New Season Ginger

In the past months I have experienced many new things including real ginger (as compared to the dried powder variety). But it seems not all gingers are the same. Food Connect kindly included some new season ginger and even more kindly mentioned in their newsletter that it needs to be kept in the fridge as it doesn’t have bark and so can dry out easily.

I have generally found real ginger to be quite strong and so haven’t finished a piece very quickly. But this new season ginger seems to be a bit more subtle and I’ve included some finely chopped ginger on both my lunch-time salad and my evening meal and ended up enjoying both. This isn’t at all like me as I have shied away from ginger in the past but now I seem to have found a variety that sits well with me. A web site suggests that for thousands of years, ginger has been used to aid digestion, nausea, menstrual cramps, and flu symptoms, and it's also traditionally been used to treat arthritis and heart conditions. I am really pleased about this as I’m concerned that my sore knuckles could be a precursor to arthritis.

In the same way, I’m pleased with the path that I’m on and what makes it even more comfortable is that I seem to be treading a path already taken by others, even though my path is happening much later…

In 2005, Steve Pavlina wrote about reading “The China Study” which at that time was one of the top 500 selling books at Amazon, with a 4.5 star rating. If I’m reading its current sales rank correctly then it is much lower in the list but still with its 4.5 star rating and it seems to have remained very topical as I have noticed this book mentioned often in blogs or articles that I’ve been reading lately.

One of his most telling statements was that when he ate a whole foods vegan diet (as opposed to a more junky vegan diet that includes refined or processed foods), he could eat as many calories as he wanted and not gain weight. I must remember that I can and most likely need to eat much more as I experiment with this way of eating.

Another interesting comment he made was that many people now recommend giving up dairy before giving up meat as dairy products are among the most unhealthy garbage you could possibly want to put in your body. I’m now 3 days into giving up dairy as I’m no longer drinking cow’s milk cappuccinos and it has been some time since I brought a carton of cow’s milk into my home. It’s too soon to know how well this is working out but I’ll have a better idea a little further down the track.

At the end of 2007, Steve announced he would kick off 2008 with a 30-day trial of eating a 100% raw vegan diet. He mentions his experiences with raw food diets in the past and also about reading books and listening to audio programs from long-term raw foodists, including Dr. Douglas Graham who has written “The 80/10/10 Diet” book. Steve's final post at the end of the 30-day trial made interesting reading.

It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one going through this process. Changing one’s eating habits can be challenging particularly when they emanate from deep-seated, long-term patterns. The best part is that trolling the web shows me that there are definite personal rewards for taking the time to work out what’s best for me.