Food - Love it or Loathe it!

I found myself tonight beginning to loathe food. I realised I have this up and down relationship with food. I can be completely obsessed with food. My daily thoughts are consumed by it. Everyday I am thinking about what to make, what I could make, what ingredients I need to buy, what would this taste like, what is raw, what is not, what is good, what is not, what is that, what is this, how do I do that...Most of the time I am excited about the ideas, creations, possibilities, new discoveries, new tastes, new found knowledge...and then, like tonight, I begin to loathe the every thought of food. It usually hits when the kids start to refuse to eat their dinner and say they don't like it, the husband tells me he would be happy if I just made tomato and avocado on almond crackers every night and wonders why I go to so much trouble, and I get swamped down with  piles after piles of dishes to wash and food to pick up off the floor. Providing food soon feels like a chore and something that has to be supplied 3 times a day just because it should.  

Just re-reading my title: Food - Love it or Loathe it! and re-evaluating my thoughts, no its not food that I love and sometimes loathe, its our lifestyle.  Pure food in its natural form is perfect. Its the ideals we associate food with. We assume we need to eat 3 times a day, one of which needs to be a gourmet meal if we are providing for a husband who works ridiculous long hours to repay a mortgage and needs lots of nourishing, we need to keep the meals varied so no-one complains they had the same dish 3 days in a row, we need to invent raw masterpieces that substitute our cravings for the pre-raw days of animal fat laiden, processed junk food, we are expected to serve meals on plates and sit at a table daily to provide an hours worth of washing up daily, and we expect everyone to like what they are served and eat it all. No wonder I begin to loathe the whole process of food preparations even if it is raw and organic.

My ideal way of eating and something that we will be working towards as we establish our self sufficient lifestyle back east is a way of living where food is easy and of no effort. Fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries of all sorts  will be growing prolifically on our property in our edible food forest where we can wonder as we please as many times a day to forage though the living food halls to pick at our leisure our daily intake, straight from the branches of the plants, eating in the open air, choosing only what we feel like at that time. And on days to call for a celebration such as the full moon, or the start of a season or a child's birthday or just because we feel like it, we will all help to prepare a special feast of gourmet raw foods, blended and dehydrated, squeezed and milked, sliced and marinated, for all to enjoy. This will be done not because we feel we have to, but because we want to. 

It seems that our lives are so revolved around the processes and ideals of food, that sometimes we loose the truth of what real food really is or should be. To expand that thought further, its our lifestyles we need to re-evaluate and discover what is truly ideal.   
I think I feel a fast coming on.......... a time to disconnect and then reconnect.