Are What You Eat

“You are what you eat” is mostly literal. Our bodies regenerate every seven to ten years. When I started yoga, my diet had mostly descended to what I called “the triumvirate of happiness”. If completely literal, I would have become the love child of a mango juice, white magnum ice-cream, and a microwave Tikka Chicken Masala curry from the local Little Sainsbury’s by the Lower Richmond Rd petrol station. I was living by myself and this was my default “because you are working hard” treat to myself. 

When I got into the habit of going straight from work to yoga, my diet also improved because I would have some yogi soup after the class. The magnum ice cream was replaced with an oat cookie, and the juice with some tea. Learning to cook is not unlike learning a language, and often needs someone to show you. You can get CEOs who don’t know how to fry an egg, because they have never prioritised being competent at life. Either because they were well supported, or they allowed their body to fall apart. It is not unusual for someone not to know how to make mash potatoes, or even have tried various vegetables. 

Our palates change over time. There are tricks to expand your repertoire. If you are trying to shift towards a more plant-based diet, you need to learn the vocabulary of eating more widely. As a South African, I come from a big meat-eating culture. I have also got a weird, quirky relationship with fruit. Particularly messy fruit. Something odd from my childhood (my excuse) gives me obstacles with regards to the textures, smells, and spray. You can get over that, I am told. I try with smoothies, which I enjoy and make occasional more direct attempts. 

I did discover soups as a similarly fantastic indirect middle-of-English-winter diet shifter. I got a Ninja Blender which both blends and cooks. You can put stock with any vegetable and have great soup half an hour later. The more you learn the components of cooking, the easier it is to solve both the health and the taste issues with joy, which boosts energy levels much more than the kick of my three yummies.

convenience

Making your Jam

I buy many of the stronger arguments about eating less meat, and so am slowly changing my habits. I also buy the argument that we have a quota of self-discipline. There are no brownie points for martyrs and ideologues. Actions are what matter, so deep pragmatism is the most effective path. By definition. My approach has been to gently expand my vocabulary (the foods my tongue recognises) and sentences (the foods I can cook). Addition is the best form of breaking of control. If I look forward to vegetarian dishes, I don’t feel hard done by, by the missing meat. I now love making soup and jams… and experimenting. My meat consumption has gone down. Similarly, I think the way to unwind our identity problems (Nations, Companies, Prejudice) is competition. Start seeing yourself in more places till those places become a part of you. We are a collection of our habits, and our habits build from the words and sentences we attach meaning to and build meaning from.

Being Able

“The Forwards win the match. The Backs determine the scoreline”. Sometimes what is true in Rugby, is true in life. In 117 appearances for the Springboks, prop forward Tendai Mtawarira (“The Beast”) scored just two tries. That wasn’t his job. The Corona Virus has brought to the front of our consciousness the importance of Endurance and Resilience. The importance of a strong Base. Being able to hold still. With strength. It has highlighted the importance of being able to take the hits. Being able to push forward a few centimetres at a time. Human Beings aren’t simply productive assets in a chain of pass-the-parcel hand-to-mouth living. The foundation is simple. The foundation is being. Being able. Health, Housing, Education, and Food win the match. Meritocracy, Property Rights, Incentives, Passion, Trade, Free Movement, Supply and Demand determine the scoreline.

First, Secure the Base

Chopping Chillies

I love going to restaurants where the Chef comes out to explain the menu. Clearly this doesn't happen often. We love great stories, and the glint in the eye of someone who is passionate about their craft spreads through the tongues of the recipients to the ears of their friends. Soon the Chef will stay in the Kitchen and you will hear about the food from the waiter. We have an innate ability to sense authenticity. We let storytellers break the rules if the story is theirs. If the story is raw and full of flavour.

Clair Whitefield is a storyteller. She is a friend of my girlfriend and I hadn't yet heard her show, but I spent the morning handing out flyers for 'Chopping Chillies' on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. I then headed round the corner to see it for myself. Her beautiful layered 40 minute tale was a lesson in the complex flavours of happiness. It was like hearing directly from the Chef, but what she was letting us taste was what I have been studying with you on this blog.

Her one-woman spoken word show builds up various characters as they experience life with all its complexity. They have their own stories. The stories weave together. And it all comes together in a way that leaves you grateful that happiness isn't just a TV dinner. It makes you laugh. It punches you in the stomach. It holds your hand. It wets your cheek. It makes you sniff.  

It feeds you with the energy and desire to take another bite.

'Chopping Chillies' - Clair Whitefield

More than Nice

I know very little about music. I have favourites that come up and I love, but my collection is a mess and I often don’t know the song or band names. I have actually given up on building a collection since the arrival of iTunes, and then Spotify. My approach has just been to ask my friend Stuart for new recommendations every now and then, or to spy on Spotify buddies. I added asking Twitter recently, and the recommendations were great. 

I also don't know much about coffee. I only started drinking it about 18 months ago. Until then, I had only had about 4 cups in my life. All of them had been in social pressure situations where someone had made me a cup, and I felt it would be rude to not drink it. I was a teenager with a half formed back bone. There are people who get as much pleasure from coffee as Stuart gets from music. Actually, I think Stuart gets as much pleasure from coffee as he gets from music. I like it now, but more in the sense that I like music. I like the atmosphere of coffee shops.

The fun side of coffee

There are plenty of things where all the individual flavours blur to the lay tongue. Before putting in a bit of effort, you can kind of get it, but really getting it requires a deep dive. I recently started writing 100 word blog posts, and requesting guest posts of the same length, on the subject of ‘happiness and learning’. I received some criticism that this was an attempt to reduce something as beautifully complicated and personal to 100 words, and demeans our understanding of a complex emotion. More specifically, was this ‘an endorsement of every lament on the shallowness of modern culture in general and social media in particular? (or maybe we can just post memes of lolcats)’.

I don't agree that modern culture is shallow. Steven Pinker talks of the ‘good old days’ delusion where as we get older we remember the past better than it was. Older generations have always looked on new ways of communicating derisively. Socrates didn't write, because he thought the modern invention would turn people into lazy thinkers. Fortunately his student Plato did.

The intention of my 100 word posts isn’t to reduce. Like fine music, coffee, wine, chocolate, food or anything truly complex and interesting, I think you have to try isolate individual flavours first. Once you know what real vanilla smells, looks, and tastes like, you can start to recognise its part in complexity. Subtlety. Hints. Aftertastes. The individual parts can then form elaborate, layered plots full of intriguing characters. If you are a music and coffee philistine like me, you don't get to experience the full story. You just get to look at the cover. You may know it looks, sounds or tastes nice. But nice is a word that drives English teachers nuts for a reason. There is more.

Starting small doesn't mean you can't go deep.