The Whole Truth About Googala

My daughter, excited to try the new fennel soup recipe, and said fennel trying to soften up. It's so pretty, but hard to beat into submission...

In order for us to take this journey together, there are a few things we need to clear up first. You may have noticed, in my inaugural post (Why blog, why now?), that I referred to a string of "food religions" that I have been exploring and comparing. What you may or may not have noticed is what was missing from that list, such as Low Fat, Low Cal, Portion Control, South Beach, Atkins, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, ________(insert latest diet craze here). This is because for me, and hopefully for you as well, these are not options of consideration. The nutritional theories that support these diets are much of the reason why googala is so present in supposedly healthy diets, and keeping well-meaning people fat, sick, and miserable. (By the way, this is a tell-it-like-it-is blog. Not for the overly sensitive...just FYI...) And so, dear readers, we must go back to the beginning. Back to the conversation that I had with my friend, when the word googala was invented.

My friend Erica is an extremely intelligent Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She and I worked together in my past Life at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on a Gastrointestinal and Endocrine unit. You would think that this makes us experts in food and nutrition, but sadly, it does not. Stay tuned for more on that one...But, I digress. Erica was experiencing skin breakouts, and I, being her Skin Care Consultant, was asking her what she had been eating lately. (Why, you ask? Oh readers, we have so much to learn together! Enjoy the journey.) She told me that she has been eating "reasonably well-balanced meals with enought fruits and vegetables, and treats in moderation." "But how much processed food are you eating?" I asked her. To which she responded why does it matter? If she is eating enough of the good stuff, why isn't she allowed to have a store bought cookie for dessert? And this is what I told her:

"This is not a meritocracy. Your body is a machine that was designed to run on whole foods. It doesn't recognize non-food, and it doesn't know what to do with it. When you eat an apple, your body says: "oh, an apple! I know how to digest that and what it's for." If you eat almonds, it says "I know what to do with that!" Your body recognizes the water, fiber, vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, etc. in whole foods, and handles them accordingly. Now say you eat a processed cookie with chemical dyes and sugars: your body says, "this is...googala...I don't know what to do with googala..." But it is very smart and resourceful, and it has a system for dealing with foreign matter or trash. So, the googala goes through and the liver and kidneys and the gut and skin do what they can to handle it. And on it goes: "Fiber, Vitamin, A, proteins...woah! Googala. Um, ok let's put that aside..." So it doesn't matter how much you feel you deserve to eat googala by offsetting it with other foods, the fact is, your body was not designed to thrive by digesting it. Our body is brilliant: it will handle the processing of googala every-once-in-a-while, without seriously taxing our machinery. However, are most of us using true moderation? (hint: it's not once a day, or even once a week!) No. Most people live on googala, with whole foods as the exception. And now they are living with an extraordinary gammit of illnesses that they are convinced is just "coincidence" or even "normal" for people of their age/race/gender/bone structure/fill-in-the-blank. It's like putting motor oil in your gas tank and saying, "What? My tank is full! Why isn't it running properly? Something must be wrong with my motor..."

OK, it's a goofy metaphor. But it worked: I enlightened Erica, and googala became a household name. I began to identify forbidden foods as googala for my children, and I made sure to take the time to eplain to them why foods they were previousy allowed in moderation were now forbidden and/or replaced. We will be talking more about this process in future posts, but I will leave you with a memory of one of the best conversations my kids and I had on this subject.

My son struggles a lot more than his sister with resisting the temptation of processed sugar, and one time he asked me, in utter frustration, "Mom, why do they make googala taste sooooo good?" Now, I have been discussing the concept of Marketing with my children, because I wanted to raise them with a lot of awareness about their status as a consumer, and how most of what we see and hear is designed to influence our emotions and part us with our money. If you haven't started this kind of education with your children, please do. It saves you a lot of "But why? I want it!!!!" conversations in the future...So when he asked me that question, I went straight to the Marketing answer: "Because if you knew how sick it makes you, you would never buy it. They have to make it taste really good in the hopes that you will ignore what your body needs." Was he angry that I was telling him he couldn't eat the crappy candy he got from school? No! With that explanation, he kissed me on the cheek, and said "I'm so glad you're my Mom."

It takes a lot of work, people, but aren't they worth it? Aren't you?

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Latest new recipe: My own invention! Cauliflower, fennel potato soup. I love the look of fennel, but am struggling to make it tender enough to enjoy eating it. I sauteed it until soft, but very, very browned. I used it in place of leeks in a cauliflower, leek, potato soup recipe we love. It's a pureed soup, but I left the potatos cubed like a chowder. The flavor was very interesting...We liked it the first night, but it doesn't make for good leftovers. The kids ate some no thank you bites, and my husband said the flavor was good, the color was off-putting.

Currently reading: OK, I admit it. It's Harry Potter The Goblet of Fire. I love to read aloud to the kids in lieu of watching TV, and I have waited for years to get them HP ready. It has shoved Eat To Live to the backburner. But I will be trying the White Northern Bean Hummus recipe soon, and I even bought dried beans to soak so I can avoid the canned version, which has high levels of BPA. A new step for me...