You Are What You Eat

This eating lifestyle is definitely addictive, in all the right ways. My body tolerates less and less to do with caffeine, alcohol or nicotine (and yes, I realize this has a lot to do with just getting older). But since I started eating approx 80% alkaline and 20% acidic I've found I can barely ingest that stuff without immediately feeling the depressing effects. What's interesting about eating this way, thusly, is that it really is a lifestyle: it affects all other aspects of your life, and you start to realize just how much 'you are what you eat.' Nothing drives this concept home, either, like having your own gardens and animals. I'm still learning about gardening, but I am lucky enough to live somewhere right now where fresh herbs grow in natural abundance. The other day I boiled some organic beans I'd sprouted, fried up some corn polenta slices in coconut oil in a cast-iron pan, while my friend Kenneth prepared a poultice of sorts for the beans, mostly compiled from herbs around the yard. Chives, lemon-thyme and citrus-oregano, with some tamari, Bragg's apple cider vinegar, himalayan sea salt, and fennel seed. I wish I took a picture, the finale was so pretty!

I'm still working on getting quinoa right, though. It's not supposed to be hard! says my roommate. But meanwhile, my chickens are lucking out, and since we are what we eat, in so many ways, it makes me very happy to see them gleefully picking through the soaked, poorly cooked grains seasoned with tumeric and coriander. Until I can get this quinoa to not come out like mush, or porridge, or burned granules, at least I know it'll make its way back to me through their eggs.

Trying Out Kimberly Snyder's 'Beauty Detox Solution

Hello! My name is Heidi Hough (pronounced 'huff' not 'ho') and I've decided to blog about switching my diet to mostly vegetarian and even vegan. Kimberly Snyder's book, 'The Beauty Detox Solution,' which mostly follows such a diet, promises that I will become more beautiful, my glow spilling from the inside out into my hair, nails and perfect skin. Will I become more beautiful? Will eating more lettuce and less junk pay off? Let's find out!

I've heard a lot about this kind of lifestyle from friends, because in my travels through Europe and Mexico and visits to festivals like Burning Man and the Rainbow Gathering I've constantly come across people who insist this is the future of mankind. I lived in health-conscious Los Angeles for ten years and now I live in the Vermont, which is the first state (I think) to pass a GMO-labeling bill and is extremely, awesomely health-conscious. I feel very lucky to live somewhere where almost all my food is not only organic but so local that half the time I personally know the farmer or gardener it came from. This place is so cute and veggie-friendly that they actually pick and eat 'fiddleheads' out of early-spring ponds, before the fiddleheads unfurl into ferns, and cook and eat them as a delicacy. Now I am ready to try learning about alkaline (good) foods versus acidic (mostly bad) foods, and following the proper order in which all the correct, fabulous food is supposed to go into me, for optimal digestion, and, therefore, increased, glowing beauty. This is the premise of the Beauty Detox Solution book. My sister introduced Kimberly Snyder's Beauty Detox Solution to me, which is apparently all the rage in Hollywood, and I started trying it out about a month ago. Now, I will be honest, there is an aspect of 'the worse it tastes, the better it is for you' that I've been finding in this experience. However, that might partly be because I am still figuring out how to do this. And then there are the moments, like when I recently made Kimberly's Gorilla Wraps, where everything comes together in a moment of culinary bliss and your visiting friend from LA says 'I'm going to buy her book just because of these wraps.' Today is not one of those days: see picture below. I am currently ingesting a mostly-failed quinoa dish, and I feel like I've been thinking, breathing and planning 'quinoa' for at least the last twenty-four hours. I am sick of thinking about quinoa, but I am also a former athlete with a competitive streak, so I am determined to keep quinoaing until I get this right and am a quinoa master. I think it will be worth it. Kimberly's book certainly insists so. Okay so I soaked the quinoa overnight, so the enzymes will be loosened and I can therefore digest it more easily, while also getting more of its treasured nutrients (this is the non-scientific version: read Kimberly's book for better details). I'm getting used to soaking nuts and grains, and it's not really that bad once you're in the habit. It also, in my opinion, tastes delicious. I love eating the nuts plain, because the texture is completely different than usual, and, as a former nail-biter, I gotta say, all the little nuances of a small food item really give me some kind of oral fix. So I soaked the quinoa, then went to cook it, and for some reason it just wasn't absorbing the water. This was, of course, not mentioned in the book. Eventually, I turned off the burner and went to bed, hoping it would absorb overnight. Nope. So then I put the pot in the oven at a low temperature, hoping it would evaporate that way. Nope, not really.

So then I was pretty much late for work, so I put the quinoa in a to-go container, and am now eating mushy, cold, gelatinous, jiggly quinoa with a bunch of clover sprouts I threw on top. It is kind of gross, but it is also kind of good, especially when it hits your stomach in an incredibly satisfying way that is so energy-filled that I haven't even had to give in to a cup of coffee. What I will do on this blog is post about different foods I make, what I learn, and overall, the effects I notice (or don't notice) on my overall beauty, especially, as Kimberly promises, on my hair, skin and nails. So far, I have noticed a brief upswing where I was positively glowing, followed by a downswing where I slept the weekend away and feel inexplicably weak and wan. I hope I'm not missing out on some vital nutrient somewhere. I will keep you posted. ~Heidi PS There appears to be a demonic lion face in the fork reflection. I might have to start another blog on the weird, haunting stuff that annoyingly, constantly happens to me, if such photo bombs continue.