It's day 7 of my new regime. I'm still alive and not even that hungry. In the past I have always approached dieting in a 'fat free version of favourite foods' kind of way. As you can imagine, this does not go well. Have you tried fat free lasagne? I don't recommend the experience. When I was growing up, of course, it was a little different. At least until teenagerdom I was safe from the fatmonster. Well, after the initial two years of poking, prodding and hospital visits whilst they worked out what was wrong with me. Did you know I never crawled? My internal organs has swollen so much I looked rather like a pregnant toddler. Creepy? Not much... my stomach got in the way and I couldn't crawl, so I went straight from bum shuffling to walking.
The food was not labelled in the same way all those (many) years ago and Mum simply had a 'can eat/can't eat' list issued by the hospital. I could eat fishfingers, potatoes, pasta, baked beans and tinned spaghetti. I'm sure there were more things on the list, but mostly I remember eating Smash (remember the Martians?) with fishfingers and something out of a tin. My Dad taught me how to eat baked beans and tinned spaghetti cold. He had his reasons, I'm sure. The grand favourite was pasta and gravy. Yes, cooked pasta floating in Bisto. Absolutely flaming gorgeous and I have passed it on to my kids.
Once I hit puberty and went to high school things changed a little. For two years I went to boarding school, who knew all about my problem. I had always had a packed lunch (when I was in nursery they didn't have packed lunch facilities and I was some first years' special project. They came and picked me up every day and took me to the infant school so I could sit and eat my sandwiches with them. My mum used to leave little notes on them telling me to eat my crusts first and get it over with. I still remember one girl's name: Jenny), but now I was to eat school dinners.
The cooks had been supplied with my two childhood demons: MCT oil and Caloreen. MCT oil is medium chain triglyceride oil, which had something to do with a coconut once, although I don't think said coconut would recognise it in a line up once it was in the bottle. Basically the fats in it are in a much simpler form that doesn't need breaking down so they are easier for my body to process. I think. Burnt if you warmed it up with a candle and smelled like the vengeance of all eaten vegetables throughout time. They used it mainly, as I remember, to cook roast potatoes for me. No word of a lie, and my friends from that time can back this up, those dinner ladies were generous if nothing else. I used to get half my dinner with everyone else, then I had to go to the end of the hall and wait for my potatoes to emerge from the kitchen. When they arrived, I got a football teams worth. They went on a separate plate because I couldn't get them all on the dinner plate. It was awesome and terrible at the same time.
The Caloreen was an energy supplement. We get a large portion of our energy from the fat that we consume, so I was always at the end of that particular line. It was a white powder, a really powdery one. It came in pint bottles and used to be delivered by the crate to my boarding house. The design was to add it to drinks and food to up the calorie intake. I used to put it on my breakfast cereal. Back in those days skimmed milk was hard to come by so I used to drink powdered skimmed milk. It went into the jug with a hefty dose of the Caloreen mixed in. The result was no fat milk with the consistency of single cream. That went in the cereal bowl and then I would sprinkle some more over the top in place of sugar. Those were the days. I was taken off it at puberty sometime. Can't remember when, but my husband doesn't remember it and we met when I was 17.
Once I was back home and going to day school again at 14, I met the real world. I took a bus to school every day, but I was once again toting my packed lunch so the school were oblivious to my dietary needs. This was the period in which I met my new love. Chocolate. The school had a tuck shop and I could bring money and buy WHATEVER I WANTED. Oh, Mr Cadbury, why? I realised that there was a whole new world out there and I wanted part of it. I would eat entire Dairy milk bars on the bus home. I would secretly eat chocolate digestives behind the sofa. Once I started going downtown with my friends, I discovered McDonalds. I don't expect that you can remember your first beefburger. I can.
Somehow, I survived my teenage years. Honestly, I'm not sure how. I went to the hospital regularly to check my blood levels, and each visit was preceded by two weeks of manic dieting. Not really the best way of handling it, in retrospect, and when I got to 17 or 18 I decided to not do that and see what happened. That was the year that they sent me for a liver scan because my levels were so high.
I see that I am filling the page once again without having got to my original point, so I'm labeling this post Childhood and moving on. Basic introduction to cookery will be next. Stay tuned.
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