Vegetarian Balance

Emotional eating is an ongoing issue for many of us. On a daily basis we make choices of what and how to eat on the basis of how we feel.

Though we are now more aware of the effect of emotions have on our bodies and minds and how this relates to food, holistic nutritional systems have been using this knowledge of the link between emotions and food for thousands of years.

In Ayurvedic nutrition, for example, the Sanskrit word for “taste” rasa is the same as the one for “emotion”, indicating a clear connection. Taste and emotion could be considered as the same but acting at different levels of our being. In his book “Prakriti” the Ayurvedic doctor, Robert Svoboda tells us that

“taste is to the body what emotion is to the mind”.

So when we feel a particular emotion, it can be helpful to consider what taste might be helping to trigger it. Anxiety, for example, is linked with an excess of the astringent taste, a taste like that of the tannins in tea or wine.

When talking about weight this is one term I tend to avoid because it could have a negative connotation.

A friend  I was speaking to recently expressed my thoughts perfectly when she said she felt that this term meant that the weight  “could be found again”. How beautiful and how apt! This may be the subconscious thought that is behind a lot of weight issues.

Clearly most people who decide they want to lose weight do not want to “find it again” i.e. see it coming back, yet  simply by using this term, by focusing on what they have to lose, they are likely to be setting themselves up to attract back a need to lose. 

Another reason people might not succeed with their weight loss is because they are afraid what else they may lose with the weight.

Did you know that this year is  UN International Year of the Potato.

What a timely celebration!  With food prices increasing at the moment the potato is a good option to help “ease the strain of food-price inflation”. What’s more it’s a global and staple food that is good for you and is being called the “food of the future”. For more information about the potato go to http://www.potato2008.org/

I just read an interesting article comparing the price of buying local  and seasonal fruit and vegetables in a supermarket as opposed to at an open air market. Some of the main reasons given to show why buying  seasonal produce at your local market generally will cost  you less are

1.  supermarkets have the cost of their more complex infrastructure to cover
2. local producers can give you better deals on their produce if they’ve had a better harvest.

What’s more you’ll often get a larger choice at a market as you pass from stall to stall.
This brings back childhood memories of the market near where I grew up.