ESSAY • THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE WITH CARBS // FOOD, WELLNESS, MEMOIR

My mom and me. Photo from Heagney family archives.

The day I fell in love with carbs was actually not a day at all -- it was an eve.

New Year's Eve, 1978.

I was not even a year old, and I had spent the first ten months of my life keeping my mother in the laundry room and in states of frustration.

In my mom's words, 

You were 10 months old and weighed only 15 pounds. I was used to having chubby babies who ate like stevedores! You had thrown up almost every feeding since birth, regardless of trying various types of formulas. The doctor was holding back solid foods until we solved this problem.

How dare that doctor hold me back from the solid foods I would come to love? But I digress. Continue, Mom:

The stress of worrying about your nutrition, added to ugly spots on the carpet and constant laundry for your clothes finally overwhelmed me. I cracked on New Year's Eve and unburdened myself to a friend over the phone. We were both held captive that wonderful evening by sick children- for me it was you with a terrible cold and cough on top of the usual projectile vomiting!

So, my mom's friend, a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is lady, snapped my mom out of her overwhelm and passionately ordered her to immediately make me mashed potatoes with formula mixed in. "She needs some rib-sticking food!", said the confident friend. Regarding the doctor, she stated, "He had his chance." (The drama!)

Mom continues,

I was not used to going against doctor’s orders but she gave me the courage. A few mouthfuls of those mashed potatoes and you were reaching toward the spoon, your tongue searching like a desperate newborn. Wow! From that night on, we never had another spit up. The new year started off right. By your birthday, two months later, you were inching toward 22 lbs. and happy and healthy. You outgrew the stained clothes and we got the carpet cleaned at last!

A clean carpet and a happy, chubby baby. This mashed potato experience was only the beginning of my love affair with carbs. And I don't mean "good carbs" -- I mean good carbs. 

I do what I can to resist the call of bread, pizza, and pasta, specifically. But the comforting carb goodness just keeps calling me back.

Give me pizza or give me death. Ok, that might be a bit dramatic, but let's just say I relate just a teensy little bit with Oprah's recent proclamation of her love of bread. 

I do what I can to resist the call of bread, pizza, and pasta, specifically. But the comforting carb goodness just keeps calling me back. I can clearly remember ordering "pasgetti" in every single restaurant we ever went to as a family, at least until I was probably around 10 years old, and no longer pronouncing it "pasgetti". It was either that, or some other form of pasta, and it was always followed by ice cream for dessert.

As a teenager, I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted because I played so much basketball. Once I got to university and my fitness activities were replaced mostly by those of a social nature (and I discovered beer), my carb cravings continued, and they even grew a bit stronger. Submarine sandwiches, pizza, late-night cheese bagels at 7 West Cafe, and fries, glorious fries! (Oh, the debaucherous goodness of a university student's diet.)

I can remember living with one of my good friends in a rented house in the St. Clair West area of Toronto. I was in my third year of school, which for me consisted of reading a lot of books, watching a lot of movies, and writing about them in what I'm sure I thought was a cleverly academic way. This was back in the day when I had to pause the VCR after every shot to do my shot-by-shot analyses for film class. So between sitting in front of the TV taking notes, to reading and writing, I did a lot of sitting. 

Like most university students at the time, my diet didn't exactly resemble the meals my parents cooked for me back at home. Of course, I still ate vegetables and fruit, good sources of protein, and drank a lot of water, but my idea of a meal during this time was usually mac and cheese, spaghetti, or pizza. A good sandwich would also hit the spot in a pinch. My roommate was a vegetarian (still is) and I think she might have been the first person to cause me to start actually thinking about what I was cooking for myself. (Not that my parents didn't teach me about nutrition!) I would watch her go to the gym for 2 hours, and come back and eat a heaping bowl of stir-fried veggies and tofu (with lots of hot sauce), and I would think, hmmm -- what's she eating? It seemed like a good idea, and I did start to incorporate more veggie-based dishes into my meal rotation. 

However, even with this example of optimal nutrition and health in front of me, actually Iiving in my house, I still had trouble curbing my bad girl ways when it came to pasta bowls, potato chips — and did I mention pizza? 

In my later Toronto years, I worked for an amazing chef whose entire philosophy was (and is) about eating real food that is locally, sustainably farmed. My eating habits changed substantially, and it was during this time that I started to care more intensely about what was on my plate. However, still with eating healthfully and choosing ingredients with care, including cutting out meat, I continued to be sucked into the whitish-yellow glow of the starchy carbohydrate -- the fresh baked bread, the famous fries. 

What I'm saying is, the struggle is real, not only for me, but I'm sure for some of you. Food has often been a balm for me in the dark moments, a reward when I feel I deserve a treat and a comfort when I need something familiar. Even today when my diet is probably at its healthiest, I still go to carbs on autopilot, and my portion sizes are way out of whack. I don't say this to shame myself, don't get me wrong. I just speak the truth. I'm not obsessed with the scale, but I've reached a level that I don't feel good about -- and no amount of carb-laden treat will solve this problem. 

So, I continue day by day, longing to reach the Oprah level where I can eat bread every day and not overdo it. Where I can make a pizza at home and eat only two slices. Where I can resist a bowl of pasta at the end of a gloomy, freezing cold workday. I am taking steps, however difficult it might be for carbs and me to go "on a break". I too, have joined Weight Watchers online, and although I'm not perfect at tracking my food every day (yet), I hope that this journey that my pal O and I are taking will bring me further away from my carbo-cravings and closer to the mental and physical wellness I deserve. 

Oh, carbs -- I wish I knew how to quit you. 

After the Harvest, January 2016.