Jamie Oliver and Joy

From disordered eating to delightful nourishment.

We’ve been watching Jamie Oliver of a Sunday afternoon.
I’ve adored him for years. I started watching him as a teenager, around the time I first learnt that food was my enemy. Here was this man on a screen, positively BEAMING every time he so much as sipped some home made chicken stock.
I often wonder what these moments of witnessing pure joy and excitement around food, did to my disordered mind. I wonder if this was what kept me from getting any worse for all those years. This glimmer of something different. Something I didn’t know or understand, and wouldn’t for many many more years to come. But something that kept a part of my soul from dying off completely.

So we watch Jamie now, and I often cry.
Because for so many years, not only did I miss out on vital nutrients…I missed out on having my soul tended to. Nourished, in the broadest sense of the word.
It’s as though cooking is a spiritual practice for him - a full bodied delight.
And it’s enchanting to watch.

We made pasta from scratch a few weeks ago, and I BOUNCED around the kitchen with glee. “Isn’t this the absolute best day of your life?!?” I demanded of everyone present.
(We had neither cooked nor tasted it at this point. I was just so excited by the process and how ridiculously authentic I was now, based on this one new skill.)
“Can you even believe this is so easy? How have we been eating pasta out of a packet? WE’RE PRACTICALLY ITALIAN! Are we supposed to hang this somewhere?”
When we finally cooked some and tasted it - oh my word - the satisfaction.
"Halo, we did it!!! We did it! Can you believe it? We’re just like Jamie Oliver! Should we start a cooking show? ISN’T THIS THE GREATEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?”

I often ponder those times when somebody receives diagnosis of a chronic illness and the people around them say - ‘It’s just crazy! They were so healthy!’
They’re usually referring to the fact that they either exercised regularly or ate healthy foods, or both.

I know a lot of people who eat ‘healthy diets’. Salads and quinoa and kale smoothies etc. All the “right” ingredients.
Except maybe one.
Perhaps the most toxic additive of all is shame.
And so many people are eating and exercising out of shame. Trying to look a certain way because a partner or a family member or the media told them they should.
Eating salad as an antidote to pain. To humiliation. To feeling inadequate.
Thinking there’s some other place they should be. Some other body they should be in.

I was one of these people. Eating healthy as a way of chasing acceptance and love.
It was an addiction, in that it was an external activity that helped me avoid looking at the brokenness of my own heart.

I watched Jamie’s salad mega mix video the other day.
I loved it because there were so many herbs I could pick from my own garden.
I loved it because he did a potato salad and never once mentioned ‘naughty food.’
I loved it because I could see how many vitamins and nutrients were in the mix that would feed my body in all the best ways.
I loved it for the symphony of different flavours I could taste through the screen.

I was genuinely excited to make and eat every single one of them.
I took a moment and realised that this would previously have been a trigger for me. I would have thought ‘I need to make this and I have to like it. That is what perfect girls with perfect bodies do.’ The whole experience would have been one of pain. Even if I didn’t realise it at the time. In fact, I probably would have deemed it - ‘being motivated,’ or ‘staying on track.’

This time around, I was just excited. I was smiling.
The food was feeding me before I had even tasted it.

And so I wonder at the layers of health.
We hear so much about what foods to eat.
What exercises we should do.
How often we should meditate and pray.
What size servings we should consume.
How many glasses of water we need.
We’re told we need to close the rings by sunset.
We’re told the correct way to rub a gua shua up your face.

Everything is so compartmentalised.
So divorced from our inner knowing.
From our wholly integrated wellbeing.

If you’ve managed to survive the modern age without the barrage of conflicting health information destroying all of your trust - congratulations.
I often have to remind myself that I can trust my own intelligence and intuition.
Then I try my best to ensure anything I do in the name of health is for the health of my whole self. Not just the way my body looks, or even for the abundance of nutrients. An integration of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness.

This means making food that has me bouncing around the kitchen in my favourite floral apron. Eating food from my own garden. Eating cauliflower/broccoli au gratin with a side of greens at that time of the month, to keep me both nourished and comforted. Dreaming of cooking outdoors with scarily sharp machetes like that amazing Turkish woman, because it makes you feel like you’re living well. Making food from scratch because I feel delightfully accomplished (but only if someone else does the dishes because … mental wellbeing is also important…). Making and eating homemade apple pies on Sundays with my family. Choosing the ‘dog with its head out the car window’ level happiness of a bike ride over a bunch of sit ups. Skipping the treadmill in a smelly gym with boring walls, and instead running past fields full of wildflowers and animals and fresh air. This means the adorable shapes I cut our food into are as important as the colours we’re eating. This means asking myself at sunset - not, ‘did I close the rings?’ But, do I feel like I expressed my energy today in a way that both challenged and delighted me?

Perhaps to really enjoy food, means to be in joy.
And maybe this was the most vital nutrient I missed out on all those years.

And Jamie… thanks for always having a kitchen fully stocked with excitement and delight and awe.
I get it now.
I really get it now.

x
Lysette