The Blog
The Habits Of A Lifetime
Wednesday 18th January 2017
I think it's fair to make the comment that it takes time, thought and effort to change the behaviour of a habit. How about a routine that you were given as a child and one you have taken with you in to adulthood? That's year's worth of a habit! For example - I see clients who start their day with a box of cereal, every single day, unless it's a weekend where a slice of bacon may find it's way to a frying pan from time to time. It's quick, does the job, and pretty tasty with all the added sugar. Some had revolutionalised this and had taken the time to replace the full fat milk with the semi-skimmed variety, thus satisfying the need to make a healthy change to their breakfast, as the Food Police Media had been encouraging.
They could look back at their breakfast as a child. The same boxes of cereal with that "milk and grain" mentality was born long ago and they had spent many a breakfast seeing the boxed marketing and fonts modernize over the kitchen table. More choices of cereal boxes were born, along with the birth of their own off spring and then a new generation of cereal "munchers" was born. This is a habit: An acquired behavior pattern that has become almost involuntary.
How about the ritual of the cup of tea? Surely this brew is part of a custom that grew from an early adulthood introduction too? Tea and toast, tea and cake, sweet tea for the nerves, the boredom tea (you know the one), social tea, cream teas and the tea when you wake up in the night for? All ingrained in our everyday customs.
I can name quite a few of these predisposed practices -the biscuit at elevenses? The afternoon boredom graze, the cheese on toast supper, you could shake them off as traditions, like a big Sunday Lunch, but maybe stopping to question is sometimes good for us? If we took the time and thought about how these routines actually made us feel, would we choose to do them because it was something we needed? Or just something we were programmed to do from an inbred form.
So, I decided to take one of my habits and study it: question it. The good old Sunday lunch. I hadn't really questioned it in the past and it was so easy to plan for. Meat, potatoes and vegetables: done. Why should this need thinking about? It was a great family get-together, a celebration of time together around a table, so often missed during the week. It was habit though and this exercise was to make a point of giving it some thought; and that's what I was going to do.
On the whole, I am trying to eat better, think about the food I eat, where it comes from and what it does to my body. I think about the Sunday lunch and how it makes me feel. Yes, I feel great that my family sit around the table, laughing and chatting (or annoying each other and arguing!) but what else do I like? The heavy roast pan I spend the family relaxing time scrubbing afterwards? The tidying away of the greasy Yorkshire tins that never seem to be clean of the slippy oily sides. How about washing out the gravy boat, and it's tedious reminder that even though I said I would, I still hadn't managed to fill it with proper, homemade gravy, but fallen back on the salt laden granules at the last minute? No, I don't enjoy that bit and worse still? I spend the rest of the day in a cloudy, bloated and heavy pre-sleep slumber that makes me feel wretched and guilty for over eating, over indulging and swearing to myself I wouldn't do it again (until the next Sunday).
I feel this tradition, this habit, could do with some re-vamping. Not change for the sake of change, but change for the sake of evolution and moving with the times. That was MY childhood, with lard crust roasties and kidney fat spotted dick. Not my children's childhood. They enter in to a new world of superfoods, energising diets and looking after their arteries, their hearts and the ever increasing responsibilities of sustainable choices to look after the entire planet! So, time to change the Sunday rituals.
First of all, the family had not been sure of the thought behind such madness. They of course, loved the over indulging and the comforting, heavy desserts I revealed each Sunday. However, I declared it a "try it new day". Sunday was now the day to embrace new flavours, cooking methods and mistakes, of course! I was going to try to change the habit of my life.
A spicy, Morrocan Dish had appeared first. A mellow, feathered lamb and chickpea affair, studded with pomegranate seeds, lightly toasted seeds and warming cumin and cinnamon. Homemade flatbreads, yogurt dips and a fragrant rose scented sour cream dessert, with salted shortbread fingers had been an instant hit. I was surprised by my family's intrigue in to flavours never seen on a Sunday. They dipped, tasted, nibbled and devoured most of what was out and went away on their Sunday afternoon slumbers with a spring in their step.
Over the weeks, nobody really noticed the Sunday Lunch missing. The good part of the weekly tradition had remained, without the need for such gluttony; the part where we sat down and laughed (and argued, still) had stuck. The expected comfort food had been replaced with a new curiosity. Never seen figures before noon had actually ventured downstairs as unfamiliar spices and sounds permeated the walls of the house (not that often, but still!). I discovered a new love for cooking. I would find recipes I would never have the time or courage to try before in the week and save them for my pioneering "try it new day". A new pride over my menus emerged, as did a slightly trimmer figure without the regular pork crackling; that would have been thrown spectacularly in to my mouth, as the carving knife hacked away at it each week.
I won't tell a lie though, the odd traditional Sunday Lunch does appear on our table from time to time. It's received with a new attitude though - it's prepared on the weeks we actually choose to eat it, a conscious decision and no longer prepared "just because it's what we do". We devour each mouthful, more aware and heightened to the smells and tastes, grateful for what surprises are produced by the progression cooking in my kitchen.
So, when your family can no longer collect the tokens on the cereal boxes, because you just don't have them- be proud you are creating new traditions, ones that fit in with today's world of herbal tea, reduced sugar goals and ever increasing allergies and a Sunday afternoon no longer lost to digestion!