I

I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and this has been true for most of my life. I’ve never been a huge fan of meat. It’s mostly the taste, though the eating disorder also made it about the calories.

On the other hand, I can’t think of a single fruit or vegetable I’ve tried that I’ve disliked, though some I perhaps wouldn’t put into regular rotation. I’m a fan of the fairly mundane when it comes to my food choices. I don’t need to see the exotic at every meal.

My grandma used to make my favourite carrots and onions in a white sauce when we visited – it was delicious. My mom always had a couple of servings of vegetables and a piece of fruit garnish on our dinner plates. It’s a bit sad how, as children, we take the efforts our parents put into the food they serve us for granted. ^[i]

I suppose that’s why, as parents, we take our kids’ rejections so personally. We put much thought and work into the meals our children curl their lips at and refuse to taste.

Cooked vegetables with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper are a delicious addition to any meal, not that I ever got my son to agree. He cared nothing about “tiny trees,” and couldn’t be bribed even with cheese sauce.

II

I’m following a 30-Soft reinvention type plan this month, and one of the pillars is to follow a healthy diet. I suspected this would be the easiest for me, and I was correct, which, considering my history, is hella ironic. Eating disorder aside, the foods I like are mostly the ones considered ‘good for you.’

Parental behaviours probably played a role. Fruit was the snack we were offered as children. I ate a lot of apples as a result, one or two a day, at least. My favourite apple was and remains the MacIntosh, though I enjoy others as well. I like a Golden Delicious just fine, though they’re harder to find in stores these days. I also like the relatively new Cosmic Crisp, though, as that one’s a bit pricey, I wait for sales.

It’s currently summer where I live, however, so apples aren’t my priority. It’s berry season, and that suits me just fine. Local strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries fill the farmers’ market tables until they sag. I’m there twice a week, restocking. I pile fresh veggies into my cart as well – happiness is spiralizing a field-fresh zucchini. Happiness is a well-stuffed baked potato. Who doesn’t love some steamed swede? ^[ii]

III

When my eating disorder was active, my diet consisted mostly of fruit and vegetables for extended periods, with veggies taking up the lion’s share. I’d have chosen to eat fruit more often if bulimia hadn’t objected. Leave it to an eating disorder to reject fruit as fattening.

There were some exceptions. My eating disorder had no objections to fruits with a high-water content, such as cucumbers or melons. Half of a cantaloupe has about the same calories as half an orange, but the former takes up more space in the belly, fooling the stomach into thinking it’s been fed something of substance with nutritional value.

Convincing yourself you’re full, not hungry, and don’t need to eat is how you spend a lot of time and mental energy when you have an eating disorder. I suspect it’s why many people with eating disorders smoke – cigarettes kill the appetite, and puffing away is a nice distraction from a stomach that growls.

IV

The vegetables I ate when in the grips of my eating disorder would’ve had more staying power if they came with my grandmother’s white sauce, or a bit of butter, or some cheese or sour cream, but those kinds of foods are abandoned early on when one has an eating disorder. No fats allowed. You let them go in the early days when you still think you’re on a diet. You don’t imagine it’ll be decades before you see them again. ^[iii]

“Only losers add fat to their food,” the inside voice reminds you. Dehydrated parmesan was occasionally acceptable, as long as you measured first. There’s no freestyling with an eating disorder.

Fat being verboten is another reason that meat gets the heave-ho. There’s significantly more fat in a hamburger than in lettuce.

V

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about my eating disorder recovery is adulterating my foods with additions. It was pasta with sauce on the side, salad with dressing on the side, and naked nearly everything else when bulimia was in charge. After a while, you start to believe that vinegar, half-salt (you’ve got to watch that water retention, and yes, it tastes worse), and pepper are all anyone needs for seasoning. After a while, you start to believe that salty vinegar is a tasty treat. It was fun the way it made my forehead sweat.

Is there a better salad in existence than half a head of iceberg lettuce chopped up, adorned thus, and called a meal? These days, my fridge holds dressings aplenty. I find I go through food phases in recovery. For a while, all my salads got blue cheese dressing. I’m now in my Catalina phase. Some reintroduced foods, I don’t like as much as I did when I was a child – Creamy Cucumber – and some foods have been lost to time. I miss you, Kraft Herb and Garlic.

My favourite, by far, of the foods I got back is butter. I go through so much butter that I let the grocery store cashiers believe that I bake. It’s not unlike Frank’s Red Hot – it goes on (almost) everything.

In addition to generously patting my veggies with it, I also add butter to bread and popcorn these days, forbidden for many long years. If you’re going to eat white carbs, says the eating disorder, they’d best be dry.

VI

Fruit needs no butter, unless you’re cooking it. Fruit is complete and wonderful as-is. It doesn’t even need sauces or dips to be mouthwatering. Most fruits are very tasty naked indeed.

For instance, you don’t need to do much to a bowl of fresh, sun-warmed blueberries to make it fantastic. You could, I suppose, if you wanted, put some berries in a shell and bake a pie for extra fun. You could even top the results with whipped cream. If you wanted.

Is there a dairy product in existence that isn’t delicious? ^[iv]

Pineapple is another practically perfect fruit as is, but it becomes sublime if you grill it, and have a bowl of sour cream and brown sugar waiting as dip.

VII

The strawberries I cut into a bowl for my morning snack would also have been fine as-is, but recently I remembered something my mother used to do with strawberries. She sprinkled a little bit of sugar over the cut berries, then let them stand for a few minutes before serving. She even had a box of dedicated berry sugar. I believe it’s extra fine.

Adding sugar to finished foods is one of those behaviours that still feels a bit wrong to me. I ate everything plain for decades. Adding calories deliberately was anathema.

For instance, I drink my coffee black. I drink my coffee black because eighty-six percent of me likes it black, and the rest of me has never tried it any other way. There was no world where my eating disorder was going to let me add calories to a calorie-free drink, and I took up coffee when bulimia was in full swing. I’ve only tried it with milk and sugar once. I vaguely recall planning to do more. Ah, well, such is the fate of mental plans.

VIII

The long-standing resistance to adding calories made adding sugar to my berries more work than I expected. Even this far into my recovery, I can be surprised. Pockets of resistance aren’t unexpected, just annoying.

When you leave a relationship, it takes about half the time you were in it for the mind to let go entirely, and an eating disorder is a relationship of sorts. For me, that works out to a little more than twenty years before the last of the inside voices drift away. I’ll mark the calendar. I should buy myself something nice.

IX

One of the things I’ve learned in recovery is that when something seems hard and a little bit scary, it’s a good idea to lean in. You’ll find out all kinds of things about yourself and what you’re capable of when you stand your ground and don’t give up.

I very recently relearned that a little bit of sugar sprinkled on strawberries makes them absolutely delicious and completely moreish. The sugar not only sweetens the berries; it mixes with the berry water to create a delicious syrup at the bottom of the bowl. One could, if they felt like it, clean out that syrup with their fingers. Or perhaps add it to some ice cream? I wish I had a time machine. I feel bad about my lack of success in convincing my son to eat vegetables. If I had added a spoonful of sugar to the beans or mushrooms, it might have helped the zucchini go down more smoothly. He might have grown into a man

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X – endnotes

[i] I’d make it for myself, except I’ve never managed to make a white sauce that turns out edible. I’ve got a roux block.

[ii] aka rutabaga

[iii] These rules are ignored by bulimia when you binge; the ignoring of them becomes another stick to beat yourself with.

[iv] My son’s partner has recently been diagnosed as being allergic to milk. Not lactose, milk. That’s a hard one; she loves cheese.

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