2 tbs lemon juice

2 tbs maple syrup

1/10 tsp cayenne powder

1 cup water

Mix all ingredients together.

Drink

That my friends is breakfast, lunch and dinner for 10 days. The Master Cleanse is liquid torture for a gal like me – a gal that likes her breakfast, lunch and dinner to contain food. However, every once in a while I go out on a limb and spend 10 days or so on a cleanse. Sometimes they involve food (but less of it), other times, like now, they distinctly lack it. And while I can usually stick out the ones that involve food, my self-control is challenged when faced with a week or more without something to chew on.

To while away the time (who wants to have drinks with a gal sucking back lemons and syrup?), I’m reading ‘In Defense of Food’ by Michael Pollan. Appropriate for the occasion I feel!

A lack of anything solid opens one’s eyes to the abundance of food around us. Unfortunately, much of it is processed, albeit with claims of ‘added fiber, low-fat or omega 3’s. At best these are a poor, and not very healthy, imitation of the real thing.

Pollan uses the term ‘nutritionism’ to describe a way of thinking about food in which ‘foods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts’. I was struck by this concept and a little embarrassed as I’ve often extolled the virtues of this food or that based on a singular nutrient factor.

It pleased me however to learn that food is, in so many ways smarter than us. Extract the molecules we desire (like vitamin E, beta-carotene or lycopene) from the whole food and they often don’t work at all. Proud though we may be about human scientific discovery we still find it hard to work out which part of the Thyme plant we should extract to make an antioxidant supplement. Pollan’s advice, just eat the Thyme!

I will confess that I am likely a part-time orthorexic – a person with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. And although it’s not an official eating disorder yet I find it quite adequately describes my compulsion to read, learn and extol the virtues of a healthy diet. Now I say part-time because I also have a penchant for poutine, chocolate and dumplings. So I’m caught between a compulsion to ‘be’ healthy and eat with abandon.

What is concerning is that this sort of anxiety is not an uncommon response to the Western diet. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania asked a group of Americans for word associations with a number of images. The top response for a picture of chocolate cake was “guilt”. For the French however, the most frequent word associated with a slice of chocolate cake was “celebration”. How unfortunate that we have reduced food to a scientific obsession about caloric and nutrient intake over health and pleasure.

Michael Pollan gave us some simple words to live by:

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Someone pass the Thyme! (That last part was me).