2012-12-29

It's all in the seasoning (& ingredients)

In the journey to becoming the next Iron Chef and being healthy in general I learned something about eating. I used to use way too much ranch dressing with what I ate. I swear, whenever I would eat a pizza or wings I would order a good amount of ranch dressing and celery on the side just to make myself feel good. Eating celery after I downed a large pizza or twenty five wings was what I thought being healthy was all about. The fact of the matter is I didn’t know how to use seasoning or ingredients to make food taste good. Lets just say my palate for food included a bologna sandwich with strawberry jam spread on it. Yes, when I was 10 I asked my mom to make this type of sandwich for me.

This all changed for me when I started cooking for myself and taking my health serious. It came to a head when I found out that I had a candida overgrowth in my stomach. See what happens is when you eat a lot of unhealthy food it stays in your system. It may even rot and decay there. Considering that unhealthy food is not very fibrous, chances are it will stay there for a long time. This allows things like fungus to grow. Fungus feeds off this food but also other things like simple carbohydrates and sugars. I thought that eating at subway was healthy.  All I was doing was feeding the fungus its favorite snacks: bread, cheese, sugar (sweet tea), and red meat (BOLOGNA!).

I knew I had to start cooking for myself and taking control of my diet. But where do I start? Ranch? Blue Cheese? Not on my diet. The first two seasonings are the simplest: Salt ‘N’ Pepa. You put that on every piece of chicken you cook. Salt brings out the flavor of anything and pepper gives a subtle kick. At first I was eating a lot of salads with seasoned chicken. Overtime I started to change things up and make different kinds of meals and sides. Guacamole, chicken bowls like those at Chipotle, and big breakfast omelettes that have red peppers, sweet onions, and green tomatoes. Saute some green tomatoes and tell me they are not the best thing on God’s green earth.

Something also changed for me as well. I had to get off of sugar. This was hard because I am hypoglycemic and I hadn’t managed to rid myself of the attacks I would get from having sugar or carbs. Eventually though I weaned myself off sugar and in the process I realized that almost every freaking thing on the market has sugar in it. Everything. Let me say that one more time because people don’t realize that EVERYTHING IN THE AMERICAN MARKET HAS SUGAR IN IT. Okay, I think I have vented enough now. I was forced to look for food without sugar, that meant shopping only in the produce isle. Damn.

But I did shop in the produce isle and over time you know what I realized: that anything with sweet in front of it is pretty damn good when you can’t have sugar. I was eating sweet onions and sweet peppers like nothing. Still do. It’s funny now that sweet vegetables are what I indulge in during the morning instead of panera chocolate chip cookies. What also started changing was how I was using ingredients. I started figuring how to put them together and fit them with certain seasonings. I was like Bobby Flay in the kitchen.

I am still an amateur in the cooking world but I am taking steps to challenge Masaharu Morimoto one day. There are side effects to cooking well though. You think clearer, don’t have as much gas, and you have more energy. Terrible isn’t it. Especially the one about not having as much gas. How am I suppose to just let go of sitting unbearably with a friend waiting till I am out of their presence to rip one? I don’t know what I am going to do with myself. I guess I will carry on with eating healthy.