' burnt - out ends of smoky days ... ' T. S. Eliot - Preludes
I sit at my desk writing this as the rain hammers down outside. Behind the sheet of water is a mustard yellow world of Autumn glory. The natural world is looking gorgeous and I really don't want the leaves to fall from the trees just yet. But I know that very soon the rain and wind will blow the the foliage down and bring on the elegant bare silhouettes of winter. While Autumn for me is like a warm kind gentle hug, Winter will bring the stripped down clarity of clean cut empty spaces.
With the change in season I have decided it is time for a change in my diet. It's time to finally get around to cutting out some of the chemicals & processed sugar in my daily diet. I was challenged by my little incident involving pesticide a few weeks ago which I wrote about in my previous post ' Eat more dirt.' Click on the link for more on that subject.
So I stopped putting it off and embraced 40 days of living off more fruit and vegetables. I aim to eat more fermented foods, to eat more natural animal fats and to cut down on the chemical overload that comes with mass farming and eating processed foods. I am trying to buy organic and cut out pesticides, fertilisers, hormones, antibiotics & preservatives that are all linked in to the food chain.
It sounds overwhelming but it is not. I start my day with red grapefruit and a bulked out omelette with feta cheese and peppers, tomatoes, avocado and onions. That is my favourite meal of the day. I really don't miss cereal or toast at all.
Lunch is homemade soup or a salad and dinner is either another salad with tuna fish or chicken, or fish and roasted vegetables. For dessert I have plain yogurt with berries & raw unheated honey. Or an apple or orange.
Last week I pulled the slow cooker out and made a delicious lamb, sweet potato & lentil casserole and threw in some blackcurrent & Feta cheese to add a sharpness to the sticky sweetness of the lamb.
I found a bumper crop of sweet chestnuts a couple of weeks ago. They last a few weeks if they are kept dry and put in the fridge. I am slowly working through my little box of them and roast them as a snack.
I have two more weeks to go on this diet by which time I will hopefully have trained myself to eat better. I can feel the benefits in lots of ways. My taste buds have come alive again. I never thought an apple was that sweet until I cut sugar out and now it tastes really sweet.
I sleep through the night and don't wake up at 3 am anymore to go to the loo!
My mouth feels clean and fresh. I have lots more energy and don't feel sluggish. My skin looks bright.
I get to reintroduce red wine into my life next week. Not loads of it, but a glass or two of organic wine. I can't wait. It's the simple things in life that make me happy.
' Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that live. '
James Thomson
I was out on a walk two days ago and decided it was time to start learning which mushrooms I can eat and which are poisonous. There are so many along the hedgerows and in the woods and I know they are full of good stuff if I can select the correct ones to eat ! The right mushrooms are great for bolstering the immune system.
So I picked 4 different kinds on my walk and brought them home to study them. In the end I could only identify one variety with 100% clarity. It was a parasol mushroom and it was not poisonous. So I cooked it and ate it and it was rich and earthy and yummy. The others got thrown out. Sad because one really looked like an oyster mushroom. But as I wasn't 100% convinced it wasn't worth risking it.
If it stops raining I will head out and cut myself a piece of beefsteak fungus. There is a huge gathering of them growing around the base of a chestnut tree over by Chestnut lodge. Maybe I can even find a black truffle lurking in the woods. Now that would be a find.
' Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating & destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing down everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. '
John Muir