Unintended Food Experiments - Again!

Just when I think I can’t surprise myself anymore... We went camping last week. The weather was crazy but beautiful, the campground was gorgeous and empty, and Colson, the super hiking seven year old boy who did 6.5 miles the first day, loves to camp.

The food was good (see Recipes section):

Hope’s Baked Oatmeal (aka Grandpa Oatmeal) and hard boiled eggs for breakfast

Applegate Farms turkey or salami with raw cheddar cheese sandwiches and veggies for lunch

Chicken soup with bone broth, free-range beef hamburgers (no buns) and organic chicken hotdogs for dinners with lots of veggies

Oranges, apples, bananas, peanuts, homemade chocolate pudding sweetened with raw honey and super special organic dark and milk chocolates for snacks

Overall it was pretty darn healthy for camping food. So what happened?

As far as I can tell, I wasn’t getting enough fat over the camping trip. The baked oatmeal had hardly any fat. In contrast, I normally start my day with 2/3 cup of whole raw kefir (see Kefir Video and Kefir Tips), a raw egg yolk and 2 TBS coconut oil in a smoothie (see Recipes). On this camping trip I clearly started each day with a fat deficit. The burgers, soup, hotdogs and turkey were all lean. I didn’t eat much cheese. My energy was a bit lower too.

On the way home we were all craving some fat, so we stopped at the grocery store and bought the ever so yummy Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. That seemed to do the trick. By the time we got home I didn’t feel like cooking, so we ordered an excellent pizza from a local restaurant. I scarfed down two pieces, and a little while later was nauseous. Given how I have eaten for almost two years, apparently pizza and ice cream on the same day is a bad idea. By the end of the night, I needed some ginger for the nausea, so I thought I would try the ginger beer that Ryan bought two weeks ago due to his nausea. It turns he is one of the rare people who suffers vertigo from the headphones that he purchased for work and he almost passed out. He didn’t know the headphones could do that and was trying to treat the nausea as quickly as he could while at work, so he bought the ginger beer.

Back to my story. I grabbed the ginger beer, guzzled it down (that was my first pop in more than five years) and felt better. Twenty minutes later, my heart starts to flutter. It flutters into the night. It is the most uncomfortable feeling!! Finally, around midnight, it settles down. Ryan says he thinks I overloaded on sugar, as sugar is NEVER a part of our diet at home and we avoid it like crazy when we are out.

Next day we are off to Colson’s friend’s birthday. Quickly forgetting the lessons of the previous day, I eat a piece of birthday cake. It was a Whole Foods cake, the most delicious cake, so how could I refuse?? Within a half hour the heart flutters are back! Crap! I wasn’t worried this time, as I knew it was the sugar. Colson had better sense than I and he ate only half of his, as he remembered that he was super sick from his Whole Foods birthday cake a couple of weeks ago.

I go for a run in the late afternoon to burn the sugar out, and by dinner the heart is calmed down. I begin cutting up six varieties of raw cheese that I purchased through a co-op to prepare them for freezer storage. We rarely drink wine (three or four times a year now), but Ryan had purchased some for camping. Wine and cheese go together, right? Ryan pours the wine and we had a great wine and cheese party! Until the flutters come back, stronger than ever. Wine has sugar.

I have been one of the healthiest eaters in America for almost two years, and sugar thrashes me in two days! Amazing. Fortunately, I will rebound quickly. The flutters are gone this morning. It is Ryan’s birthday today and he has declared it a dessert-free day for my sake. Not that I needed him to after my experiences.

Dr. Oz wrote a great article on sugar, and this line sticks with me: “Sugar in your blood is like shards of glass scraping the inner lining of your arteries” (see Weekly Eye Opener – Sugar Conspiracy for more of Dr. Oz’s article). Fortunately, I know how to eat to heal and can quickly move past these last two days. As my always positive doc would say “your body gave you great feedback!” The most amazing idea is that I used to eat much worse every day for 40 years than I have in these last two days, and my body was so polluted and weakened that it couldn’t give me feedback. How much damage did I do? No idea.

I will always be thankful for my health and that the human body is so forgiving!

Comments

[Maria Droujkova]

When we backpacked in Ukraine, we would pack salt pork (basically, pure fat) and eat a good chunk every day. Your story brought the memory back, especially since I am reading it eating a baked potato with salt pork from Sandra. Well, I salted it myself, but the pork was from her.

[Mary Duncan]

I love reading about your food experiments Laura! Makes me realize I'm not crazy, or different, or hopeless, when my body reacts the same way. Thank you for sharing :)