I LOATHE Vegetables

Side Story! Why LindsayNieHashi? My dad served an LDS Mission in Japan and therefore taught us bits and pieces of the language growing up. The name of my blog sounds as if you are counting to four (ichi ni san shi) in that beautiful language. He made us eat Raman with chopsticks, just FYI. I love and miss that Dad of mine. Here's to you Dad!

I loathe vegetables. 

Eating them has always been a chore (still is). Growing up, they made me sick, no really. In fact, I felt downright nauseous often and would get headaches from it. No wonder I didn’t like them, hello! Veggie headaches! Weird!

When my current doctor told me to eat vegetables at all three main meals, I had a panic attack of sorts. ‘Ok, I eat pretty good,’ I tell myself (and I did-ish)...but wait, this means that I will wake up and eat vegetables for breakfast! BREAKFAST! The meal that is just pretty much dessert (nutritionally speaking)! That glorious time of day where syrup and pancakes rule all! Have you ever been to an international buffet for breakfast? I have! What on earth are the Japanese eating? Fish and vegetables!? How is this possible? Don’t get me wrong--total respect--but boy oh boy, I proudly skipped right over it to my very American fare and loaded up on french toast, pastries, bacon, (YUM-and I still eat bacon) tons of fruit, and cheese-covered eggs if they could fit on the plate....and then back again to try out anything else I couldn’t fit on my first plate. LOVED EVERY SECOND.

Long story short, when I ate bread and cheese and sugar, I felt satiated and good. I wanted more. It’s almost as if my brain would wake up during and after I ate and I felt great. MMMmmmm. Then a crash would come, which was normal, it just meant that I needed to eat again right? Right!? Sugar addiction? Yep.

STORYTIME! I noticed a FB post the other day of a gorgeously awesome friend of mine who wrote this: "When I eat crap, like Betos or taco stands or unsure leftovers, I feel fine. It's when I eat healthy crap like squash & salads that I feel sick, nauseous & get close to puking. Pretty sure that's the way God intended me to be…” 

(Hope you don’t mind the shout-out Lady E!)

I totally understand!!!!!! So much so, that when my mom was going through chemo treatments we ended up at a nature-paths office to see if we could find her some relief for her digestive issues and I straight-up asked the nice man why I feel sick when I eat ‘healthy’. 

"Veggies hurt when I eat them, I never feel full and I get this weird ‘empty headache’ (I had no idea how to describe it!)." HELP ME! The answer, thankfully, was what I needed to hear, “You probably just don’t digest them easily in a raw state.”

 "Oh! That’s it?" 

“Yep, either cook them (not overly so you don’t cook the nutrients out) or at least eat them with something that will help break down the fibers for you, like vinegar. Oh, and chew them up better.” Okay so cooking, vinegar and chewing---I can do that, I thought. Low and behold, it worked. I always tolerated cooked vegetables, but adding vinegars* to salads seemed to help too. As for chewing more? Well, I can see where giving your stomach a bit more help before the food gets there helps to break it down.

So, the moral of todays story is....we need to eat veggies often and constantly- the nutrition, the roughage (fiber) etc. Especially you, you autoimmuners.** Ok especially everyone really. Google it. FIND A WAY. Eat them at every meal, at least a serving to start and then try to eat at least two kinds or twice as much! All that $$ you were spending on fast food can now be used for veggies! LOL? Too soon?. :)

 I still don’t digest veggies raw without feeling a bit terrible, but, I have gone to great lengths to find ways to eat them cooked and actually enjoy them! For me, I need a bit of fat and spice and salt with it, Mmmmm. 

Soooo if you are my sister who is part-rabbit and can go out to a garden and chow down on earth’s bounty-good for you! I am envious of you in the best way possible. 

But as for me and my house, we will cook and dress our veggies. 

OUT

*Aged vinegars can and will have some yeasty properties to it and I am currently not eating yeast sooooo, needless to say, I just cook most of my vegetables and add yummy spices. :)

**My doc and I have been working on improving my digestion-and I am happy to say that they are good at what they do. I'm a work in progress.

Breakfast! Turkey sausage (one of my less-than five pre-made foods, which I will write about later), zucchini noodles (microsteamed for 3 minutes at 50% power), olives, toasted pecans and those dang awesome coconut aminos.