A Domino Effect

Three weeks ago I was feeling a little bit… January.  I might just have plucked the name of that condition from nowhere, but the symptoms are decidedly recognisable: sluggishness, lack of energy, dull skin and a near-constant desire to huddle under the nearest duvet and watch Judy Garland films in the middle of the day.

Unfortunately, my current schedule does not permit daytime sofa nesting (more’s the pity, right?).  So in a bid to combat my start of year lack of lustre, I began to do two other things instead: the first was to start swallowing a multi-vitamin tablet everyday, and the second was to take up drinking pro-biotic yoghurt.

Now let me be clear on this.  I don’t generally buy into health fads.  Besides the weighty streak of good old-fashioned Scottish scepticism that pulses through my veins, I read Bad Science a couple of years ago and drew my own conclusions about the “healthy living” industry, many of which were firmly rooted in cynicism.  I’m also wary of buying anything health-related that’s advertised on a “purchase and feel amazing” basis.  The packaging is always a dead give away with these things.  If it features a lithe, tanned model with disturbingly white teeth doing some kind of fist-pumping “I FEEL AWESOME” victory dance, I’m usually walking away.  Let’s not even think about the perma-tanned, disturbingly white-toothed family, where the kids look creepily similar in age to the parents and they’re all facing the camera with glued-on smiles and glassy eyes.

Having said that, I’m not against giving things a go.  Someone told me recently that the Finnish Government actually recommends that its citizens take Vitamin D supplements in Winter to combat the adverse effects of there being so little sun around.  And I also recently read somewhere that taking pro-biotics can help to strengthen your intestinal wall, meaning that toxins and other bad stuff finds it harder to get into your blood stream where it can wreak havoc with your skin.  Worth trying, at least.

Furthermore, and this is actually something I do happen to believe in, there’s the placebo effect.  I may be a cynic when it comes to some things, but if an act as simple and as ostensibly harmless as popping a multi-vitamin every morning helps me to believe I’m feeling better, then what does it matter if in actual fact it’s having no effect on my physical health whatsoever?  Multivitamins cost a fraction of a pence each, they don’t taste offensive and as far as I’ve read there are no adverse effects to result from taking them.  Ditto pro-biotics, which admittedly are a lot more expensive (but which taste delicious!).  So my question is this: if it’s not actively bad for me, who the hell cares that the benefits might only exist in my head?

It goes without saying that it’s nigh on impossible to tell what the real effects of pro-biotics or vitamin supplements are.  And a simple Google search for ‘Vitamin D’ quickly reveals that the internet is no place to find a straightforward solution.  Everyone and his best mate seems to be on his soap box on some health forum somewhere, and the number of people singing the praises seems pretty well balanced against the number of people scaremongering about conspiracies, corruption and corporate greed.

I suppose in the end it all comes down to how you or I as individuals feel about these things.  I have felt better since I started popping pills and drinking bacteria.  I feel less bloated after meals, which could be because the yoghurts are helping out with the business of digestion.  My skin is smoother and brighter, which could be because all that vitamin D is taking its toll.  Or it could just be that I’m feeling good because it’s finally not January any more.  The flipping of a page on the calendar perhaps has a greater effect on me than I’m aware of.

The bottom line is, I don’t know.  I don’t think anyone does.  As long as I feel OK, however, I’m not really sure that it matters.

What’s your take on vitamin supplements?  Pro-biotic drinks?  Pro?  Anti?  Indifferent?

Image above from here.

Have I ever told you guys about the two weeks I worked as a Beetroot Inspector?  Strictly speaking, the job title was “Process Operator”, but Beetroot Inspector sounded much more fun, and it was also far more accurate a description of what I actually did.  Yup, I inspected beetroot.  For eight hours a day, I stood at a conveyor belt wearing rubber gloves and a white coat, armed with a vegetable peeler and the grimmest of expressions.  My task was to weed through thousands upon thousands of steamed beets as they trundled past me, their destination pickling, then packaging, then distribution to all of the UK’s major supermarket chains.  It was serious stuff.

My beetroot days came fresh out of uni: I was poor, living with my parents and desperately in need of something to tide me over financially while I waited to start my graduate research post in the Autumn.  And despite the obvious downsides – the 5am starts, the factory politics and the fact that I could almost physically feel my woefully underused brain rotting itself into oblivion – I actually had a really great time.  One of my best friends worked on the line next to me and we’d laugh constantly at each other’s factory attire, or we’d carve smiley faces out of individual beets as they passed us by.  Then, as soon as the clock struck 2pm, we would cast off our hair nets and drive home, the air in my tiny second-hand car thick with the putrid stench of industrially-steamed root vegetable.

A charming picture, right?

Anyway, I’m digressing.  Prior to my employment as a Beetroot Inspector, I absolutely loved eating beetroot.  Couldn’t get enough, in fact.  Post-employment, however, and as much as it was fun while it lasted, I couldn’t even look at the stuff without feeling physically sick and attempting to leave the room.  It wasn’t until I started having a fortnightly farm box delivered  a couple of years ago that beetroot began to appear in my life once again.  Every box in a while there would be three or four of them, freshly pulled from the ground, covered in dirt and sniggering at me from the bottom of the crate.  It was only then, when my inbuilt aversions a) to being mocked by vegetables and b) to throwing away perfectly edible food kicked in that I realised it was just about time beetroot and I fell back in love.

And we have.  As it turns out our relationship is even stronger than it was before my inspecting days.  Back then, I had a blinkered view of what beetroot had to offer me: I only had eyes for the pickled kind that comes in jars and tastes great in salads or as a quick post-work snack.  A mistake, friends.  Beetroot is massively flexible in its uses: transformed into fritters, baked into chocolate cakes, stirred into dips – the possibilities seem endless.  I made this rather neon dip effort tonight (grated beetroot, chopped coriander, sea salt and natural yoghurt) and ate it stuffed into wholegrain pitta breads with falafel, cucumber and avocado.  I’ve since been popping back to the kitchen every half hour to scoff some of the leftovers straight from the bowl.  Totally delicious, and so amazingly good for you it hurts.

So.  If there is a moral to this long-winded tale, I suppose it would have to be this:

Good things really can come from working as a Beetroot Inspector.

Worth knowing, right?

What are your favourite beetroot recipes/embarrassing-yet-hilarious jobs?

Friday

Arrive home from work to find that Footloose is showing on TV.  Drink wine, eat pasta, awaken dormant crush on Kevin Bacon (it’s the dancing) and bop around the living room to this.

Saturday

Wake up at 10.30am to the sound of…nothing!  Crochet while listening to Harry Potter as read by Stephen Fry (my first audio book – so far, I like).  Eat porridge, drink coffee.  Spend upwards of an hour getting ready.  Wear red lipstick.  Go charity shopping.  Find tan satchel, rose-printed plates and a grow-your-own lavender bush(!).  Celebrate spectacular finds with Caffe Nero caramel latte and two hours of writing.  Go to boyfriend’s flat.  Eat steak, chips and peas and sticky toffee pudding.  Watch this.  Doze off in front of the TV.

Sunday

Wake up early(ish).  Drink coffee and read blogs.  Dress for the outdoors.  Climb 1500 feet of hill and eat sandwiches at the top in the wind and the rain.  Skip down the hill.  Get very muddy.  Arrive home, crank up the heating, change into pyjamas.  Drink two pots of tea, eat lots of sweet things and potter around on the internet.  Cook (then eat three plates of) risotto with bacon and butternut squash.  Tidy flat, do laundry, find a place for yesterday’s acquisitions.  Sink into bed at 10.00pm tired but rested.

What constitutes a perfect weekend in your world?

Image above from here.

Happy Halloween everyone!  I pretended not to notice that it got dark at 4.30pm and hurried home from work this evening to bake pumpkin pie and carve a rather cheery face out of the shell (isn’t he cute?  And don’t I have a bit of a thing for polka dots?).  I then realised that I have absolutely nothing bar gradually cooling, non-transportable and not massively attractive pie to give to any kiddies who come a-knocking at my door, so am spending the rest of the evening hiding on the sofa with my crocheting (I finally learned!  More in my next post!) and several cups of tea.  Nothing makes me more excited about Winter than the prospect of making yet another blanket for my bed…

What are you up to this Monday?

Nearly the end of October {insert appropriate exclamation of disbelief here}!  I’m dazzled by 2011′s pace.  It seems to have outstripped a speedy 2010 by miles.  And here we all are, on the cusp of Winter, with high streets across the land just itching to vomit Christmas all over us (I actually saw a Christmas tree in a pub I visited last night.  I had to make a considerable effort not to pull it down and jump all over it in disgust shrieking “IT’S NOT EVEN NOVEMBER YET!!!” all the while).

This Autumn I’ve been enjoying work, cycling and catching up with a hundred different people, all of which feels great.  I took delivery of a beautiful, vintage-inspired yet still commuter friendly new bike last Wednesday, and have since been whizzing up and down the hills of my beloved Edinburgh to the office and back.  My last bike came in a box from Argos and I assembled it myself (initially, cough, putting the entire front section on backwards), so you can imagine my excitement at having a grown up set of fully functional wheels now.  It’s one pure adrenaline rush, and already I’m coming to value my eight miles on the road as the two parts of my day where I don’t ‘think’, I just ‘do’.  Dodging the buses and the potholes and fielding the occasional insult from an irate motorist mean I stay fully in the present moment.  It’s also inspiring me to toughen up - sometimes I even throw a mild insult back!  I’m finding it especially beneficial on the way home at night: by the time I’ve puffed my way up four miles of gradual inline, all thoughts of work are well and truly snuffed out and I’m ready to start the evening.

Free-wheeling aside, I’ve also had a satisfyingly foodie Autumn.  A couple of my friends from uni and I have started an unofficial dinner club, meeting every couple of weeks to share stories and laughs over hearty casseroles and the like.  In a similar vein, my boyfriend and I are finally getting round to trying some of Edinburgh’s lesser known (and independent, always independent) eateries, now that I have cash for that kind of thing.  Last week we went to Chop Chop (lovely little Chinese restaurant which featured on Gordon Ramsey’s F Word a couple of years ago) where I ate approximately twelve kilos of pork dumplings, crispy chicken and boiled rice.  Truly amazing, although I’d highly recommend some form of elasticated waistband if you intend to visit…

And READING.  At the moment I’m all over books about eastern Europe like a rash, and I’m also knee deep in Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy.  Swedish crime novels aren’t generally my go-to genre, but these are addictive.  Anyone else read them? 

So in lots of different respects, life is pretty good just now.  The only thing I’m lacking is time to blog and do creative stuff, which I have to say I’m really missing.  I haven’t taken my sewing machine out in months and the canvas I started painting in the Summer holidays is still sitting unfinished in my room.  A sorry sight indeed.  

I’m coming to realise, however, that there will never be time for me to do all the things I want to do, all at once.  And that’s OK.  Sometimes we just need to take a step back and focus on what’s right infront of us.  For me, this Autumn those things have been my career, my friends, food and Swedish crime novels.  My creative enterprises will simply have to wait until November.  Perfect timing for rustling up all those Christmas gifts, no?

What have you been doing this Autumn?

Image above from here.