really loved this and related so much - it feels like as a vegan or vegetarian you constantly need to let people know it’s not “for health reasons” or not only for health reasons, that there’s still decadence, etc. feel like it’s also tied to (and maybe this is a stretch, but true for me) being a woman who is a feminist, who is trying to eschew “diet culture,” and learning how to eat intuitively etc. but sometimes your body just really does want to eat a salad!!!
Yessss I almost got into a point about it being internalized misogyny / a fear of the feminine to eat “lighter” even if it’s what my body actually needs. Being vegetarian / vegan already comes with this baggage!
I’m in my first oatmeal phase (for a year or so, now). I make slow oats mixed with Uncle Bob’s meusli and half a chopped, organic apple—every morning. We’ll see if I tire of it! I have type 2 diabetes, diagnosed about a year ago, so this is my attempt to have a healthy breakfast of fibre and no sugar (other than the apple). The conflicting directions about what to eat and avoid from various traditional and alternative healthcare practitioners is... frustrating. No bread. Or only sourdough. Or gluten-free. Or no bread. Pasta only made from beans or quinoa or spelt (wheat free). Pasta, as long as it’s been refrigerated after being cooked. No pasta. Oats, but not the quick kind, and certainly not the sweetened, prepackaged kind (which makes sense).
There’s a new documentary mini-series just released that studies vegan vs. omnivorous diets in twins, called You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment (Netflix, 2024). Hard not to want to embrace a plant-based diet after watching that!
One caveat: a foodie friend flagged it as being pro-vegan advertising (because of who’s funding it), so maybe take it with a grain of (Himalayan sea) salt. One critic called it “dietary evangelism,” but I still found it interesting and informative.
This was lovely to read - as I've experienced before reading you, it's as if you plunged into my brain and extracted my own experiences and memories and thoughts!
I go through phases with food, too, and I've written, too, about how frightened it used to make me - to notice something like what you've mentioned: "oh no I don't feel like my porridge, what does this mean, am I depressed, am I overfed, am I not exercising enough, I won't get adequate nutrition if I diverge from my eating habits" etc etc.
Nowadays, I have that initial noticing, and then I just go: okay it's peanut butter and banana smoothie breakfast today! Clearly my body is just telling me, for whatever reason, that it's over the oats for now and wants something fresher or lighter - just go with it, and see what happens. And what will happen is that we feel like oats again at some point, probably, or we won't ever, and that's fine. A new thing will take its place ( and I think we are in the habit of driving ourselves demented always trying to hone in on the 'why' of things, overanalysing instead of just noticing and going with what we're asking of ourselves in this moment. The questioning can have its place when we're doing it out of curiosity rather than in a panic as to what this change means about us. It's all of a piece with struggling to accept that we cannot and will not ever get a handle on who we "are", because who we "are" changes so many times throughout our lives! To release control over needing to stay in our box of whatever identity or template we once assigned to ourselves, or others assigned to us, to shrug off this need to never change incase we're a liar or a hypocrite - that represents an ultimate freedom to me ).
Tuning into what we actually feel like v what we want to feel like, and just doing it, or not doing it, is actually a surefire way to get back to authentically feeling like the initial thing we're worrying about not feeling like anymore ... if that makes sense?! Basically, I think I mean, if I stop eating porridge as soon as I notice I'm over it - rather than ploughing on, continuing to make it each morning, feeling more and more dead inside throughout the whole process, barely tasting it when i spoon it into my disinterested mouth, just going through the motions, rather than restored and glad of the routine and nourished by the food - I'll want porridge again at some stage, probably even some stage soon, cos I won't associate it with carrying on with some bullshit I didn't want for now, but wasn't confident enough to take a break from! When we tune into the fact that these sorts of phases and waves happen in literally every facet of our lives all the time, we stop worrying about it so much each time and just say: cool, this is what I'm up to for now. Being so stuck to rigid routines and identities that I can't loosen out of when it's obvious a small change is maybe needed is actually a surefire way I know I'm not doing great in some emotional way; it's a habit I slip back into when grief or panic or overwhelm or some other beyond my control thing has a hold of me, and I'm continuing to battle against them, rather than succumb to what they're asking of me. I recognise this because those rigid ways are what I've tried to maintain during some of the saddest and frightening times in my life. They can become an anchor when we're anchorless. When I don't really NEED them but am choosing them of my own volition, I take it as a good sign.
This is also where I think a lot about the danger of overly romanticising rituals and routines - I obviously love rituals and routines, they're v important and grounding for me, but I think they need to be balanced with spontanaeity and the ability to throw everything up in the air and see what lands - and this balance is something very hard and scary to get to, and so I think we maybe overly fixate on traditions and rituals for the sake of them rather than really feeling them or knowing why we're doing them. I think it's all just a case of asking: am I on autopilot and not really getting anything from this and am doing it just cos I once did or cos someone on Instagram said they do it, or have I consciously curated my rituals specifically for myself, for meaning and utility that's tailored for me for right now in this moment of my life?
Alicia, leave it to me to get philosophical and digressive about porridge and smoothies on a Monday morning ... Sorry for the ramble, I try to hold myself back a lot of the time, but sometimes I don't manage it, ie: I let myself not manage it lolol
I always love your comments, Kelly!!! Thank you for thinking aloud with me. It’s such an interesting thing, how our routines and diets become fixtures of our identities, especially when we make any “alternative” choices. And yes, always need room for spontaneity--I kind of have none right now 🫠 need to adjust that!
I appreciate so much that you appreciate my comments! Writing back to your essays/reflections is one of not many times that I don't feel like "too much" when I go on and on, and it's because you're open and happy to receive them!
I loved reading this reflection! Oatmeal was my vegan breakfast of choice, and I've come to associate it with the restrictive eating practices I was engaging in at that time. In the last two years, though, I've come back to it (as a more hearty bowl of food this time, though). With fatty yogurt, nuts and fruit, it keeps me energized all morning, which I need, working on my feet. Though I keep my workday breakfast very straightforward and low-fuss, I do always make pour-over coffee and I like to carve out time to read, or do a crossword puzzle, while I'm having my first cup of coffee. Getting up early enough to ensure I have time for a little leisure before the workday is important to me.
In LA I was a smoothie person but I moved to London in the fall and I don't want smoothies anymore. I'm in a downward spiral of comfort flaky pastries and what I was is croissants. They seem to always be around. It is too cold here for smoothies but I miss the ease of protein, fiber, good fats, antioxidants in one little cup. I don't want oatmeal anymore but oatmeal was a life I knew too much by heart. So I'm eating the fucking croissants now.
I think it’s all about weather vibes and tuning into your environment. In the tropics, something cold and light makes sense. I’ll eat croissants in Montreal soon!
A personally relatable column, which is always a pleasure to read. I've been mentally punishing myself for failure to be healthier, but, as you say, being stuck in capitalism isn't a personal choice. It is something I need to do better adapting to.
One of my core principles is the truth is unknowable. We can triangulate around truth but even the search for it changes us and it. We're left to make the best decisions we can with the information we have available at the time. We change, we find new truths because we have new information, perspective, and insight. That is what it is to be human.
Was just thinking yesterday about how much I enjoy the ritual of making pour-over coffee in the morning. Most days are usually some kind of eggless breakfast sandwich on whole wheat toast, with a side of yogurt topped w/granola and dried fruits. But having nursed two kids--I over-identify with people who find a routine changing because it's what your body wants. While I haven't had oatmeal in near 8 years, my kids are into it--especially in the winter. On weekends, we love "elevenses" (s/o to the Hobbits). Rituals of time and leisure are nice.
NOT someone with a breakfast routine (I'm not really a breakfast eater, but trying to change that a little), but someone who's an alum of Bates College and is so outlandishly jealous about what their MLK Day programming looks like this year. Best of luck! Students will ask great questions, I'm sure--it's a wonderful place.
I can't eat the same thing for breakfast every day and am intrigued by those who can (so that first day you were unable to eat oatmeal for brekky - would call that "Tuesday"). However I must start my day with a litre of a very specific blend of tea, brewed in a very specific pot and poured into a very specific cup or I feel utterly unhinged.
My breakfast routine has been oatmeal for years! I've changed it over the years but for the last 6 months it's been quick cook oats with peanut butter, and I'm going to start adding hemp hearts as a way to get more protein. It helps me stay full and avoid mindless snacking or binge eating. Coincidentally, my husband and I have smoothies for dinner most weeknights. Many people find this odd, but it is a great source of protein (we use soy milk and peanut butter) and it's the primary way I consume my greens (lots of kale or spinach blended in). We prefer to eat large lunches and usually cook together for the meal prep. Despite the consistent oatmeal and smoothies, we never deprive ourselves and they are a great source of daily nutrients.
I grew up in Puerto Rico eating the traditional American breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, and coffee with milk (more like milk with coffee). We did that for years, with the occasional cold cereal, or oatmeal/cream of rice alternative, and continued doing it throughout adulthood, until a spontaneous trip to France in 1994. My wife and I stepped up to an outdoor breakfast buffet in Nice, where we found multiple kinds of freshly baked bread, butter and three choices of fruit jam. I'd never seen that many kinds of bread! There were no eggs to be found but we didn't miss them, the breads were warm, moist, and sumptuous, we loved the alternating jam flavors, and the coffee was fantastic. From there we went to Arles, where we found the same varied and delicious egg/meat-less buffet, as well as two lovely older ladies who greeted us every morning with "Bon jour, monsieur et dame, voulez-vous café u chocolat ?" I don't speak French but knew enough to reply "Café et chocolat !" We never looked back. For the next thirty years we've enjoyed a breakfast of black coffee (aka: Americano), with a varied choice of breads, butter and jams. Oatmeal will find its way in but only as an occasional alternative (always with nuts and fruit). Levain, El Horno de Pane and Panoteca San Miguel (and occasionally Pepín and Lemy) provide the bread varieties (Panoteca once made an incredible plum/nut bread that was to die for, but I've yet to find it available again), and there are plentiful sources for the jam, whether local (guayaba, guanábana, pomarosa), imported (thank you, Marshalls!) or home made (guayaba, yellow pomegranate and Madagascar plum). I've never though of our breakfast menu choice as reflective of who we are and/or where we're going, but I can't disagree there is a connection. After all, everything we do is a mirror, whether we recognize it or not. For me, switching breakfast menus wasn't so much opting for something new but rather refusing to continue following the meat/sugar/dairy dogma. We're not vegetarians, and can enjoy all three of those at the right moment and in the right amounts, but only if the choice is ours. Again, what we choose to eat is yet another form of self-expression, be it personal, political or gastronomical.
For decades, I ate Weetabix every morning with a glass of orange juice and sometimes fruit added to the cereal and milk. When I moved to America, Weetabix wasn't available at first, so I tried other cereals. Nothing was quite right. I was greatly relieved when I could find Weetabix at my local natural food store.
Then about 10 years ago, I first gave up the orange juice for water and then I gave up Weetabix as it lost its appeal. Now, my breakfast most mornings is bananas and blueberries with peanuts and yogurt.
I made and ate smoothies as a treat at the weekend (mine were typically banana, berries, orange juice, yogurt, peanut or almond butter and flaxseed meal). In 2014, I had to eat smoothies when I had my front teeth replaced and now they are not a treat anymore.
I worry about nutrition and eating healthily, which is both helped and hindered because I studied human nutrition. My nutritional and health worries have increased in the last 30 years. As I have aged, my metabolism slowed down, and overtime I adapted to an American lifestyle, especially not walking everywhere and larger serving sizes.
I attempt to purchase food that is grown locally or made using ethical practices, except that is hard to do with what is available in south NJ. Sometimes I have to balance where and how a food was made with what its contents.
This is a beautiful essay of a comment, Cathy, and provides so much to think about. I'll be honest that it's definitely since I turned 35 and moved to Puerto Rico, where I walk a lot less than I did living in Brooklyn, that a lot of these things have come to the forefront for me. We do what we can! I think intention is more important than people give it credit for—we need to intend to do our best, and we need to be malleable about what that actually is.
In the new year I've started making my smoothie the night before and stirring in two scoops of oats. So it's sort of like overnight oats smoothie. Then I can take it out of the fridge first thing in the morning and by the time I'm ready to eat/drink it, it's not so cold that it triggers my Reynaud's syndrome. It's complicated... But sometimes I just want coffee and a croissant!
I ate oats for breakfast every morning for about 8 years. And give or take the odd vacation or weekend away I was happy with that. I can remember one morning a couple of weeks after I retired that I sat at my table with my oats and my brain went “nope not eating that “. I am not sure what happened but my routine was changed forever.
I wondered if my burned out brain/spirit needed to get away from all things associated to the routines of my work life ? It’s curious 👀 to have something switch isn’t it !
Love your writing and love that I get to explore my own issues relating to food,body,privilege and my own place in this.
I think oatmeal is just something that becomes indeed so routine and so associated with productivity that one day, we just need to switch it up! Thank you for sharing this!
loved this so much. have recently been dealing with some health stuff (ah, to be 39 with a gallbladder filled with stones!) that means i've needed to be more restrictive in my diet than I've ever been before and it's been so strange to realize how this restriction is getting perceived by others. i'm personally mildly devastated about it from a taste and pleasure perspective, but also it's been incredible to not be in pain. when i explain to other folks tho, i've found one of two reactions: 1) incredulity that cutting out dairy and most fats (sob) will make a change or isn't due to something other than health 2) something bordering on jealousy that a change generally seen as restrictive (or wrapped up in diet culture) has become relatively easy for me to make because the alternative is feeling like crap. anyway! oatmeal, ironically, has been treating me well lately.
Gahhh, I’m so sorry about the health stuff but so glad you’ve found a way of eating that’ll work for you! The perceptions of how and what people eat... wild. Definitely going to write about this more, because a lot of preconceived notions need to be more deeply interrogated from a perspective that understands the necessity of pleasure.
This really resonated in a bananas timely way and I really really appreciate it! I always appreciate getting to read your words and they linger to tickle my brain for so long but boy oh boy!I have also been a daily morning oatmeal eater for about 6 years now, a habit born from a time of intense tummy troubles and a need to find safe foods, intense mental turmoil and a need to find routine to ground, an intense life in the acting industry that brought all of the food/health/wellness pressures it’s infamous for, and undergoing 2nd Puberty: Testosterone Edition that really threw the body for a loop. That reliable bit of routine has really felt like an important part of getting to know my body and what it needs and having a reliable form of taking care of myself that I don’t have to think about too hard. Now that I’m in an all around more stable place I have felt a tug to try something different and maybe change the routine, but whenever I consider it it’s met with the nagging fear that a break from the routine will also mean breaking from all the other healthy habits and skills I’ve built (even if I know that’s not necessarily true at all!), not to mention the anxieties that come from a history of disordered eating and being raised as a femme in the world! And it makes me feel wild when as a “food person” - primarily a baker no less - I am always making things for people or talking and writing about food and I feel like I have to act like constructing my own meal landscape isn’t a series of mental gymnastics. Yes, I do love to make these cakes I make and bread is my passion! But also the way I consume them myself is complicated! Anyway thank you and yes and thank you for making me feel not so alone in all this that has been so front of mind!!!
really loved this and related so much - it feels like as a vegan or vegetarian you constantly need to let people know it’s not “for health reasons” or not only for health reasons, that there’s still decadence, etc. feel like it’s also tied to (and maybe this is a stretch, but true for me) being a woman who is a feminist, who is trying to eschew “diet culture,” and learning how to eat intuitively etc. but sometimes your body just really does want to eat a salad!!!
Yessss I almost got into a point about it being internalized misogyny / a fear of the feminine to eat “lighter” even if it’s what my body actually needs. Being vegetarian / vegan already comes with this baggage!
yes omg exactly this!!!!
yes!!
I’m in my first oatmeal phase (for a year or so, now). I make slow oats mixed with Uncle Bob’s meusli and half a chopped, organic apple—every morning. We’ll see if I tire of it! I have type 2 diabetes, diagnosed about a year ago, so this is my attempt to have a healthy breakfast of fibre and no sugar (other than the apple). The conflicting directions about what to eat and avoid from various traditional and alternative healthcare practitioners is... frustrating. No bread. Or only sourdough. Or gluten-free. Or no bread. Pasta only made from beans or quinoa or spelt (wheat free). Pasta, as long as it’s been refrigerated after being cooked. No pasta. Oats, but not the quick kind, and certainly not the sweetened, prepackaged kind (which makes sense).
There’s a new documentary mini-series just released that studies vegan vs. omnivorous diets in twins, called You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment (Netflix, 2024). Hard not to want to embrace a plant-based diet after watching that!
I have to check the series out!
One caveat: a foodie friend flagged it as being pro-vegan advertising (because of who’s funding it), so maybe take it with a grain of (Himalayan sea) salt. One critic called it “dietary evangelism,” but I still found it interesting and informative.
This was lovely to read - as I've experienced before reading you, it's as if you plunged into my brain and extracted my own experiences and memories and thoughts!
I go through phases with food, too, and I've written, too, about how frightened it used to make me - to notice something like what you've mentioned: "oh no I don't feel like my porridge, what does this mean, am I depressed, am I overfed, am I not exercising enough, I won't get adequate nutrition if I diverge from my eating habits" etc etc.
Nowadays, I have that initial noticing, and then I just go: okay it's peanut butter and banana smoothie breakfast today! Clearly my body is just telling me, for whatever reason, that it's over the oats for now and wants something fresher or lighter - just go with it, and see what happens. And what will happen is that we feel like oats again at some point, probably, or we won't ever, and that's fine. A new thing will take its place ( and I think we are in the habit of driving ourselves demented always trying to hone in on the 'why' of things, overanalysing instead of just noticing and going with what we're asking of ourselves in this moment. The questioning can have its place when we're doing it out of curiosity rather than in a panic as to what this change means about us. It's all of a piece with struggling to accept that we cannot and will not ever get a handle on who we "are", because who we "are" changes so many times throughout our lives! To release control over needing to stay in our box of whatever identity or template we once assigned to ourselves, or others assigned to us, to shrug off this need to never change incase we're a liar or a hypocrite - that represents an ultimate freedom to me ).
Tuning into what we actually feel like v what we want to feel like, and just doing it, or not doing it, is actually a surefire way to get back to authentically feeling like the initial thing we're worrying about not feeling like anymore ... if that makes sense?! Basically, I think I mean, if I stop eating porridge as soon as I notice I'm over it - rather than ploughing on, continuing to make it each morning, feeling more and more dead inside throughout the whole process, barely tasting it when i spoon it into my disinterested mouth, just going through the motions, rather than restored and glad of the routine and nourished by the food - I'll want porridge again at some stage, probably even some stage soon, cos I won't associate it with carrying on with some bullshit I didn't want for now, but wasn't confident enough to take a break from! When we tune into the fact that these sorts of phases and waves happen in literally every facet of our lives all the time, we stop worrying about it so much each time and just say: cool, this is what I'm up to for now. Being so stuck to rigid routines and identities that I can't loosen out of when it's obvious a small change is maybe needed is actually a surefire way I know I'm not doing great in some emotional way; it's a habit I slip back into when grief or panic or overwhelm or some other beyond my control thing has a hold of me, and I'm continuing to battle against them, rather than succumb to what they're asking of me. I recognise this because those rigid ways are what I've tried to maintain during some of the saddest and frightening times in my life. They can become an anchor when we're anchorless. When I don't really NEED them but am choosing them of my own volition, I take it as a good sign.
This is also where I think a lot about the danger of overly romanticising rituals and routines - I obviously love rituals and routines, they're v important and grounding for me, but I think they need to be balanced with spontanaeity and the ability to throw everything up in the air and see what lands - and this balance is something very hard and scary to get to, and so I think we maybe overly fixate on traditions and rituals for the sake of them rather than really feeling them or knowing why we're doing them. I think it's all just a case of asking: am I on autopilot and not really getting anything from this and am doing it just cos I once did or cos someone on Instagram said they do it, or have I consciously curated my rituals specifically for myself, for meaning and utility that's tailored for me for right now in this moment of my life?
Alicia, leave it to me to get philosophical and digressive about porridge and smoothies on a Monday morning ... Sorry for the ramble, I try to hold myself back a lot of the time, but sometimes I don't manage it, ie: I let myself not manage it lolol
I always love your comments, Kelly!!! Thank you for thinking aloud with me. It’s such an interesting thing, how our routines and diets become fixtures of our identities, especially when we make any “alternative” choices. And yes, always need room for spontaneity--I kind of have none right now 🫠 need to adjust that!
I appreciate so much that you appreciate my comments! Writing back to your essays/reflections is one of not many times that I don't feel like "too much" when I go on and on, and it's because you're open and happy to receive them!
I loved reading this reflection! Oatmeal was my vegan breakfast of choice, and I've come to associate it with the restrictive eating practices I was engaging in at that time. In the last two years, though, I've come back to it (as a more hearty bowl of food this time, though). With fatty yogurt, nuts and fruit, it keeps me energized all morning, which I need, working on my feet. Though I keep my workday breakfast very straightforward and low-fuss, I do always make pour-over coffee and I like to carve out time to read, or do a crossword puzzle, while I'm having my first cup of coffee. Getting up early enough to ensure I have time for a little leisure before the workday is important to me.
Love this!
In LA I was a smoothie person but I moved to London in the fall and I don't want smoothies anymore. I'm in a downward spiral of comfort flaky pastries and what I was is croissants. They seem to always be around. It is too cold here for smoothies but I miss the ease of protein, fiber, good fats, antioxidants in one little cup. I don't want oatmeal anymore but oatmeal was a life I knew too much by heart. So I'm eating the fucking croissants now.
I think it’s all about weather vibes and tuning into your environment. In the tropics, something cold and light makes sense. I’ll eat croissants in Montreal soon!
A personally relatable column, which is always a pleasure to read. I've been mentally punishing myself for failure to be healthier, but, as you say, being stuck in capitalism isn't a personal choice. It is something I need to do better adapting to.
One of my core principles is the truth is unknowable. We can triangulate around truth but even the search for it changes us and it. We're left to make the best decisions we can with the information we have available at the time. We change, we find new truths because we have new information, perspective, and insight. That is what it is to be human.
Was just thinking yesterday about how much I enjoy the ritual of making pour-over coffee in the morning. Most days are usually some kind of eggless breakfast sandwich on whole wheat toast, with a side of yogurt topped w/granola and dried fruits. But having nursed two kids--I over-identify with people who find a routine changing because it's what your body wants. While I haven't had oatmeal in near 8 years, my kids are into it--especially in the winter. On weekends, we love "elevenses" (s/o to the Hobbits). Rituals of time and leisure are nice.
Love “elevenses”! And miss making pour-over myself. I’ve found getting coffee out of the house important for me as a solo work from homer.
NOT someone with a breakfast routine (I'm not really a breakfast eater, but trying to change that a little), but someone who's an alum of Bates College and is so outlandishly jealous about what their MLK Day programming looks like this year. Best of luck! Students will ask great questions, I'm sure--it's a wonderful place.
I’m very excited (and always so nervous!!!)!
I can't eat the same thing for breakfast every day and am intrigued by those who can (so that first day you were unable to eat oatmeal for brekky - would call that "Tuesday"). However I must start my day with a litre of a very specific blend of tea, brewed in a very specific pot and poured into a very specific cup or I feel utterly unhinged.
My breakfast routine has been oatmeal for years! I've changed it over the years but for the last 6 months it's been quick cook oats with peanut butter, and I'm going to start adding hemp hearts as a way to get more protein. It helps me stay full and avoid mindless snacking or binge eating. Coincidentally, my husband and I have smoothies for dinner most weeknights. Many people find this odd, but it is a great source of protein (we use soy milk and peanut butter) and it's the primary way I consume my greens (lots of kale or spinach blended in). We prefer to eat large lunches and usually cook together for the meal prep. Despite the consistent oatmeal and smoothies, we never deprive ourselves and they are a great source of daily nutrients.
I grew up in Puerto Rico eating the traditional American breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, and coffee with milk (more like milk with coffee). We did that for years, with the occasional cold cereal, or oatmeal/cream of rice alternative, and continued doing it throughout adulthood, until a spontaneous trip to France in 1994. My wife and I stepped up to an outdoor breakfast buffet in Nice, where we found multiple kinds of freshly baked bread, butter and three choices of fruit jam. I'd never seen that many kinds of bread! There were no eggs to be found but we didn't miss them, the breads were warm, moist, and sumptuous, we loved the alternating jam flavors, and the coffee was fantastic. From there we went to Arles, where we found the same varied and delicious egg/meat-less buffet, as well as two lovely older ladies who greeted us every morning with "Bon jour, monsieur et dame, voulez-vous café u chocolat ?" I don't speak French but knew enough to reply "Café et chocolat !" We never looked back. For the next thirty years we've enjoyed a breakfast of black coffee (aka: Americano), with a varied choice of breads, butter and jams. Oatmeal will find its way in but only as an occasional alternative (always with nuts and fruit). Levain, El Horno de Pane and Panoteca San Miguel (and occasionally Pepín and Lemy) provide the bread varieties (Panoteca once made an incredible plum/nut bread that was to die for, but I've yet to find it available again), and there are plentiful sources for the jam, whether local (guayaba, guanábana, pomarosa), imported (thank you, Marshalls!) or home made (guayaba, yellow pomegranate and Madagascar plum). I've never though of our breakfast menu choice as reflective of who we are and/or where we're going, but I can't disagree there is a connection. After all, everything we do is a mirror, whether we recognize it or not. For me, switching breakfast menus wasn't so much opting for something new but rather refusing to continue following the meat/sugar/dairy dogma. We're not vegetarians, and can enjoy all three of those at the right moment and in the right amounts, but only if the choice is ours. Again, what we choose to eat is yet another form of self-expression, be it personal, political or gastronomical.
For decades, I ate Weetabix every morning with a glass of orange juice and sometimes fruit added to the cereal and milk. When I moved to America, Weetabix wasn't available at first, so I tried other cereals. Nothing was quite right. I was greatly relieved when I could find Weetabix at my local natural food store.
Then about 10 years ago, I first gave up the orange juice for water and then I gave up Weetabix as it lost its appeal. Now, my breakfast most mornings is bananas and blueberries with peanuts and yogurt.
I made and ate smoothies as a treat at the weekend (mine were typically banana, berries, orange juice, yogurt, peanut or almond butter and flaxseed meal). In 2014, I had to eat smoothies when I had my front teeth replaced and now they are not a treat anymore.
I worry about nutrition and eating healthily, which is both helped and hindered because I studied human nutrition. My nutritional and health worries have increased in the last 30 years. As I have aged, my metabolism slowed down, and overtime I adapted to an American lifestyle, especially not walking everywhere and larger serving sizes.
I attempt to purchase food that is grown locally or made using ethical practices, except that is hard to do with what is available in south NJ. Sometimes I have to balance where and how a food was made with what its contents.
This is a beautiful essay of a comment, Cathy, and provides so much to think about. I'll be honest that it's definitely since I turned 35 and moved to Puerto Rico, where I walk a lot less than I did living in Brooklyn, that a lot of these things have come to the forefront for me. We do what we can! I think intention is more important than people give it credit for—we need to intend to do our best, and we need to be malleable about what that actually is.
Thanks. The not-walking thing really gets me when I go back to England. I miss having shops and activities nearby.
In the new year I've started making my smoothie the night before and stirring in two scoops of oats. So it's sort of like overnight oats smoothie. Then I can take it out of the fridge first thing in the morning and by the time I'm ready to eat/drink it, it's not so cold that it triggers my Reynaud's syndrome. It's complicated... But sometimes I just want coffee and a croissant!
I too often just want coffee and a croissant!
I ate oats for breakfast every morning for about 8 years. And give or take the odd vacation or weekend away I was happy with that. I can remember one morning a couple of weeks after I retired that I sat at my table with my oats and my brain went “nope not eating that “. I am not sure what happened but my routine was changed forever.
I wondered if my burned out brain/spirit needed to get away from all things associated to the routines of my work life ? It’s curious 👀 to have something switch isn’t it !
Love your writing and love that I get to explore my own issues relating to food,body,privilege and my own place in this.
Thank you for sharing!
Renee
I think oatmeal is just something that becomes indeed so routine and so associated with productivity that one day, we just need to switch it up! Thank you for sharing this!
loved this so much. have recently been dealing with some health stuff (ah, to be 39 with a gallbladder filled with stones!) that means i've needed to be more restrictive in my diet than I've ever been before and it's been so strange to realize how this restriction is getting perceived by others. i'm personally mildly devastated about it from a taste and pleasure perspective, but also it's been incredible to not be in pain. when i explain to other folks tho, i've found one of two reactions: 1) incredulity that cutting out dairy and most fats (sob) will make a change or isn't due to something other than health 2) something bordering on jealousy that a change generally seen as restrictive (or wrapped up in diet culture) has become relatively easy for me to make because the alternative is feeling like crap. anyway! oatmeal, ironically, has been treating me well lately.
Gahhh, I’m so sorry about the health stuff but so glad you’ve found a way of eating that’ll work for you! The perceptions of how and what people eat... wild. Definitely going to write about this more, because a lot of preconceived notions need to be more deeply interrogated from a perspective that understands the necessity of pleasure.
yes! looking forward!
This really resonated in a bananas timely way and I really really appreciate it! I always appreciate getting to read your words and they linger to tickle my brain for so long but boy oh boy!I have also been a daily morning oatmeal eater for about 6 years now, a habit born from a time of intense tummy troubles and a need to find safe foods, intense mental turmoil and a need to find routine to ground, an intense life in the acting industry that brought all of the food/health/wellness pressures it’s infamous for, and undergoing 2nd Puberty: Testosterone Edition that really threw the body for a loop. That reliable bit of routine has really felt like an important part of getting to know my body and what it needs and having a reliable form of taking care of myself that I don’t have to think about too hard. Now that I’m in an all around more stable place I have felt a tug to try something different and maybe change the routine, but whenever I consider it it’s met with the nagging fear that a break from the routine will also mean breaking from all the other healthy habits and skills I’ve built (even if I know that’s not necessarily true at all!), not to mention the anxieties that come from a history of disordered eating and being raised as a femme in the world! And it makes me feel wild when as a “food person” - primarily a baker no less - I am always making things for people or talking and writing about food and I feel like I have to act like constructing my own meal landscape isn’t a series of mental gymnastics. Yes, I do love to make these cakes I make and bread is my passion! But also the way I consume them myself is complicated! Anyway thank you and yes and thank you for making me feel not so alone in all this that has been so front of mind!!!
❤️ I’m so glad it resonated and that I’m also not alone in this!!!