A Banana is Not a Number

One of my absolute best memories from childhood is about granola. My mum got out of work very late most nights, but every Friday, she, my little brother, and I would watch a movie together. We called it "Friday Night Party Night," and it has become even more meaningful to me now that I know everything my mum was going through back then. Autoimmune disease. Working too hard for too little. Rent payments. Divorce. Etc.

One particularly cold, wintry Friday when I was five, my mum bought some of the raspberry-vanilla granola from the local vegan grocery, and she took me and my brother to the little video store down the street to pick a movie. We rented one of the Miffy and Friends VHS tapes and watched it while eating raspberry-vanilla granola like we had an endless amount of it. 

But in my eating disorder, granola became a "no" food. Too much sugar, too many calories, etc., etc. 

From Giphy

While there are granolas that include ingredients that will make my skin break out, there are also granolas that are skin allergy-friendly! Yay, acne-free granola time!

I found the Deliciously Ella website a few years ago, and today I decided that I no longer wish to live in a granola-less world. I picked one of Ella's granola recipes and preheated my oven. I didn't have many of the nut ingredients, so I subbed hemp hearts and extra walnuts in, and I needed to bake for longer than I should've because I messed up a bit.  But the feeling of pouring granola onto coconut yogurt and fruit for lunch today was really quite wonderful! 

While baking, I chose not to count calories or macros or anything like that. I understand that some people can count calories and macros in a totally healthy way, but I tend to let calorie/macro counts become very restrictive. If something has "too many" calories in it, I won't make it. But today I decided to tune into my body, trust the recipe, and trust myself instead of focusing on numbers. 

Our bodies are not calculators. The nourishment that comes from bananas, coconut, oats, walnuts, and almond butter = more important than numbers. 

<3

P.S. For anyone with any sort of bloating/indigestion from eating crunchy treats like granola, I recommend soaking the granola in coconut yogurt and some stewed fruit before eating it. It'll make the granola sort of warm, but warmth can be good for your digestive fire :).