What my past can tell me

I have not always had such a strange relationship with food. When I was a child, my family and I sat at the table and ate meals which we enjoyed together. They were full of greens (some of which I hated, such as spinach and okra.. eugh). I still hate okra really, but I’ve learnt to love spinach. I have read that you can become accustomed to the food that you eat repeatedly, and even learn to like it. It was the case for me when it came to spinach, peppers, cooked carrots, aubergines and my then worst enemy… Courgettes…

When I hit puberty, many things changed. First and foremost, I was a very shy child and not what many people would call “attractive”, yet I felt the need to become attractive. Everywhere I looked, magazines, television, even the people around my depicted beauty and attractiveness as being thin. I tried to eat less, even settling for eating two crackers at lunchtime for a month, but nothing really happened. I then did 4 hours of exercise a week, excluding school. This was satisfactory to me.

As I became older, my schoolwork became an excuse to drop one sport after another. I regret it dearly. At 11, I had stopped ballet, at 12 swimming, and at 13 contemporary dance. Activities which I loved, but had sacrificed to laziness.

I lost all my muscles, not having done any kind of sports in the 5-6 years that followed. I was still thin though, and that to me was the worst part of it. I was thin, yet I did nothing good for my body. This went on for years, until now. Now I have decided to put a stop to this passive attitude when it comes to health. I know that these years can define my health as an adult, so I must prepare myself. Look after myself.

I began this week.

✮ Red Ginger Sugar and Blueberry Muffins ✮

My dad came back with a few items from Chinatown a while back, one of which being a bag of “Red Ginger Sugar”. Having been ignored in a cupboard for a few weeks, my dad decided that the sugar was useless and wanted to throw it out. I, however, had other ideas;

Having a family which will eat just about anything, I decided it wise to make enough dough for about 50 muffins, using red ginger sugar.

Here’s the recipe (adjust accordingly!) :

❶ Mix your flour [600g], bicarbonate of soda [2tsp], red ginger sugar [200-250g] and oats [100g] in a large bowl. Seperately, whip the milk [500mL] (I also added a generous amount of yoghurt), oil [~5-8tbsp], and egg whites [4] together until evenly combined.

❷ Incorporate the liquid mixture into the dry and stir until the blend is relatively smooth (in my experience, it can still have a few lumps of flour showing and turn out fine). Tip in the blueberries [~300g] and mix sparingly with a spoon.

❸ Fill your muffin cases with the muffin batter (they should be quite full!) and top with a little more red ginger sugar and oats. Bake in the oven at around 180°C (mine is a fan oven) for 20 minutes. Serve sprinkled with some freshly grated ginger — or lemon peel!

❹ Enjoy! On my side, every last muffin has since been eaten. All I am left with now are crumbs and hint of indigestion, though I don’t regret it one bit!