Soul Food

Think for a moment of a food from your past…one that for no specific reason makes you feel great after eating it. Maybe it is macaroni and cheese, mom’s stuffing or potato pancakes. Eating food like this (every now and then) can be incredibly healing, even though rationally you consider it is not nutritious.

Food has the power to impact us on a level deeper than just our physical well-being. What we eat can reconnect us to precious memories, like childhood playtimes, holidays, our grandmother’s cooking or our country of ancestry. Our bodies remember foods from the past on an emotional and cellular level. Eating this food connects us to our roots and its comforting and nurturing effects reach far beyond the food’s biochemical make-up.

Lily, a client of mine, came to me a few months back wanting to wean herself from her addiction to sugar. She consumed candy, pastries and ice cream on a daily basis. Once we added the foods and lifestyle choices that satiated and balanced her needs, her sugar cravings subsided.

For her daughter’s birthday, Lily baked a cake. As everyone was enjoying the cake she too craved a piece. If she ate it, would she be consumed with guilt? If she didn’t eat it, would she be thinking about it all week? Through our work together, Lily had gained an understanding of how to read into the cause of her cravings. When she asked herself why she wanted the cake, she immediately knew that it wasn’t her old sugar craving but a desire to share in the experience of eating something she had so lovingly made for her daughter. There was more love than sugar in that one piece of cake. Eating it made her feel alive rather than ashamed. It was delicious and she did not crave an additional piece.

The guilt or shame that we consume with certain foods is far worse than the food itself. If we eat food we consider bad for us, we are sending a message to our body that there is something harmful entering the body. This prevents us from digesting our foods correctly, causing havoc to the digestive system, preventing the assimilation of nutrients or creating an accumulation of fat.

Acknowledging what different foods mean to us is an important part of cultivating a good relationship with food. This month when we celebrate love and relationships, it is important to notice that we each have a relationship with food—and that this relationship is often far from loving. Many of us restrict food, attempting to control our weight. We often abuse food, substituting it for emotional well-being. Some ignore food, swallowing it whole without even tasting it.

What would your life be like if you treated food and your body the same way you would treat your beloved? With gentleness, playfulness, communication, honesty, respect and love? The next time you eat your soul food, do so with awareness and without guilt, and enjoy all the healing and nourishment it brings you.

Cacao Beans:

Cacao beans are a fantastic food source for Magnesium and antioxidants. These beans can help us stay focused due to their source of PEA, a chemical that increases the activity of certain neurotransmitters (brain chemicals). Cocoa also contains Anandamine, a lipid (fat) known as "the bliss chemical", because it is released while we are feeling great. It supplies serotonin, dopamine, and phenylethylamine, three well-studied neurotransmitters, which help alleviate depression and are associated with feelings of well being.

It is best to have chocolate with no added dairy products/milk or refined sugar. Some studies show that the additions of dairy products block the absorption of all the great antioxidants in chocolate! Allergies to chocolate which were thought to be common have recently been linked more to the milk rather than the cocoa content.
Even better than dark chocolates are raw cacao beans which possess all the magical properties of chocolate without any adulteration or processing!
Power the body by adding cocoa nibs (crushed cacao beans) to your favorite dessert, shake, or cereal.

When giving a Valentine’s gift of Chocolates, make sure the chocolate you choose contains a high content of cocoa. Most fine quality chocolates will list the percentage of cocoa. Check the ingredients and see if cocoa or sugar is the first ingredient listed. Give the gift of health to your loved ones.

Home Made Molded Chocolates:

Basic ingredients:

Unsweetened dark chocolate (100% cocoa bars)
Agave nectar

Choose one of the following additions:
Organic unsweetened peanut butter/ almond butter
Chopped nuts
Plain brown rice cereal
Peppermint extract

Melt chocolate down over low heat (preferably in a double boiler, but a small pot works just as well) and sweeten to taste with agave nectar. Mix in extract, cereal or nuts if desired.

Spoon the melted chocolate into little candy cups.
If you choose to add nut butter; fill the cup half way with chocolate, add a dollop of nut butter and then fill the cup to the top with more chocolate.

Place the cups on a wax-paper-covered cookie tray and place in freezer until chocolates are set.

For gift-giving, you can put these in boxes or use decorative mini Chinese food cartons--I love those! Almost everyone I know is THRILLED to receive chocolate, especially the kind that you put your love and time into creating for them...