Tonic #5: Everyday Greens!

Do we have room for one more?


This cure/tonic for IBS has come to me from my mommy. Recently, I discovered that I've inherited my cloggy guts from her. So one random day, I mentioned feeling particularly IBS-Cy.

Her advice? Eat a salad!

And this, from a woman who is VERY picky about her greens.


What I tell her is this - it's SO easy to incorporate greens into the diet. She doesn't wanna hear it, because she likes what she likes and that's that. She's got her way of eating greens and sticks with it. So! Since I can't lecture her anymore, I'll lecture YOU.

BREAKFAST GREENS

This is a spinach and sweet potato parfait - that tastes like vanilla and chocolate. Here's what I did - the green parts are spinach and yogurt with stevia. The chocolate parts are cacao, maca, mesquite, and sweet potato with stevia. Slops of almond milk made everything smooth.

Layer this jawn up - and you've got sweet greens for breakfast. If you can believe it, the green layers were the tastiest part.




Kale chips are my new favorite breakfast food. In the mornings, it's hard for me to digest anything too hearty - like oats. Kale chips, sprinkled with nooch and sesame seeds, have just the right amount of heft to wake me up and sustain me, without making me feel weighed down. If you follow me on Facebook, you've heard me cry that kale chips are great happy mood makers.






Here's one of my favorite weekend breakfasts. It's scrambled eggs with spinach, tomatoes, onions and mushrooms, topped with Kimberton Whole Food hummus. There's lots of good tummy-friendly spices on the scramble - like cumin and paprika. Stevia-sweetened cacao milk pairs up GREAT with the savory scramble too.

Check out my mommy's sexy leg in the background!






Here's the standard breakfast scramble - the greens doubled up with a collard wrap. Double your greens and double your energy and double your number twos!!!

GREEN AT LUNCH

I love broccoli sprouts! They are very chill sprouts, not too bitter, but still with that crunchy watery sprout taste. Here, I've got sprouts wrapped up in homemade raw flaxmeal bread with spinach and brazil nut butter. With a little sea salt and pepper, this is a refreshing light sammie for IBSsers.

I don't know about you, but I'm mad particular about my greens. Give me spinach raw. Give me kale dehydrated. Give me collards as wraps. Swiss chard? It's gotta be sauteed with tomatoes and large chunks of garlic. Often, I'll make some for dinner. Then I'll toss it in a jar and cart it along to school for lunch the next day. After a day of sitting in garlic and evoo, the greens are so savory, falling apart in my mouth with deliciousness.

Whole foods salad bars are so expensive. But they are also totally worth it. Where else can you get a salad with field greens, kale, swiss chard, red onions, brussel sprouts, and artichokes - ALL IN ONE? Answer: Nowhere.

Very rarely do I have enough room to stomach a sandwich for lunch. When I do, I make it a socca sammie. Socca is chickpea flour flatbread, and it can be made in numerous ways. Here, I've got raw mozzarella cheese with broccoli and socca. It's not exactly easy to eat, but the flavors complement each other, in a Frenchy Italian type way.

GREEN SNACKS

Since I've got horrible IBS, I try to not eat between meals. When I do get hungry, I try to drink my snacks. This trick has made an enormous difference in my digestive health.

This fresh juice contains only a massive amount of kale and chard, cucumber, and parsley. When I picked it up at Whole Foods, I wasn't expecting much. I hate cucumber, to be honest with you. But this juice - WOW!!!! This juice made me like cucumber. It's that good.

Here's one of my favorite green drinks - spinach, basil, and coconut water. Like the juice above, this is an incredible refresher in the summer months. It's also very taming for the stomach. As I've said before, herbs like basil, parsley, and thyme have been much more effective for my IBS, rather than the often hailed savior peppermint. Screw the peppermint. Go basil. Look how bright and limey it is!

Here's a tropical kale smoothie I get whenever I visit my local Informed Smoothies. It IS the best kale smoothie I've ever had, including any one I've made on my own. Kale smoothies rarely puree this well. Usually, there's a cloudy layer of fibers that rise to the top. I guess that's what makes those bitches so freakin' informed?

GREEN AT NIGHT

Lately, in an effort to get more work done, I've been eating two dinners. First dinner is always green. It's roasted brussel sprouts...

... or it's broccoli dipped in cashew cheese and oregano.

Eating less for dinner keeps me awake longer, so I can get work done. I'll snack on these greens around like four or five o'clock. Then I'll do work. Then around seven or eight...

...It's potato hour!!!

When I'm really hungry and want a full meal for dinner, I'll mix and match grains and greens. Grains are almost always necessary for me to eat at the end of the day. If I don't, then I don't sleep.

Insomnia I've battled far longer than IBS, and is much more of an enemy to my sanity.



This is just a simple peppery brown rice and collard wrap... quick and easy... on the go, especially, as you can tell by the guest appearance of Yoshi the Yaris in the background.







Here's a classic toasted sandwich, made with Udi's bread, hummus, Amy's Sonoma burger, and ripped up collard leaves. Eating bread is okay sometimes, I think, as long as I stuff it with lots of greens!!!!







Lastly, one of my prettiest creations ever - roasted portabello with torn collards inside chickpea curry pancakes.

My favorite thing is green VERSATILITY.

If you think about what you love to eat and greenify it - it is SO EASY to incorporate them in every single meal. So if you are looking to get things moving in your guts, think green. But make sure you enjoy what you are eating! Goddamnit!

Toots

What's your favorite way to eat greens?

I Have Been Wasting Water

... Because I found the bar soap of my dreams!!!

Y'know how sometimes shit calls to you?

Shit calls to me.

This soap has been calling to me.

Last year, I went on a crusade to find cruelty free soap that didn't leave my skin waxy and dry. I let out a cry on this blog, hoping to find my inbox inundated with free soap samples. Yeah, that didn't happen.

And like the lazy loser I am...

... (i.e. smoking the occasional cigarette), I gave up pretty fast...

... But this soap kept calling to me.

All last year, mine eyes ran up and down the soap aisles of my local market. They always landed on Sappo Hill's pretty cardboard boxes and perfectly cut spheres of bright ivory, purple and green. The soaps felt cold and soft in my hand. They smelled like real stuffs! Real oats! Real aloe! Real lavender.

All last summer as an apothecarian, I faced and organized the soaps. When Sappo Hill came in, I loved to tear off the top of the box and run my fingers down the stack. They fit so neatly and compactly on the shelf. The packaging made my job easier!

So why didn't I purchase it sooner?

Because Sappo Hill soaps cost only around a buck-fitty. How the hell, I wondered, could good soap be so cheap? It will be like the rest, I thought. It will leave my skin scaly and waxy and gross.

How wrong I was.

This soap is the ONLY bar soap I've ever used that does not leave my skin feeling sticky or dry. It makes NO sense to me - because it doesn't have any different ingredients from any other soap I've tried. It is VEGAN and CRUELTY FREE. It comes with no packaging, so it's green. AND for what you get, IT'S FUCKING CHEAP!

Thanks for washing the guilt outta my shower, Sappo Hill!

Tonic #4: Snacks n' Stuff

I lost ten pounds. I think it happened in August? Maybe September? I don't know; I wasn't trying. All I know is this: My life got so incredibly full of adventure and excitement that I didn't think about food at all!!!

And my IBS disappeared.

Over the past five years, I've worked towards two goals - curing my IBS and losing ten pounds. To meet these goals, I've cut allergens. I've cut fatty foods. I've cut sugar. This is what I've read to do. This is what all the nutritionistas tell me.

But y'know what?

All the little diet tricks DIDN'T WORK!

Not drinking?

photo by elizabeth rooney


DIDN'T WORK!!!!

Not eating dairy?

DIDN'T WORK!!!

Not eating sugar?

DIDN'T WORK.

Finally I gave up. I drank. I cheesed. I sugared. I did EVERYTHING I wasn't supposed to.

And I still lost ten pounds.


See?

In sister's wedding in July...




Presto! Change-o!

Planting garlic mid-September at the farm where I live...

It's crazy in't it? And I didn't even try!

So here's what I think happened...



1. I'm eating mostly veggies.

Cacao sweet potatoes for breakfast...

Brussel sprouts...

or soaked kelp for lunch...






For dinner...

...Potato hour!

Food is no longer political to me. It's full of nutrients and calories. While a Yukon Gold potato may not contain as many hip nutrients as an avocado, it does contain 200 less calories. When it comes to IBS and losing weight, that makes all the difference.




2. I've been snacky.

Butternut squash soup. It's lunch. It's enough. Onward!

Green juices DO fill me up...

and are VERY cleansing!

3. I've been eating more protein.

Raw sesame flaxbread with spinach and raw cheddar cheese

Over the summer, I worked in an apothecary. I complained about being cold and wanting to lose weight. "Kill two birds with one stone!" said my pal, my hero, the big sister of my dreams, Amy. She suggested I eat more protein. So I did.

Again - it's all about calorie intake. A big cup of Greek yogurt contains less cals than a tablespoon of almond butter. And I digest the yogurt easier. I get more protein out of the yogurt.

Sorry, vegan and non-dairy pals. Not tryna be a poseur. I'm just a girl on a crusade to stop farting. Right now, this is working!

4. I've been moving, not eating.

Hoin' it up!!!

Basically - Instead of obsessing over meals, I'm thinking about work, how much time it will take to do said work - that's what's the king of the hill of my mind!

Eating less truly does help abate IBS.

Toots


What's your favorite snack?


What's your favorite exercise?

Tonic #3: Alone

Did you know that the butterflies in your stomach are real?

No, really. Your stomach is naturally filled with chrysalis. Thousands of them. When nervous, they begin to pupate and shake. Suddenly, hatching! Butterflies release into the pink tunnels of your guts.





If you are like me - you run to the bathroom.


This was not the tonic #3 I originally planned. But sometimes shit happens. And by shit, I mean, love.

But this is a food and butt blog?!

Where is there room for the heart?

Well, if I consider what most upper GI specialists preach, then this blog is ALL about the heart.



When I end up eating shit like this...





When I end up smoking cigarettes again...

Photo by Chris Eugster

When I stay up all night, drunk at the fire company AGAIN?

You know there must be something wrong with my heart.

And when the heart falls, the stomach is soon to follow.

Stress causes IBS. It just does. This is because there are involuntary muscles in the stomach and guts that digest food for us. These muscles are connected to the brain. When we are nervous, scared, or upset, the muscles spazz up. They don't do the job they are supposed to do.

Butterflies are born.

Unfortch, I cannot cite the source where I read this, because it is in a box with other IBS books in my parents' basement. And once I'm finished writing this blog, I must go plan class for tomorrow. So, dear readers, you're going to have to trust me on this one.









You know that PA got dumped on by a premenstrual blizzard this past weekend...



It warned me for what life at my new home, on the farm, is going to be like this winter. The electricity went out. With it, the heat and water.

The cause of the butterflies?

He vanished.

Fortunately I had a kickass girlfriend with me. Using some lessons I got from the sweet-talkin'-fuck-and-leaver, I got a fire going. No starter log necessary. As the flames bellowed and engulfed the stove, I stepped back and said to my pal: "At least he left me with something."



The heat surged and wrapped around my face. I put a hand on my belly. The swelling had gone down. The bubbles and pain subsided. The butterflies had flown.




And just in time to settle under the blanket of snow and cold. Just in time to quiet my lips, sigh and smile. Just in time to hibernate into myself, pensive and warm with my books and iron pills and tea.

So I'm back. I'm back to eating soup, kale chips, and Yukon Gold potatoes. I'm back to bed at nine pm and rising at five to walk the dog and feed the horse. I'm back to feeling awake, refreshed, and happy throughout the day.

As my Plathy once wrote...

WINTERING
Sylvia Plath 1932-1963

This is the easy time, there is nothing doing.
I have whirled the midwife`s extractor,
I have my honey,
Six jars of it,
Six cat`s eyes in the wine cellar,

Wintering in a dark without window
At the heart of the house
Next to the last tenants rancid jam
and the bottles of empty glitters ....
Sir So-and-So`s gin.

This is the room I have never been in
This is the room I could never breathe in.
The black bunched in there like a bat,
No light
But the torch and its faint

Chinese yellow on appalling objects ....
Black asininity. Decay.
Possession.
It is they who own me.
Neither cruel nor indifferent,

Only ignorant.
This is the time of hanging on for the bees... the bees
so slow I hardly know them,
Filing like soldiers
To the syrup tin

To make up the honey I`ve taken.
Tate and Lyle keeps them going,
The refined snow.
It is Tate and Lyle they live on, instead of flowers.
They take it. The cold sets in.

Now they ball in a mass,
Black
Mind against all that white.
The smile of the snow is white.
It spreads itself out, a mile long body of Meissen,

Into which, on warm days,
They can only carry their dead.
The bees are all women,
Maids and the long royal lady.
They have got rid of the men,

The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors.
Winter is for women ....
The woman, still at her knitting,
At the cradle of Spanish walnut,
Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.

Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year ?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses ?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.