Pantry newcomers

Even though some people (hi, Norma!) abhor the expression, to me, recondensing has turned into a veritable journey of discovery. I keep finding out things about myself, and I find myself experimenting with the things I eat. 

Case in point: spinach. For the longest time, the only way I had ever seen that sold was frozen, chopped into tiny particles, and refined with cream. When cooked, that became a semi-liquid mush with a consistency like hollandaise sauce. Then, they introduced "leaf spinach", which was not chopped but still only available frozen. Upon thawing, it was as mushy as the chopped stuff. 

Which is why spinach was almost never served in our household, unless as part of a green pasta sauce. 

I got curious when people kept mentioning spinach as an ingredient in salads. So, when I discovered fresh whole spinach leaves at the grocery store, I grabbed a bag for experimenting. Guess what, the stuff makes for a better salad ingredient than lettuce. Much more nutritients, too. 

And for the dangerous first hour after coming home, there's a big bowl of apples sitting in my kitchen now.

Fresh food in its natural state. 

Isn't it sad that that can become a discovery? For someone who, like myself, has been fighting obesity for a long time, just eating food as the Creator made it is a bit of a revolution. Too many years of low-sugar this and low-fat that, all with the silent assumption that the real thing would not be good enough. So-called fortified foods that make believe they are better than the real thing. Realizing that all and sundry such food-like substances have less nutritients than the real foods they imitate was a big step for me, because it gave me back the right to chose which I had for the longest time delegated to diet or non-diet food processing companies because I was scared of making the wrong choices. What I ended up with were all the wrong choices, and cravings, binges and obesity as a consequence.

Switching to unprocessed foods has made the cravings and binges go away, as evidenced by the fact that they regularly return whenever I have eaten highly processed foods. 

I'm feeling better if I eat clean. And that remaining condensable matter on me? It will leave on its own time. 

The sooner, the better. 

Julia