It's day five of my 21-day vegan cleanse. It's not really going to be a big deal for me, I told my health coach (discover her wisdom here). I basically eat like this all the time. Plus I'm not an emotional eater. Right.

My coach told me to use the advent of spring and the inevitable awakening and clean-up of the garden as a metaphor for my own self. And on Sunday, as I knelt on the still-frozen earth, hacking away at dried twigs and grasses, pushing aside sodden and broken-down leaves and pine needles, I saw that I, too, was badly in need of a refurbishing. It became clear that the extra pounds I have acquired over the last 5 years may well have helped buffer me against the particular pains and hardships of that time. Though I may not be the kind of emotional eater that relies on chocolate to mask a feeling of vulnerability, I am no stranger to taking comfort in food. But things have changed: my husband is healing; spring is here; I am reconnecting with a kind of movement and wholeness that I had begun to forget. Oh, and the cleanse? It's also meant a renewed commitment to daily meditation, which is good since my mind has been racing a lot. Could be that no sugar, no cheese and no alcohol really does have an impact on me. I've been falling asleep early, sleeping for 9+ hours and having vivid dreams. Tectonic shifts. I fear many things, but change is not one of them.

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As in bleached, refined, high-heat-processed, denatured, extruded and packaged breakfast cereals. You know the cutesy O's and puffs and crisps we all grow up eating? Poison. In reading Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon's excellent, information-packed guide to eating and cooking for maximum health and nutrition (and enjoyment!), I learned something that I had sort of intuited already but that still seemed shocking when I really understood the facts: the extreme processing to which much packaged food is subjected not only robs what we eat of essential nutrients but can actually be toxic to us. It's particularly true for grains and nuts, which contain fragile oils that turn rancid, and thus harmful, when subjected to heat. That's what makes breakfast cereals so bad for you. The grains are totally broken down and then extruded at extremely high temperatures; ever notice how little they resemble any actual food? Even those "healthy" boxed cereals should be ruled out, including granola and rolled oats. For the most part, convenience foods are not at all convenient for our bodies. As easy as it is to dump some Cheerios and homogenized milk into a bowl, it takes just 15 minutes more to cook up a breakfast that actually has some nutritional value.
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