Hannah's Heartstrings

So let's get one thing straight here. When I say 'diet restrictions', I'm not talking about A DIET. Not your oh-crap-bikini-season-is-coming-I-need-to-get-skinny, forty-day-cleanse, man-this-time-I'm-serious dieting. What I mean is LIFESTYLE. Healthy living, give-it-all-you've-got, no-turning-back-ever, all-out Lifestyle Change. Whether its controlling a health issue through what you put in your mouth, the desire to become a Food Hippie, or needing to loose a few inches off your waistline, this is not about a temporary eating habit that gets ditched with the first Starbucks craving. This is real, long-term, serious life foodiness. Yes, I just made that word up.

The thing is, most of us who have made the leap are dragging behind us friends and family who have not. Its not likely you are going to be able to convert everyone, so you will end up needing to cook meals that you choose not to eat. Which is fine, as long as you practice some serious self-control. But add not being able to taste the food you need to feed your family to trying to reign in your own food cravings, and things can get irritating.

So in the past few years, I've learned some important things about feeding people food that I can't eat. The most important thing is simply...

People still need to eat!
And I still need to feed them. And most people just aren't into roasted lentils and coconut milk smoothies the way I am. So they need food. My husband likes chicken, tacos, pizza, and grilled cheese and turkey sandwiches. And he's always checking the freezer for ice cream. Regardless of the fact that a lot of his favorite foods aren't on my list, my husband enjoys them and he still needs to eat filling man-food. Now, since I am the cook of the house (muhaha), I will make choices about what type of food I feed him. I will get him good, organic ice cream when I can, and strive to make homemade bread that is free of random chemicals and nonsense. I pack his lunch with a nice sandwich, an apple and some yogurt. I offer him better food and he is a happier man for it.

My point is simply that, while I encourage my friends and family to take control of their food lives, I cannot be a Food Snob. Sometimes, I'm gonna have to serve those sugar-laden desserts and crappy pasta dishes. I can edit them and make them healthier, but I still have to feed people.


Follow Recipes!
Recpies are my best friend. They tell me exactly what to do and how to get something to turn out right. Now, I'm pretty good at guessing, throwing together something and having it taste decent. But nothing beats a good recipe with all the right measurements and everything.

Yummly is one of my favorite places to find the recipe I want quickly. Pinterest is helpful too. I'm slightly amused by the fact that I just recently created a board devoted to beans and rice.

Use your Sniffer!
Once you've cooked enough, you will know what certain things are supposed to smell like, regardless of whether you can taste it or not. Memorize how your favorite chili recipe smells, how that awesome spaghetti sauce smells, and what your chocolate chip cookie dough is suppose to smell like. Learn how to utilize that smell memory of yours!

Be Confident!
I highly doubt this is your first rodeo. You know how to do this! You know how to cook, right? So cook, feed it to your minions, make your own meal, and move on. Sure you're going to have some flops. At the moment of writing this, I'm trying to make some chocolate butterscotch chip cookies for church fellowship tonight...and they are flat. Ridiculously flat. I have no idea what happened, but they flopped. So now I am experimenting with baking them in my muffin tin and pie pans, so the dough will hold its shape and not become a pancake. But that's life. You live and learn.

What you are doing for your food life is important, and its going to benefit you in ways you could never imagine. What you get by tailoring your menu and giving yourself a healthier lifestyle gives you leaps and bounds in your health above others that choose not to. You are doing the right thing. Keep doing it!

Let them in Your World!
People can surprise you. And you can surprise people. They might be wary of your foodie habits, but letting them try some of your odd snacks might be the best thing in their day! And they might really like your stuff! So don't be afraid to cook a healthy meal for someone. They just might surprise you and really enjoy it!

Never be afraid to talk about your food life either. Especially if they don't know you, they might not realize why you do what you do. When I start mentioning that I'm a vegan (plus all the other things), people generally automatically think "hippie, animal-rights-activist, anti-hunting guru". But then I have to be quick to clarify that its not cause I think eating animals is bad. I am totally pro-hunting! When I tell them I'm curing myself of epilepsy through food, their jaws drop. They would never have guessed and never thought such a thing was possible.

Share your story!

Be Steadfast!
I don't ever accept the excuse that you can't live a healthy lifestyle because your family won't eat that way, or because you just "can't" give up X-Y-Z foods. YOU CAN. The people around you do not dictate your eating habits, and there is no well-loved food more important than your health. Sure, its hard. But it is not impossible. Don't ever say you could never live with your caffeinated, sugary beverages, your chocolate treats, or your ice cream binges. Don't ever tell me you don't like water or vegetables. They are all just excuses, and bad ones at that. YOU CAN. Period.

You make a choice to take your health in your own hands. With that choice comes a responsibility to yourself. Don't let other peoples' actions dictate your behavior. Just because everyone else is eating it does not mean you have to. Its like the analogy that mom's love to use with their teenagers...if all your friends jump off a bridge, are you going to follow?

We have put a lot of social stigma on food. We have made it so that it is rude not to eat what everyone else is eating, and that requesting something different is considered snobbish. Food is comfort. Its what people do together, and while this may be true, it has caused the good intentions of health-foodies to go down the drain with one simple "Hey, let's go out for ice cream!" Food is important, but it is not the be-all-end-all of our social lives. You have to stick to your guns, tell your story, and say NO to the cupcakes! It isn't worth it.


Cooking your loved ones food that your can't eat is hard sometimes. But its not impossible. And its not impossible to live a food life that no one else around you does. Its kinda like being a Christian (now, just bear with me here). Those fiery darts are gonna come at your from all sides. But what do you do? You put on your whole armor of God and stand strong and courageous!

Well, maybe that's a rough analogy. But you get the idea.

In an effort to teach children about consent, we are creating a society of people that believes that they always get exactly what they want and never have to do anything they aren't comfortable with. I believe this is because we are meshing issues that were never meant to be meshed.

In this video, the idea is brought up that parents are accidentally teaching kids that their consent to sexual activity doesn't matter by forcing them to shake hands/hug relatives, by teaching them to respect their elders and so on. The lady in the video expresses that by doing these things, we are telling our kids that they don't have a choice and what they feel doesn't matter, so when it comes time for them to start being sexually active (apparently sometime in their teens), they will be hesitant to ever say no to someone because it will appear rude.

While I totally agree that children need to be taught that no one is allowed to forcibly touch them in an inappropriate way, I believe that these issues are not the same and should not be lumped together into one lesson.

My parents made me shake hands with people and I was told on many occasions to hug my relatives. I was taught to be respectful to my elders and obey adults that were placed in authority over me. And when it came time for me to be in a romantic relationship, I never felt that I could not tell my boyfriend/fiancee that I was uncomfortable with something, no matter how simple or complicated it was. I never felt that I had to keep being in an uncomfortable situation because i might appear rude if I got up and left.

But here is the difference. My parents also taught me something that overruled any idea that my consent wasn't important. They taught me to protect my body. They taught me to respect myself and that my body was special. I knew that I needed to save my body for one special person, and that person should be the one I have committed to spend the rest of my life with.

This is not a popular teaching anymore. We now live in a word of sexual carelessness, preached in the name of expressing yourself. Everything is based on how you feel, and boundaries are yours to choose, even if they are non-existent.

We are creating a generation of selfish, whiny, feelings-driven, promiscuous, irresponsible, wanna-be adults.

I may not have any children of my own, but I have been around them long enough to know a few things (I figured I should get that out there before the thunder of comments began about how a childless woman has no knowledge of raising children). I know that children, especially small ones, do not have the maturity to make proper decisions most of the time. That's why they have parents, and why parents are told to "train up a child in the way that he should go" (Prov. 22:6). Children have small minds, and need guidance to learn how to make proper decisions.

In the video mentioned, the woman talks about how parents don't listen to their children's requests or comments, and end up just telling them what they should think instead of inviting a conversation about what the child does think. She used examples like the child saying "I'm cold", and parent responding "No, you're not, it's hot in here!" Or child: "I'm hungry", and parent: "No, you're not...you just ate dinner!"
She suggested turning it into a conversation and asking the child why they are cold or hungry, instead of just telling them what they should think. In doing so, we are telling them that their opinion does matter.

Now, I see the point, but the problem with this is that in doing so, we are not teaching our children how to have self-control. There are situations sometimes that are beyond your control, such as standing in a funeral home, or sitting in the cart while mommy does grocery shopping. It's uncomfortable, sure. But that fact is that if the parent is constantly catering to the child's every whim and desire, they are not learning that sometimes you just have to suck it up, shut up, stand still and be patient. You are hungry? Ok, but you aren't starving to death. You can wait. You are bored/tired? You'll be ok for a few more minutes. You are not in danger, you are not sick or hurt. The world does not revolve around you. 

And yet there is the logic that was used to create the idea that we are teaching kids that their voice doesn't matter. See? You're telling kids that what they feel isn't important, so now when someone tries to push sex on them, they are going to think that their feelings about it aren't important!

You are comparing apples to oranges. Teaching a child self-control by making them wait patiently in a checkout line or in the car or at a place where they are just clearly not interested has nothing to do with teaching them how to respect their body and protect it.

I knew as a kid that no one was allowed to touch me down there. I knew that if ever I felt uncomfortable with someone, I needed to leave the situation and tell my mom. My mom also was very aware of my surroundings when I was a young, dumb kid whose brain hadn't matured yet and knew what situations not to place me in. I knew that I wanted to save my body for someone special, and that someone special was going to be the man I married. I knew that sex was God's gift to married men and women, and it was not some thing to be played around with by irresponsible young adults that had no intention of getting married.

So you see, I was taught about consent, but my parents didn't mix it with learning how to be a patient, well-behaved child in public. The issues are separate, and mixing them just creates the multitudes of out-of-control kids I see running all over their parents and creating embarrassing spectacles in grocery stores. Parents have become so afraid to harm their tender little personalities or to make them feel like their choices don't matter. Guess what, kid....until you no longer need to be reminded to brush your teeth in the morning, don't need help bathing, can make your own food and take care of yourself when you get the flu...you are an immature child that needs the help of a mature adult to make good decisions. And until you have sufficiently learned how to be a responsible part of society, you are just an immature teenager that needs guidance from a mature adult.

Teaching a child self-control and patience seems to be a lost art today. I grew up in a circle where children were expected to behave themselves and sit in less-than-exciting situations for extended periods of time. We grew up knowing to keep our hands to ourselves and to not let other people touch us inappropriately. We were brought to respect ourselves and to respect others. We never felt like our opinions didn't matter and we knew that our parents would talk to us and guide us in the way that we should go.

We weren't raised perfect, but we weren't raised sissies.

Quit making issues out of things that aren't meant to be that way. Stop making excuses and trying to come up with reasons why kids are being sexually abused. It happens because we live in a fallen, sinful creation. Its never right, and never the kids' fault. How about we try teaching the adults to respect children and know their own boundaries? Oh yeah...its probably cause they were taught as kids to do whatever made them FEEL good and do whatever they thought was right.