv and I continued my contract as a member of the Army National Guard band, I began thinking about what I believed as a Christian and how that lined up with what my church professed and lived.  I was intrigued by Mennonite theology and practices, and when we knew we would be moving to Waco, Texas, we found a church that seemed perfect.  It was a small, Spanish/English bilingual, Mennonite church.  But like I said at the beginning of this post, I almost didn't become Mennonite because of the food.

When my husband and I began an e-mail discussion with the pastors of the church, I liked a lot of the ideas, but as soon as I read that they ate breakfast together every Sunday morning, I began thinking of excuses for not attending.  The real reason was that I didn't want to eat food other people had prepared.

Over the 16 years that I have had active eating disorder behaviors and symptoms, the disorder has had various phases.  I went through the very low fat diet, overexercising, eating a certain amount of calories, eating only certain types of foods, eating all of my food in the evening, eating all of my food early in the day, avoiding specific foods, picking at my food, eating only food that I prepared, eating only foods that come from a can or box, etc.

At the point that we were moving to Waco, I was in a phase of not eating much during the day and having anxiety about eating food other people prepared.  The food wasn't the only reason Matt and I didn't attend Hope Fellowship as soon as we moved to Waco, but it was the reason that I didn't go out of my way to attend the church.

While attending a traditional, mainline denomination church for several months that was within walking distance to our apartment,  Matt and I had several conversations about joining the church.  They all went something like this:
"We should join."
"Yeah, we should."

The speaker is interchangeable. And the outcome was always the same. The conversation ended there.

There was nothing inherently wrong with the church we were attending.  In many ways, it was just what we were looking for, if we were looking for a traditional church.  And it didn't hurt that they didn't eat breakfast together every Sunday, at least in the mind of a woman struggling with AN :-).

But we longed for a different understanding and vision of what it means to be a Christian and a disciple of Jesus Christ.  I wanted it enough that I was willing to "put up" with food.  So, I re-read the e-mails from the Mennonite church, and we made our first appearance on a Sunday in December of 2006.

It was completely unlike any church that we had ever attended, and my reaction was to think, "It's weird enough to feel right."  Over the years of involvement with the church and the decision to become members, I can now more clearly, if not more eloquently, explain what it is about the church and Mennonite theology that draws me, but I will explain that in future blogs.

For now, I will say that at first the food kept me away, and now the food keeps me there.  Sometimes it is the literal food.  Although I still struggle to eat food that other people prepare and usually don't eat during meals with my church body, I love sharing time around the table with other people.  And the metaphorical food, the body and blood of Christ, tethers me to this specific church and these specific disciples of Jesus.


One of the main tensions that kept us from joining the first church we attended in Waco was the lack of relevance that the Sunday activities seemed to have on the rest of the week and the daily lives of the church attendees.  I wanted a church that was my life, a way to live what I believe.

I didn't want to talk about "the poor" like they weren't part of our body, or maybe even us ourselves.  I didn't want to talk about living with less material wealth, I wanted to have less stuff.
I didn't want to talk about ethics, I wanted to live ethics.

But not growing up Mennonite, I didn't even realize that there was/is an ethic involved with food.  As someone with AN, I made all of my decisions based on restriction.  I restricted food, and I restricted money.  So, I chose foods based on two criteria: less calories and less money

The first time I heard the title of the Mennonite cookbook More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre, I felt anxious.  I looked at it briefly enough to get a vague understanding of the book: Mennonites need to realize that our decisions about what we eat affect other people. 

I knew that I was not in a healthy enough place with my recovery to read/use the book.  From past experiences, I knew that I would use the book against myself.  It would only add to the guilt that I constantly put upon myself about food and the way that I was living and the person that I was.  I would use the book as a personal mandate to eat less food (as if I needed another voice telling me that!).  I already knew all about the idea of "less".  I was great at it! 

A well-intentioned paragraph out of the preface would have been another whip used for self-flagellation.  Janzen says, "MCC has asked each constituent household to look at its lifestyle, particularly food habits.  Noting the relationship between North American overconsumption and world need, a goal has been set to eat and spend 10 percent less" p. 13.

This paragraph would have been enough to send me into an inner world of turmoil, anxiety, and guilt.  I would want to save the world's poor by not eating my dinner.  I would want to save more money by buying less food. I would include myself in the "North American overconsumption" as I slowly wasted away on less and less food.

If you know anything about the cookbook, the idea is not about restricting, guilt, or self-punishment.  But I would not have been able to understand this if I had read it earlier.  Janzen's statement, "There is a way of wasting less, eating less, and spending less which gives not less but more," would have been completely lost on me.

Now, I feel healthy enough mentally, if not physically, to undertake this project.  I intend to read the book and cook one of the recipes each week and blog about my experience.  You might wonder what the point of this is.  Sometimes, I wonder the same thing.  But I think it is important as Mennonites and other Christians think about the ethics of food, hunger, and the poor, that we do not shape the conversation around the idea of guilt.

I want Mennonites to remember that there are those amongst us who already restrict our food but not for theological reasons.  I want to help myself and others have a conversation about what it means to eat together, share with those in need, and eat the body of Christ and drink the blood of Christ when we take communion together.