59. The One Question You Must Ask Yourself This Holiday Season

Imagine sitting down to a meal that satisfies not just yourself physically, but also emotionally.  Food can be a powerful tool for supporting our emotional health! And there is no time like the holidays to test this out.

In this episode, I discuss how our dietary choices play an overwhelming role in our health but how asking yourself one very important question can also influence our meal planning in other nourishing ways. 

I talk about carrying that question into our holiday meals, which are filled with nostalgia and tradition so that you can enjoy your next few months with awareness and without regret come January.

I also offer some practical advice on how to make mindful decisions regarding ingredients, like reducing sugar in recipes, and share some healthier holiday recipes that are not only nutritious but also delicious! 

Ask Heather Questions! 

Do you have a question about a traditional recipe, ingredients, and how to make things a little bit healthier? Reach out at heather@heathercarey.com

Download the Healthy Holiday Recipes

If you are looking for a few healthier versions of classic recipes, do not hesitate to download my Healthy Holiday Recipe Guide, you will not be disappointed. Click HERE for the recipes. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

Hi everybody and welcome back to a fun and delicious episode of the Real Food Stories podcast. I have been doing a lot of interviewing lately and haven't spent much time alone over here in my podcast Neck of the Woods, but when I do, I love to talk about my all-time favorite topic and that is food. I have said this before on previous shows. Besides all the nutrition and menopause and midlife information I love to talk with people about, and I have loved interviewing so many fantastic people. My first love is a well-run kitchen and healthy cooking, because I have an undying belief that solid nutrition information is power. But if you cannot get into your kitchen and prepare a healthy, balanced, well-nourished meal consistently, all the nutrition theory is bunk.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Real, healthy food is at the heart of it all. Food can be looked at like medicine. Right, we need food to keep us healthy. What we put onto our forks is what is responsible for over 80% of those lifestyle diseases. I have mentioned a million times before Heart disease and everything that goes with it, like high blood pressure and heart attack risk, diabetes, being overweight, certain cancers. There's also a link to Alzheimer's. The bottom line is that our food counts for so much when it comes to being healthy and living well. So making sure that we put our attention and our intention into what goes into our mouths and paying attention to what we want to crowd out is just as important.

Speaker 1: 2:28

I know that so many people have beliefs around healthy eating because they think it's just like diet food, and diet food, at least for me, always meant boring, bland, punishing and suffering and just waiting to get back to what I was eating before that diet. But you need to trust me on this, being that I can unequivocally say that I love food and I love eating and trying new foods. Would I ever tell you to eat boring and bland diet foods? Absolutely not, and I would never do the same. That is why healthy food when done right and when you know how to get into your kitchen and know the skills to make it taste great is like a best kept secret.

Speaker 1: 3:16

I get cravings for food and I can tell you that it's not for candy bars and ice cream. I crave real, nourishing food because it tastes so good. I'm not craving food that's going to make me feel like crap after I eat it. That makes no sense to me when I think about my week and I start planning my meals, which I highly recommend everybody do. The last thing I am thinking about on the list of important things is how many calories is in this or that side dish, or how many fat grams or all those numbers. Of course, it might be important to be mindful of what you're eating, and I always want to think of balance in my meals, like having a lot of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and good for you fats, things like that Because I want to make sure I am getting certain nutrients in my meals. Certain nutrients are like that medicine I talked about, but the very first thing I think about when creating meals is what I am in the mood to eat. What do I feel like eating? What sounds good to me right now? So I'll give you an example of this.

Speaker 1: 4:35

I've been trying to get my husband, mark, more into meal planning with me, because it's now just the two of us in our house. Our kids live close by, but they don't live with us anymore and personally, it's about time that he contributes to cooking and the cooking includes the planning and the grocery shopping and everything that goes into making meals for the week. And I will ask him what are you in the mood to eat this week and he will say I don't know some chicken or how about salmon one night? And I'm trying to quote train him to go a little deeper than that, because I don't know about you, but just putting salmon on the meal plan would be beyond boring to me. But that's where my mind goes. He's a more simple eater, I guess, totally open to eating all sorts of food, but kind of basic nonetheless. So I started going deeper with this salmon idea, so it just doesn't turn into a boring piece of baked salmon with a sprinkle of lemon on it. And we came up with a seared salmon bowl with farro and sesame infused spinach. Now, doesn't that sound a little better than steamed salmon? It was delicious, comforting and warm and it was exactly what I was in the mood to eat. The salmon was good and that's the healthy part the spinach, the whole grains from the farro. But I wanted to feel warm and cozy, because the bottom line is food is so rooted in our emotions. So, again, while I definitely wanted the salmon it was a really great source of healthy fats I wanted the whole grains and the spinach. I was also just craving the feeling I was going to have a warm dinner bowl on a cold fall night in front of the fire. The healthy ingredients all made this bowl a really well-balanced meal, but what it was going to do for me emotionally was equally as important.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Food is complicated in this way. We give food the power to make us happy, sad, angry. If we overeat, we feel good about ourselves or terrible at the same time. I've been thinking a lot about this, as I always start to do right around now during the holiday season, because the holidays are so loaded for so many people and nobody gets this more than me. Way back when the holidays were the time to let it all go and give myself full-blown permission to eat and drink whatever the hell I wanted, all my people were doing the same, or so I assumed, and so it was all very accepted to drink one too many eggnogs at the holiday party or overeat to the point of food coma at Thanksgiving. What I was also feeling, though, was exhausted, bloated and strung out.

Speaker 1: 7:52

January 2nd would suddenly be here, and it was like the lights had come on at the bar during closing time and back to reality, and I didn't transition very well. I didn't have the tools at the time to give myself compassion and kindness and forgiveness. And actually, if I had, I wouldn't have gone off the holiday deep end in the first place. Instead, I berated myself and started researching what detox diet I was going to go on or do dry January so I could stop drinking for a month. None of it lasted, because who wants to suffer or starve? Even if I didn't want to do that, I couldn't really see the benefit of it. Anyway, the cycle would go on and on and continued until I learned truly learned how to embrace self-care and prioritize me, my rest, my energy and my priorities around food. I wanted food to be nourishing physically and nourishing emotionally. This is still extremely important to me, so I don't burn out and feel like I need to do something drastic to get back on track, and this takes practice and a knowing of what is important to you in your life.

Speaker 1: 9:06

How do you want to feel at the end of the holidays? Do you want to enter into the new year feeling good about yourself and a peace with the food you ate and your body? Or do you want to feel like you have a five-alarm fire going on in your head and you're looking and scanning and searching for your next diet. But and this is a big but this time of year is not like any other time of year. I mean, talk about our emotions, which can run rampant and high right now. Why are the holidays so freaking emotional for so many people, and what is the significance of holiday traditions, especially when it comes to food? And how did marshmallows come to be a thing on top of sweet potatoes?

Speaker 1: 9:54

All kidding aside, for many of us, tradition during the holidays is what dictates how we eat, what we eat and why. In my husband's family, for example, every Christmas Eve since I have been in this family, we have eaten the same exact holiday dinner that includes patty shells. If you don't know what patty shells are, I will explain it on another podcast episode because it's almost too complicated to get into. But that's the main part of the meal, and then there's other components and it's all exactly the same, and we do this every single year. That's nostalgia, because people want to repeat what they have done in the past, and so on and so on. It's comforting to know that someone is always going to bring at your grandma's famous sausage stuffing or your mom's chocolate cake recipe Nostalgic recipes like these, no matter how healthy or if they even taste delicious, are what keep our memories alive, and that is a source of deep comfort for so many of us.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Relating to each other through our food keeps us bonded together. This doesn't mean, however, that we can't infuse our holidays with some new traditions or dishes that will become family favorites, because your grandma started somewhere. She started the tradition of her stuffing years and years ago, and that was at the time, I assume, brand new. So how about a different version of some of the old traditional dishes? Okay, so I'm going to pause my rant of nostalgia for a second to just interject a thought about making our holidays a little bit healthier, because, after all, I am a culinary nutritionist and so I'm always thinking about how to make things a little healthy while also keeping them nice and comforting.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Now, if you are like I used to be and pure enjoyment, exhaustion and regret are your jam, then skip ahead a few minutes. But I want you to consider, really consider how you want to feel when you open your eyes on January 2nd and you're getting back to work and the world seems dull, dark and cold and we have the rest of winter staring us in the face. Do you want to feel like it is cold and dark, or do you want to feel like spring is coming? My point is to really consider why you feel like you need to blow your eating and drinking to smithereens in a few short months, or maybe you're feeling that there might be an in-between somewhere in all of this. The holidays are, after all, just a mere few days Throw in your office party and the rest of the time you're eating pretty well, you're getting rest and not stressing out. That's fine too. Give yourself the time to understand how you want to feel and why. If eating more healthy during the holiday meals is a priority for you because you don't want to feel heavy and bloated and tired, that's fine too. And I'm going to talk about making some of those holiday foods just a little bit healthier and give you a couple of tips.

Speaker 1: 13:15

The problem with some holiday dishes and appetizers is twofold. People think things like I'll never be able to eat this again, and so I'm giving myself full blown permission to use the most butter, the most cream and the most sugar out there. I'll never be able to have eggnog again. It's not going to come around for another year. I'll never be able to have these champagne cocktails. They're never going to be here again, so there's a feeling of scarcity. The second problem is basically the same that most holiday dishes and appetizers are made with the most butter, sugar, salt and other weird ingredients like onions in a can or a cream of mushroom soup, and that's because these recipes came from your grandma, and I truly believe that we can do some modernizing so that we are still comforting ourselves and getting all of that good nostalgia, but they're just a little better for you. So what are a few things that we can easily do to make our holiday foods a little healthier while still keeping them real, as in nobody will notice or, even better, yet they might think that your dish actually tastes even better than before.

Speaker 1: 14:30

First of all, I want to say something good about holiday side dishes. Let's realize that a lot of the side dishes that we bring to the table, so to speak, start out with healthy intentions. A lot of them are just full of healthy seasonal vegetables. Sweet potatoes fantastic for you Brussels sprouts, green beans, spinach, kale these are all really good for you. Vegetables. They're really great on their own without all the outdated extras, and even better if you add some other new add-ins, which I'm gonna mention.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Now I have a bonus for all of my listeners today. After you listen, go to the show notes and download my healthier versions of some classic recipes. In there I have a recipe for green bean almondine, a sweet potato, pecan casserole absolutely no marshmallows anywhere in sight, a vegan eggnog, which is delicious and probably a 10th of the calories in traditional eggnog, a baked spinach and artichoke dip and two great dessert recipes. One is a vegan, no-bake pumpkin bar and the other is a chocolate to bark with really good for you pumpkin, sunflower and hemp seeds. I happen to love desserts that are bite-size. Rather than taking a full slice of the sometimes dozen pies that we have at my holiday gatherings, these desserts are small. One bite, you get satisfied without all of the extra heaviness.

Speaker 1: 16:22

A few more suggestions to change the trajectory of a recipe gut bomb. Use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter in recipes that call for butter, unless the recipe specifically says you need butter. You're gonna need. Some baked goods need butter, but most do not. All those side dishes they could go without butter. Olive oil is so good for you, butter not so much.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Another ingredient I wanted to remind you about is sugar. Now some dessert recipes are so over the top with sugar that you can likely cut at least a quarter of the sugar out of the recipe. Now, listen, don't mess with the pumpkin pie recipe on that can of pumpkin puree. They've got that locked down. They know what they're doing. But some of your homemade recipes muffins, brownies likely have too much sugar in them. Now, don't sub out brown sugar for white sugar. By the way, sugar is sugar. They're the same and they're not any healthier than the other. But see where you might be able to just cut down a bit.

Speaker 1: 17:38

And lastly, and I think most important of all, be sure to practice mindfulness and consistently ask yourself how you want to feel. Do you want to wake up the next day hungover, exhausted and needing a holiday from your holiday, or would you like to explore how it feels to be rested and feeling good, knowing that you enjoyed who you were with more than the food you were eating? Be mindful of your appetite and stop when you're just full. The leftovers will be there waiting for you in the morning. But most of all, do your best and enjoy. Now I would love to hear from you about recipes and how you are feeling around the holidays. Do you have questions about ingredients. Are you feeling trepidation or are you feeling good about going into the holidays? I am leaving my email and contact info in the show notes and I would love to hear from you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have about specific ingredients or recipes.