Adapt Recipes for Autumn Food Shopping in the Midst of Change
In the midst of many heart-wrenching events, this is a blog about grocery shopping.
How to be resourced in the midst of intense times? One mundane support is grocery shopping. Bessel van der Kolk makes a great point in The Body Keeps the Score: “People can learn to control and change their behavior, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions.” Regular meals can be part of safety, with a resourced and stable nervous system. Grocery shopping is part of steady meals. When you adapt recipes for autumn food shopping to meet current necessity, what are the negotiations and compromises you’re willing to make to support your health?
If you’ve worked with Ayurveda for a while, you think about adapting recipes for individual constitutional needs and for the season: warm, moist, Vata-calming for autumn. Essential. Yet you may need to adapt a recipe just out of current necessity: how to shop to make cooking and eating healthfully possible now. This is the focus here. Where do you shop? What works for you? How can you get the food you need?
Our family, like every family, has unique needs. We’ve struggled more than usual lately around grocery shopping. One member can’t eat wheat; another’s body reacts strongly to garlic. The majority of us want to avoid single-use plastic. These conditions alone make shopping an act of awareness. Yet when you add other key practical concerns like time and money, challenges do proliferate.
Our Local Options
For years the best place to avoid plastic in our area has been the Saturday Farmers Market. We’re lucky. Santa Fe has an incredibly vibrant farmers market, filled with local vendors and healthy organic produce. If you’ve got a farmers market in you area, your adapt recipes for autumn shopping gets a whole lot easier.
Yet for me there’s snags. I live in the West; there’s wide open spaces between me and my virtuous destinations. Our farmers market is a good 45 minutes away. More to the point, Saturday is the only day I for sure don’t drive. It’s a commitment I’ve made to the planet and myself. (Like all intentions, this one gets broken in case of emergency.) My day of rest coincides with the market’s day of abundance. So, that option is off my slate of choices.
The local coop has been a first runner up to the Farmers Market for years. They still have fabulous produce, if at horrifying prices. I can bring my own bags. They’re 50 minutes from home, a major time commitment. It’s only 15 – 20 minutes from my office in town, so if I finish early at work, I can go there. Realistically, I make the trip at best once or twice a month. Take away: need to plan ahead.
The natural grocery that’s closest to my workplace, just 10 minutes away, has all organic produce and more affordable prices than the other groceries like it. Amazing. I’m most likely to stop there after work once a week; it’s my regular spot. But it’s 35 minutes from home, so I’m not going to run over there at the last minute. I’ve got to plan ahead. Take away: need to put this on my weekly schedule.
Last night I was at this grocery with a hankering for something different, beyond the same-old same-old. Veggie Plant Rubens were on my mind. The tofu they had, I could thin-slice and simmer it. Gluten-free bagel, check. Dijon mustard and sunflower sprouts, yes. But what about sauerkraut without garlic? It didn’t seem possible. Then yay! WildVINE Vietnamese pickled veggies met the bill. And Sonoma Brinery traditional Raw Sauerkraut. How exciting. It was a tasty dosha-calming meal that was also soothing to the mind. Take away: spontaneity and perseverance can serve you.
Food Tourism
Our family enjoys food tourism. That is, when we’re on the road, wherever we are, we’ll see the only grocery in whatever town we’re passing through and say, Let’s go there! (We say this as much out of hunger as curiosity, of course.) It’s how we’ve developed a fondness for Fallon, Nevada or Delta, Utah. What CAN we find here? Fresh melons? Some fresh greens? A warm deli? you never know.
These last few years I’ve travelled much less. Yet my inner food tourist is awakening here at home. The big box supermarkets closest to my office are not classic paragons of food virtue. Often in the past I wouldn’t give them the time of day. Yet every once in a while now, I’ll drop in (often when in dire straits) and ask myself, Okay what can I find that’s healthy here? They’ve surprised me. One has a healthy brand of yogurt, another displays healthy Lara bars by the checkout. At least half now have organic sections, even organic house brands. Some are more useful than others for our family, yet I’ve found it’s worth looking. Take away: explore unexpected places.
Last month I discovered three thrilling items in a fairly healthy food chain across town near the office supply store where I shop. I can’t afford to take the time to make this trek more than once or twice a month. Yet while I was there, I found Lion’s Mane Crumbles (high protein, low carb, from a woman-owned company), plus a soy-free fava bean tofu (way high protein, low carb, from Big Mountain, that same company) and a great grain-free wrap for less than $6 per package of 6. Wow! Will I come here more often? No. Did I buy two packages of their La Tortilla Factory grain-free cassava tortillas while here? For sure.
Back to really close to home
The store closest to our home has made great strides in expanding their healthier freezer offerings. Yet their vegetables are often half-dead and pricey too. Still there’s a couple of possible items there: nice bags of fresh local sprouts and the best almost-ripe avocados in town, often on sale.
Cut to the chase guidance
Can I shop all in one place? Not easily anymore. So how to adapt recipes for autumn food shopping? Be adaptable. If I were to go out into the real shopping world, having decided on an Ayurvedic recipe to make, with that recipe cast in stone, it’s possible I’d trip and fall over the challenges and disappointments. Be willing to substitute one veggie or grain for another one. Open to what you find. Healthy flexibility is essential.
That’s all well and good, you say. You’re a long-time Ayurveda cook. What about me? Well, it’s why I created the Adapt Recipes: Autumn & Winter On-Demand course. Take it whenever you like.
In the meanwhile, here’s some immediate
Tips for Easy Substitutions & Support
Organic split mung: a staple of Ayurveda. Great if you can find it, yet an increasingly rare species in the stores around me. Organic red lentils are much easier to find and for many people, digest as well.
Fresh cilantro: another great ingredient. Yet depending on your area, maybe you can find it in the produce section, maybe you can’t. When I’m in this situation, I use 1 teaspoon to 1 Tablespoon of ground coriander in place of the handful of chopped cilantro. See what you think.
White sugar: the deadliest of foes. Consider substituting organic coconut sugar, monk fruit, or stevia. They give you the sweet taste calming for Vata and Pitta without the lethal effects.
Bread crumbs: okay, since when are bread crumbs Ayurvedic? Not really. Yet they’re a popular ingredient in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, a fount of fun dishes for autumn and beyond. She’s got a great Spicy Quinoa-Potato Croquette that calls for a roll in bread crumbs before they hit the skillet. Organic chickpea flour works just fine; I store it in my fridge.
Too many tomatoes: One option, back off, start giving them away. Another, know that cumin and organic rose petals calm down tomatoes’ more acidic properties.
Too much coffee: Ditto, one option, back off. Another, add a pinch of cardamom to your morning brew to make it energetically more grounding.
Too much running around: well – you know what I’ll say. Are you willing to stop, take a break, and have a sit-down eat? Make onion soup from that onion at the local store. Very grounding for Vata. Offer it up to the Ayurveda food devas for their blessing. Consider using the recipe for Green Dino Detox in Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda. Instead of one slice of onion, thin slice a whole onion and simmer it into the brew. Skip the lemon if you’ve got acid reflex. Add a half of a low-sodium cube of veggie bouillon for some extra bottom. Stop, simmer the soup, enjoy. Then back to the mines if you must.
It’s a dance. Can I save enough on this week’s grocery bill to be able to give toward Hurricane relief, food for people in Gaza, climate change, the Sunrise Movement, or voting rights protection? Some weeks yes, some weeks not yet.
There’s ideas here to adapt recipes for autumn food shopping and cooking. If you feel like you need guidance on being more skillfully adaptable, check out my course Adapt Recipes: Use Ayurveda with Ease, Autumn & Winter. it’s waiting for you on the website.
Amadea Morningstar, MA, RPE, RYT, has worked with Ayurveda for forty plus years now.
Ayurveda food image thanks to Deva Khalsa