After a record-setting longest ever winter in Okanagan history, most of us will be in the mood for food that keeps our mind and body buttered up with happiness and contentment.
Mindful eating is much more than chewing our food well while enjoying a sit-down dinner with engaging, happy and content friends or family.
Checking the nutritional data is important but can be rather misleading at times. Nutritional data does not display the origin, quality and way the contents of this box or that can were harvested, stored, shipped and imported with thousands of air miles under their belt.
Mindful eating is knowing where your food comes from and being interested in the quality and functionality of the food that passes through your kitchen. We don’t always connect our food habits with our moods.
Mindfulness is knowing which foods give you plenty of energy to get through your day and which ones give you a roller-coaster ride with blood sugar highs and lows. That said: “Eating less healthy is less damaging than beating yourself up about it.”
Swapping refined carbs for quality protein and good fats is a good way to start.
Think: a generous salad serving with an oven-roasted sweet potato and grated beet with a generous helping of avocado oil flavoured with garlic, ginger and Himalayan rock salt.
Chocolate – quality chocolate – is truly the number one mood-lifting food. Raw organic cacao paste or powder enhanced with a little maple syrup and coconut oil is a pretty darn popular snack in our kitchen! I like to add cayenne, peppermint essential oil and rock salt to our ice cube tray shaped mini bites. Raw nuts and a small scoop of maca powder are more good-mood food additions for your chocolate cravings.
Why not have a positive food on hand when you are in the mood to eat your emotions?
The following recipe includes four of the five most recommended happy mood food list.
#1. Chocolate (no or low sugar)
#2. Beets
#3. Nuts and seeds (raw and soaked)
#4. Bone broth (rich in amino acids).
Purple Risotto with Goat Cheese and Beets
Serves 2.
Take 300g cooked beetroot (raw or pre-cooked), two tablespoons of olive oil one large onion, finely chopped, three or four garlic cloves, finely chopped 200g risotto (or brown) rice, 600ml vegetable stock or bone broth, 60g soft goat’s cheese, 100g walnuts, soaked for 1 hour and rinsed well. Gently dry the nuts and carefully crisp in a hot skillet.
Boil in water or roast the beets in the oven until tender. Chop into small chunks.
Sauté the onion and garlic until softened.
Then stir in the rice and cook for a further two to three minutes.
Add a splash of water to the pan and stir, then turn the heat down and add the hot stock, ladle by ladle, stirring the rice regularly to ensure it doesn’t stick.
When the stock is almost used up and the rice is cooked – this should take 15-20 minutes – stir the diced beetroot and half the goat’s cheese into it.
Leave it for about five minutes before switching the heat off.
Serve the risotto with a scattering of chopped toasted walnuts, the remaining goat’s cheese and a crisp green salad.
-Afke Zonderland is a raw food chef and founder of Okanagan Rawsome Living Whole Foods.