Nobody is Perfect?
I get comments all the time: from clients, readers of my book, friends on the streets, "I can not be as perfect as you with food and health choices, because I like... junk food, etc., etc., etc. Despite my efforts to try and explain, I am not perfect either, my words are generally ignored. Perhaps holding someone else's choices as too high to aspire to makes it easy to do nothing to change one's own personal health and lifestyle choices. "If I can't do it like that, why bother?"
So, I have to tell you, I am not prefect either. It is about making the best choices in any given moment. Living in the present, living for the moment, not bashing oneself for yesterday's choices or lamenting about the "bad" choices you might make tomorrow.
Enter Jake's 14th birthday: I made a very yummy, whole food birthday cake. See above. The next morning (well, it was more like 1 PM) I had a cup of coffee and a piece of cake for my brunch. See, not so perfect! I had a big handful of blueberries as well!
It was 1 PM: I do not obsess over eating breakfast, in the AM, because it is the meal to break the fast of the night time before or the way to rev my metabolism for the day. If I am not hungry, I do not eat. Who made those rules anyhow? Very simple, living in the moment's needs. Not hungry for breakfast, don't eat! I was hungry by 1 PM and left over birthday cake sounded splendid!
With that said, I would not eat a commercial bakery cake (for breakfast or at any other time of day!); a boxed, cake mix cake; or even a "from scratch" white flour / white sugar cake.
The above pictured, whole food cake was made with:
100% whole grain spelt flour
unrefined, sucanat sugar crystals (1/2 cup instead of the recipes 2 cup suggestion)
local, free-range eggs
local, grass-fed milk
vanilla extract
grass-fed butter
my homemade strawberry jam between the layers (very low sugar jam made from Martin's berries)
frosting from grass-fed heavy cream and black cherry juice concentrate
For a class on whole food baking check out the Local Living Venture's web site, sign up for their emails... I will volunteer teach a class this fall to prep you for holiday baking. http://www.sustainablelivingproject.net/ I also teach classes in my home, group and private sessions.
My justification: A piece of whole grain toast with butter, soft fried egg and bowl of berries... same ingredients, different configuration! So I ate the cake! (I grew up with Bill Cosby telling me it was just fine to eat cake for breakfast!)
Life is not about being perfect (and are we not all perfect anyhow?), it is about perfection in the moment!
This picture is the next day's 1 PM brunch: Local free range eggs; local, grass-fed cheddar and local blueberries in a scrumptious omelet. I added the blueberries just before I folded the omelet and slipped it onto my plate. Prevents the berries from becoming cooked blueberries.
