Lately, I've been eating a ton of granola. Seriously. It's half my diet. But the costs are adding up; a bag of my favorite granola (Purely Elizabeth) costs $5-$6 on average and only lasts me a week at most. Plus, I've been wanting a granola with less (or no) added sugar. So I did what we used to do when I was kid and we never even bought granola in the first place- I made my own. Making your own granola is simple and quick, and the hardest part is making sure it doesn't burn in the oven. But this means that you have control! You can make it as crispy, as chunky, as spicy as you want. Heating coconut oil, maple syrup, and pumpkin puree over the stove and then pouring it over the oats and spices enables you to create as large of granola chunks as you desire. For chunkier granola, don't stir halfway through its baking time; simply rotate the pans. I recently received the suggestion to try practicing the guidelines Ayurveda lays out on seasonal eating to deal with my food anxieties. The ideology behind this practice rests on the concept that there are three seasons with which the doshas (biological energies) correspond: Vata--late fall to early winter; Kapha--late winter to early spring, and Pitta--late spring to early fall. Our cravings naturally conform to these seasons; we crave light salads in the summer, heavy stews in the winter, and spices in the fall. You don't even have to prescribe to Ayurvedic ideology to admit this is true...how often do you want watermelon when it is twenty degrees outside or butternut squash soup when it is ninety? The temperatures, the taste profiles, and the heaviness of our diets change with the seasons. Want science? This landmark study demonstrates how cooler temperatures stimulate brown fat production. It is highly possible that our cravings adjust accordingly. Read this article for the layman's interpretation of the study. As we are entering Vata season, warmer, heavier, spicier, and more grounding foods are on our mind. They are also seasonal; pumpkins patches are overflowing, warm drinks offer comfort from the cold, and we would traditionally begin to cook dried beans at this time of year as our gardens and farms go relatively bare. Eating heavier foods can be difficult and anxiety-inducing for those who struggle with disordered eating, but resisting them can be dangerous. Our bodies' cravings can indicate important deficiencies or needs for nutrients, and (for the most part) it is important to listen! This is an awesome guide to implementing specific dietary and lifestyle practices during Vata season. Back to the granola! I made this recipe for a vegan bake sale yesterday benefiting Hope Animal Rescue in Durham. Collectively, we raised over $1600, which is pretty awesome! I used Minimalist Baker's recipe, which you can find here, simply omitting the sugar. If you're up for the challenge or are trying to use seasonal and minimally processed ingredients, ditch the canned pumpkin and follow my guide for producing fresh pumpkin puree instead.
Enjoy! xx
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Our Food Studies Immerse program spent two weeks at the Duke Campus Farm in early to mid September learning about organic and sustainable agriculture. Along with a bit of manual labor, our instructor and the director of the Farm, Saskia Cornes, guided us through the basics of tilling, pest management, seed propagation, and more. Field Manager, Leslie Wolverton, and Assistant Program Director, Emily McGinty, also spent a fair amount of time teaching us practical knowledge. You can read more about the Campus Farm here. Each morning at the farm, we spent fifteen minutes journaling. I used to journal every morning and every night, and my mental health soared. I fell off the wagon when I arrived at college, and this field notes experience taught me once more the value of putting words to the hurricane of thoughts that runs through my mind. The fifteen-minute journaling sessions allowed me to find the eyes of these metaphorical storms. It was OK if I had overslept that morning and had to rush to the farm. It was OK if I had a million things to do that afternoon. For those fifteen minutes, everything was still. And yet, nothing was still. I repeatedly watched Saskia lugging wheelbarrows around the farm and the crew pulling eggplants from the vines. I watched birds hopping on the tarp beside the hay and cars rushing down the road. I felt the breeze run across my face. Not even the light was still; not only had it travelled millions of miles from the sun, but it ebbed and flowed as clouds drifted across the sky. It was this stillness in a constant interchange of energy that allowed me to understand my own storm of thoughts. I learned many lessons from the plants and wildlife. As far as I can tell, the following are true for most organisms I observed on the farm. They aren’t self-conscious; they just follow their instincts. They don’t think about calories; they just eat. They don’t sweat over to-do lists; they just get them done. They don’t resent the rain and flooding; they just adjust their behaviors to move forward in the best way possible. As much as we may want to emulate these observed tendencies, we also must recognize that we are human and that we must forgive ourselves for being self-conscious, calorie-counting, stressing over lists, and feeling resentment. What’s more, maybe our humanity reveals that there is nothing to forgive; what we view as faults are simply indicators of the human condition, an ever-present consciousness that should be appreciated despite its occasional drawbacks. In just a short time, I developed a connection with the beds we tilled and the vines from which we picked flowers, grapes, and edamame. For the first time, I understood what Duke’s favorite catchphrase, “embodied learning,” means. Because I picked grapes myself, I more fully understand the effort and technique of harvesting them than I do of harvesting other plants I have merely eaten from the farm, like peppers and melons. Thus, I feel more connected to, and appreciative of, the grapevines. It is not enough to study topics in a classroom and claim an understanding of them; we must go into the field, pick up our shovels, dig in, and get our hands a little dirty. So what did we actually do on the farm? We learned how to save seeds from harvests and propagate seeds in the new propagation house. We chopped down cover crops (plants that help regulate soil composition and attract favorable insects) and layered them with hay to make hot compost piles. We tilled soil using a variety of tools. We learned about organic practices in integrated pest and disease management, as well as how certain crops return more nitrogen to the soil than others and can be more beneficial to the farming system than others. We brainstormed ways to prevent soil runoff during Hurricane Florence, ultimately choosing to move haybales to the ends of beds to catch soil. There was a lot of practical knowledge that would take hours to explain; after all, we were there three hours a day for two weeks.
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