Pros: more time to love on my babies.
more time to love on my babies
more time to love on my babies.
more time to write!
below is a copy of the fourth aricle I have had published since the first of the year. With forty plus years of healthcare under my belt, I have a lot to write about!
The Comfort Food Diet
It is the first of the year,I have heard daily, at least one, or a combination of the following words: “high protein diet, low carb diet, low fat diet, low calorie diet, detox diet, grapefruit diet, cabbage soup diet, vegan diet, juice diet, organic food diet, Mediterranean diet, and Okinawa diet. The list goes on, and I could too, but I won’t, you already know what they are.
Food is a necessity in our lives; it also brings great pleasure to most of us. When it comes to food, I think there are just two kinds of people in the world, those of us who live to eat and people who eat to live.
Food not only bring us physical and emotional pleasure, it can also cause us physical and emotional pain. As a nurse now for thirty nine years, I have taken care of many people who are ill because of their diets. To get better, they usually need to go on a diet that is opposite of the one that made them ill in the first place.
When I first started nursing, I worked in a hospital. That was when people were admitted for days, sometimes weeks for illnesses that are now treated on an outpatient basis. Every patient admitted had to have a “diet order”. Those were usually calorie limiting, low sodium, low fat, high potassium or some other therapeutic diet. I am no longer a hospital nurse; I am now a hospice nurse and we have one diet for our patients. The comfort food diet.
At the end of life, food begins to lose its appeal for most people. When it is time to eat, my patients will many times say, “I’m not hungry”, “nothing sounds good”, “food doesn’t taste good,” or “I don’t have the energy to eat.” It is then that we offer the “comfort food diet”.
We ask our patients, “what is your favorite food?” or “if you could have anything to eat right now, what would it be?” And the answer always varies from one person to the next.
Comfort foods also vary between men and women. Men will usually say, “I’d love to be able to eat a steak dinner or a pizza.” One male patient I had who still had an appetite ordered a hot dog every night for dinner because he loved them and hadn’t eaten them for years because he was on a low sodium diet. He thoroughly enjoyed every one of them before he died.
Most women who are at the end of life will usually ask for snack foods; a milkshake, a chocolate dessert or a piece of pie; foods we women tend to limit because we know they aren’t healthy or good for our natural fat deposits.
Even children who are dying have comfort foods. When my five year old son was dying of leukemia and had no appetite, he wanted watermelon. He had a great doctor who wrote a specific diet order for watermelon. I don’t know where the hospital found it in February, but he got watermelon and ate it!
There have been times in life when I have had a need for comfort foods; usually it
is when I'm feeling sad, tired, bored, angry, upset, disappointed, uninspired, lost, confused, or
overwhelmed. I wonder if my comfort foods are the same as yours? I’ll tell you a little later what
mine is!
So what is it that makes a particular food a comfort food to us? I believe there are a couple of reasons. First we may just love the taste of them. But most importantly they usually remind us of a special time or person. My grandmother used to make the best homemade noodles. I loved them then and even though no one can make them like she did, I still love them. Why? Because being with Gramma was always pleasant and comforting, and homemade noodles remind me of her so they are a comfort food for me.
There are many comfort foods that have nothing to do with good memories; they are just proven mood enhancing foods. They act on the brain chemistry to improve our mood. One of the chemicals in the brain that has the most to do with mood is serotonin. Very simply, serotonin is known as an anti-depressant. One of the chemicals which causes the release of serotonin in our brains is tryptophan, found in, among other things, chocolate!
Another mood enhancing food is almonds; they increase dopamine (the feel good chemical of the brain) levels. So why wouldn’t chocolate covered almonds not be a comfort food for me? And make it dark chocolate, since it is good for my heart too!
So, I am going to have my noodles and chocolate covered almonds, not just because I like them but because they make me feel good. But I promise Doctor B, I will have them in small doses; all things are better in moderation, even comfort foods!
No comments:
Post a Comment