You are what you eat - but are we really?

Interestingly enough was not only our last teacher training weekend all about nutrition and digestion but a friend also gave me the book 'Eating animals' for my birthday - so in some way the universe was telling me to have a think about my food intake. Actually breastfeeding has not only increased my appetite tremendously but also had me thinking about nutrition before as everything you eat affects the little baby you are nursing. And since our boy was showing signs of a skin rash that the doctor unfortunately diagnosed as an early stage of neurodermitis, I quickly decided to try what a natural health professional was recommending: stop eating wheat and cows milk for a while. I have to admit, it sounded easier than it was at first. And in my yoga training I learned why - our habits are so, so difficult to change, especially eating habits. There is actually a mechanism, called the limbic system, that prevents us from simply implementing the things we planned to do. This is why, at night you might be very determined to stop drinking coffee but the next morning, there seems to be nothing you can do about having that first cup of coffee like you always have. This mechanism keeps questioning the use of doing something out of the ordinary and thus cements your habits, so immediately when you hear something like - why don't you have tea instead of coffee, the brain kicks in and says, but what's the point? Doesn't tea have the same amount of caffeine, is the change really worth it? What's in it for me? So you really need a good incentive in order to change a grown habit.
Our yoga teacher gave us the homework of testing our limbic system and sticking to a yogic diet for 3 days. There were a couple of options, the most radical was not eating at all and just drinking tea and water or eating melons only. In Kundalini the diets tend to be 'mono diets' meaning, you stick to one type of food only. For instance there is a diet called the banana diet that allows you to eat as many bananas a day as you like and supposedly it's good for detoxifying and getting rid of left over drug substances in your metabolism. Anyway, after shying away from the mung bean - rice- vegetable diet because it sounded like too much cooking and hassle, I decided to stick to a simple option: eating only fruits, vegetables and nuts for three days. That sounded very doable since nuts are very rich and you can also have bananas and potatoes or avocados to feel full (and like I said, it seems like I have to eat non-stop ever since I had the baby). Yet, my experience was that it was much more difficult than I thought and there wasn't one day that I could fully stick to these types of food only. The first day I had a latte in the morning as I was meeting someone from work, at night I caught myself eating the left over oats from the baby's porridge and while it was easy enough to snack on dried fruits and nuts, I still needed some type of dairy, mainly soy milk, to have with my tea. Still, I realized that there is a wide variety of foods that are not usually in my repertoire and that it's not that hard to make a change after all. It's possible but it requires a strong will and some discipline. All too quickly do we want to give up and just say, oh well, I already made a mistake, so why not go back to the old state then? I also noticed that I tend to eat without paying attention to what I am putting into my mouth- snacking in between meals mainly - so I am now trying not to multitask as much and set an example for the little one, actually setting the table, sitting down with him and enjoying the food as it deserves to get some attention. Going back to the book I am reading - it's not just advocating vegetarianism as one might suspect, given its title. It is a very well-written account of how the food industry works in the US (and most western countries for that matter), includes a great amount of well-researched facts but at the same time does not guild-trip you into feeling bad for whatever you are eating. The author does an excellent job bringing in his own perspective and he actually started writing this book because he was going to become a father... Anyway, more to come on that.