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Summer foods and eating disorders
Can you hear it? The sound of the ocean, the singing of the seagulls, the sun beating down on your skin making you feel like you are glowing. Like you are on top of the world even. Can you feel the cliché? To some, summer is one of the best times of the year, no school, total freedom to binge on food, travel the world, do whatever your heart desires. And for me it used to be. Until I turned 15, until wanting to binge on food made my stomach sick. For a few years I had been developing an eating disorder. But when I turned 15 something in me clicked. A part of me just really changed from hating the way I saw my body to loathing the way I saw my body. I stopped eating, I worked out too much, and I felt like I was on the verge of passing out almost 24/7. The hardest part about my eating disorder was the fact that I had always loved to eat. So when I stopped eating I finally realized something was incredibly not ok. Yet I tried to hide my eating disorder from everyone for as long as I could. Until one morning I woke up at six am extremely nauseous. For a good hour I was sitting next to my toilet wanting to throw up the nothingness that was my stomach. At that moment I finally asked for help. And that's what I got during the summer when I was 15. This summer, I am 15. I asked for help about a month ago and it has been insanely hard. About a week ago, I told my therapist about my love of food along with my giant sweet tooth. She challenged me so that the next time I eat something sweet to finish the dessert instead of eating half of it. My nutritionist challenged me to find safe foods. I had listed to her fruits, smoothies, and salads because they were low calories, they were what my eating disorder wanted me to say, to eat. But the part of me that asked for help, that is trying to fight away the disorder, knew I had lied straight through my teeth. My comfort food was not fruit or salads. It was ice cream, a cliché summer food but still, the ultimate summer food.
By Keira Mannion4 years ago in Feast
Summer foods and eating disorders
Can you hear it? The sound of the ocean, the singing of the seagulls, the sun beating down on your skin making you feel like you are glowing. Like you are on top of the world even. Can you feel the cliché? To some, summer is one of the best times of the year, no school, total freedom to binge on food, travel the world, do whatever your heart desires. And for me it used to be. Until I turned 15, until wanting to binge on food made my stomach sick. For a few years I had been developing an eating disorder. But when I turned 15 something in me clicked. A part of me just really changed from hating the way I saw my body to loathing the way I saw my body. I stopped eating, I worked out too much, and I felt like I was on the verge of passing out almost 24/7. The hardest part about my eating disorder was the fact that I had always loved to eat. So when I stopped eating I finally realized something was incredibly not ok. Yet I tried to hide my eating disorder from everyone for as long as I could. Until one morning I woke up at six am extremely nauseous. For a good hour I was sitting next to my toilet wanting to throw up the nothingness that was my stomach. At that moment I finally asked for help. And that's what I got during the summer when I was 15. This summer, I am 15. I asked for help about a month ago and it has been insanely hard. About a week ago, I told my therapist about my love of food along with my giant sweet tooth. She challenged me so that the next time I eat something sweet to finish the dessert instead of eating half of it. My nutritionist challenged me to find safe foods. I had listed to her fruits, smoothies, and salads because they were low calories, they were what my eating disorder wanted me to say, to eat. But the part of me that asked for help, that is trying to fight away the disorder, knew I had lied straight through my teeth. My comfort food was not fruit or salads. It was ice cream, a cliché summer food but still, the ultimate summer food.
By Keira Mannion4 years ago in Feast
Snowballs
My all-time favorite summer treat is a heaping, freshly-shaven, juicy snowball. I have enjoyed these for as long as I can remember; they were a mainstay of my childhood, and their necessity has carried over into my adult life. It’s comparable to a snow cone or shaved ice, and I’ve come to learn the term “snowball” is native to the Baltimore region. It’s an obvious way to mitigate the summer heat, a great excuse for indulging in empty calories, and an integral facet of Maryland summertime culture.
By Nicholas Pietrowski4 years ago in Feast
Summer Popsicle Bliss...
Growing up, popsicles were always remarkably special in my eyes because they always made minute arguments between friends evaporate, while having the unique ability to improve vegetable-heavy dinners and to make long hot car rides more enjoyable. Additionally, popsicles were also the perfect thing to share between friends and between kids and their pups (you can ask my mom and her best buddy Pinto about that one!) 😉 LOL
By Tiffany Gordon4 years ago in Feast
Mango Pomelo Sago: A Classic Summer Dessert of Hong Kong
One of the most classic and most popular summer desserts that I had growing up as a child in the Canton area in China was Mango Pomelo Sago (楊枝金露). It is hands down my all-time favorite. This healthy dessert is a must try. It has a very unique taste, and it just quenches your summer thirst with the mangos and the citrus as its featured ingredients.
By Milo The Legend4 years ago in Feast
Salty Sweet Summer Treat
Ah summer... There is so much about the season that tantalizes the senses. You have the smell of freshly cut grass on Saturday mornings, then there's the reverberating sounds of fireworks during mid-summer celebrations, and who can forget the feel of the warm glow of the sun on your skin or the dazzling visual that it paints as it sets during those long summer days. There is no doubt that summer is a season to behold for the senses, but what about taste? Every season has its food staples but summer seems to have a unique way of making food abundantly more satisfying. Perhaps it's the pool parties where you're completely waterlogged when you sit down to eat and it just hits the right spot, or maybe the refreshing watermelon eaten at a picnic on a hot day with your older siblings teasing you that one will grow in your belly if you swallow the seeds. Whatever the food, it is sure to evoke a vivid memory when certain flavors hit your taste buds.
By Sissi Smith4 years ago in Feast
My Passionate Affair with Gol Gappey
If you're from the subcontinent like me ( India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), you know that nothing beats gol gappay in the summer. Nothing beats a crispy stuffed ball, full of flavours bursting in your mouth. My first intense relationship was not with a man, but with gol gappay ( water balls). It was the summer of 2009. I was a young and innocent desi girl. My relationship with Gol Gappays was friendly and cordial at the time. I would have them occasionally, when we went to Gerard Street, or at a wedding. It was that year, when I had watched a Bollywood movie called 'Rab ne Banadi Jodi' . There was a scene where Shah Rukh Khan and his love interest stop by a Gol Gappa stall to have some gol gappays before they head home after their dance class. They both challenged each other who could have the most gol gappays. One plate after another, they devoured the Gol Gappays. In the end, Shah Rukh Khan had won. It was then, my craving for gol gappays had turned intense. I stayed up many hot July nights tossing, and turning, thinking what was once friendly, and innocent, had now turned intense. These crispy balls filled with smashed potatoes, chickpeas, curd, sev, and tangy-spicy water were now tempting me, luring me towards them.
By Daniya Ali4 years ago in Feast
Summer: the taste of the outdoors
The Taste of the Outdoors The salmon flesh is soft, flaking away easily in pastel pink segments with the gentlest nudge of your fork. The Jersey royals are piping hot and buttery. A side salad of garden green runner beans, dressed with olive oil and a dash of white wine vinegar is ready and waiting. But the taste of summer truly comes when you pick up your plate and carry it out through the patio doors into the sun-soaked garden. With that gentle step past the walls of the house that encircle the inside like a protective membrane, you are transported to a new culinary land, a land where food sounds like the hum of the bees and butterflies around you. A land where food smells like green things growing in the rich dark soil. A land where food tastes, quite simply, like summer on a plate.
By Holly Moeller4 years ago in Feast
