A diet hacker's lesson digest

Some of the best lessons are learned the hard way. In this post, I mention four I picked up while getting to know myself from the inside out. These are:

1. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all diet
2. Diet is just one component of a healthy lifestyle
3. If dieting causes you stress, ditch it
4. Food and eating should be treated as sacred

Lesson 1: there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all diet

Anyone who has ever heard anyone say “I can't eat the way he does” intuitively knows this one. In saying this, I'm looking particularly at the proselytisers of the Paleo and Atkins diets because it was they who shouted the loudest when I was hacking my diet. But the lesson applies across the board. Not every body will benefit from eating a diet that is, say, high in protein and low in carbs and fat, or a macrobiotic diet à la the Japanese.

According to one school of thought, this is because the diet(s) that elevates your wellbeing is determined by the interaction between your genes and the environmental conditions that figured predominantly in your formative years. You may be 99.9% genetically similar to your human neighbour but (a) researchers have shown that the 0.1% of a genetic difference is significant enough when it comes to variations in biological constitution (Nabhan, 2013) and (b) this difference is exacerbated by the diversity of environments and cultures in which the both of you were brought up. Throw in the differences in your current lifestyles (e.g. how much exercise the two of you get), it is highly likely that the two of you have appreciably different metabolic constitutions and therefore nutritional needs.

Gary Paul Nabhan, an author and ethnobotanist, takes this thesis a giant leap further. In Food, Genes and Culture, he eloquently describes his decades-long research that led to him concluding that We Are What Our Ancestors Ate. He pooh-poohs the Paleo Dieters' thesis that every single one of us living on this planet are adapted to eat the diets that the first generations of Homo Sapiens ate. The thesis is based on the premise that biological evolution is so slow that there is no appreciable biological difference between us and our hunter gatherer ancestors. But to Nabhan, pace Darwin, there is such a thing as microevolution that can effect significant genetic changes among populations in a matter of just a few generations. In other words, natural selection can occur over millennia, not just millions of years as Darwin had theorised. As Nabhan says (p.49):

“Our bodies' responses to particular diets were not fully shaped 2.5 million years ago during the emergence of the genus Homo, nor were they fixed during the period when mitochondrial Eve roamed the savannas of East Africa between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago.”

Paleo Dieters grossly underestimate the small but significant amount of diversity in our collective gene pool. Since members of our species fanned out across the entire planet, they would have needed to adapt to different climates and the distinct array of flora and fauna (some of which would have been edible) offered by various parts of the world. As a result, the group of humans who colonised Australia would have evolved slightly different biological constitutions from those who colonised northern Europe because of the location specific foods that were available to each group, among other environmental factors.

“While about 85 percent of human genetic diversity can be represented by different individuals in the same ethnic population, as much as 15 percent appears as differences among or between various ethnic populations.” (Nabhan, p.9)

Nabhan is one of a growing number of scientists interested in epigenetics, an exciting movement in biology that neutralises the age-old Nature Versus Nurture debate. Put simply, epigenetics stresses the interaction between environmental stimuli (which includes cultural products like diet) and our genes. More specifically, it looks at how this interaction can affect gene expression in a population. As the cell biologist Bruce Lipton says in his remarkable book The Biology of Belief, genes can't switch themselves on or off. It is up to environmental stimuli to do this. So imagine for a moment a person who has inherited the hereditary trait for 'tallness'; but due to a poor, malnourished upbringing, he is shorter than he would otherwise be had he been weaned on a nourishing diet.

Nabhan cites the work of food psychologist Paul Rozin that demonstrates this interaction in an area particularly relevant and interesting to people like me. He showed that over several generations, a population can gradually override a genetic predisposition for lactose intolerance simply by drinking more milk. Conditions for this phenomenon are a) if a genetic mutation for lactose tolerance is present in small frequencies in the population group and b) if the genetic ability to tolerate dairy products gives those endowed with it reproductive advantages. It is no coincidence that population groups with the greatest frequency of the gene for the digestive enzyme lactase are also traditional herding populations. In this example, selective pressures don't just occur at the biological level (selection for lactose tolerance) but also at the cultural/environmental level (selection for a diet containing dairy). This is what is known as co-evolution.

Moral: our biological constitutions are intimately tied to the climate and land that our ancestors eventually settled on.

“The less that our ancestors intermarried with individuals from other lands, the greater the probability that we still carry genes that allow us to survive, thrive and successfully reproduce under those particular environmental conditions.” (Nabhan, p.30)

As mentioned above, evolutionary selection happens on at least two levels. The human genes that are selected for by a particular location (whether the tropical savanna of Sub-Saharan Africa or the lush Northern European lowlands) are those that enable its carriers to thrive and reproduce in that environment. Selective pressures also happen at the level of food and diet so that what a group of people ate in a certain location would have enabled them to thrive and reproduce in that environment.

“There are no less than twenty-six genes on sixteen chromosomes that interact with various environmental factors, namely with the foods and beverages characteristic of certain ethnic diets rooted in particular places around the world.” (Nabhan, p.7)

Our biological diversity reflects the diversity of cuisines, which in turn reflects the planet's environmental diversity. It is therefore no accident that people from the Indian subcontinent love their spices and that Navajo Indians like it chilli (capsaicin) hot. These foods are what these groups of people have evolved to eat over thousands of years. It is a well-known fact that my ancestors have been cultivating and eating rice for over 10,000 years. Rice eating is literally in my DNA. So, in a snub to the Paleo diet, I have reintroduced rice (albeit the brown kind) into my diet and have instantly felt more human because of it!

“There is something profoundly functional in the mix of ingredients, cooking techniques, and preservation strategies characteristic of each ethnic cuisine, for each traditional cuisine has evolved to fit the inhabitants of a particular landscape or seascape over the last several millennia.” (Nabhan, p.31)

There is therefore a case to be made for preserving traditional cuisines, which, before the widespread globalisation of today, would have been passed down the generations relatively undiluted.

The co-evolution of our genes and diet, of course, has health implications in the 21^st century. Ever wondered why migrants to the UK from the African continent and the Caribbean are disproportionately at greater risk of developing heart disease and diabetes and other conditions collectively and ominously known as Syndrome X than the white British? Migration is essentially a displacement of peoples from the land and environment from which they are adapted. The novel foods and novel climate offer a profound shock to the system for migrants that can have plenty of maladaptive side effects, especially if they are struggling socioeconomically as well.  

“Because some people have been untethered from the foods to which their metabolisms are best adapted, some 3 to 4 billion of your neighbours on this planet now suffer nutritional-related diseases.” (Nabhan, p.32)

To demonstrate the healing power of traditional location-specific diets, Nabhan describes a community nutritional project undertaken in the nineties that helped native Hawaiians reign in the skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes mellitus afflicting their people. This epidemic was kickstarted by the wholesale invasion of the islands by American fast food and the near extinction of the local culture, language and cuisine. The project found that the most effective way to help people to lose weight, keep it off and even reverse the deleterious effects of Syndrome X was to reintroduce the traditional Hawaiian diet and re-cultivate traditional crops locally. One notable traditional food is taro, the native sweet potato and ancient staple crop, which is high in calcium, potassium, iron, A B and C vitamins. Its high fibre content means it is a source of 'slow release' carbohydrates, which protects against sudden spikes in insulin, a precursor to diabetes mellitus. In other words, eating taro protects native Hawaiians from Syndrome X. The communities that took part in the project returned to the foods that had nourished their ancestors, allowing them to adapt to life on the islands.

Nabhan's overall message is that if you want optimal health, it doesn't make sense to separate your nutritional needs from your genetic makeup, and your genetic makeup from your cultural roots.

Of course, the story isn't complete. When I retold Nabhan's message to a perceptive friend of mine, she made the remark that the world now has a great many people who are 'mixed-race'. Far from a rebuttal of Nabhan's thesis, though, I think the observation drives home the importance of finding out what diet suits you as an individual given your current lifestyle while always keeping in mind what your grandmothers fed you. Which brings me on to:

Lesson 2: diet is just one aspect of a healthy lifestyle

Yes, lifestyle counts. For the longest time, I focussed primarily on maintaining a good level of physical activity without looking closely at what I was eating. Then with the detox, all I could think about was what I was eating. But as any good doctor will prescribe, optimal health rests on a diet of fresh foods, regular exercise, sleep and manageable levels of stress.

Lesson 3: if dieting causes you stress, ditch it

As alluded to in Part II, stress can reverse all the hard work you've put into restricting what you eat. Studies have shown that a chronic increase of the stress hormone, cortisol, fires up your body's fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system. Not only does it put you on edge as if danger is lurking around every corner, the hormone stimulates your appetite and encourages your body to store energy (that is, accumulate fat stores) in preparation for fuelling your body when danger does come pouncing out at you.

A fired-up sympathetic nervous system also diverts nutrients and oxygen, via blood flow, from your visceral organs – your life support in other words – to your limbs so that you can bolt when the danger approaches. That's why stress suppresses the immune system. When you're in danger of being mauled by a lion, your body's got more urgent things to attend to than to fight bacteria.

Lesson 4: treat food and eating as sacred

I'm a huge proponent of eating without distraction, chewing food properly and savouring the texture of food. In his book The Story of the Human Body, Daniel Lieberman explains how, of all the hominids, it us humans who have exclusively evolved the ability to talk and chew at the same time. It's a talent that comes with a potentially fatal risk: choking. So don't talk with your mouth full or read scandal-filled papers like the The Daily Mail while enjoying your salad. I believe that mindful eating isn't just a fad but a critical component for maintaining wellbeing and sanity in this world of fuss-free liquid diets.

Confessions of a Diet Hack – Part III – Waking Up

Having set out to radically change my lifestyle – indefinitely – it might appear to be a bit of let down when I say that my detox lasted a mere 36 days. Truth be told, not even my steely resolve to fight a yeast foe (detailed in Part II) could resist going on holiday and getting hitched.

So my circumstances were special. No one in their right mind would allow their gut woes to jeopardise their wedding day, right? (That's a job for cold feet!) Mercifully, although my mind wasn't completely right before the wedding (Part II), I still had some sanity on reserve for the Big Day. In other words, I managed to avoid being awkward among loving relatives and friends by practically licking the plate during the three-course French wedding lunch banquet – dessert included.

Yes I ate like a person who enjoys food and, from what I gather, nobody suspected anything. I didn't worry about the amount of corn starch in the hazelnut dressing in my starter. I did not obsess about the mould content in the coffee that infused my slow-cooked lamb cutlet. Nor did I wonder whether the piece of meat belonged to an animal that was fed on grass (it probably wasn't). I had no hang-ups about the quantity of sugar or gluten in my moreish chocolate cake with its molten centre or the dairy content in my vanilla quenelle. In fact, for the first time in six weeks, I (and my bowels!) breathed a huge sigh of relief. The wedding ceremony was over and I didn't choke on my chocolate cake. The End.

A certain kind of freedom

When the world failed to implode after that first brush with said chocolate cake, I decided that I ought to establish a new 'special' relationship with my gut. Instead of the fear-driven (lukewarm rather than hot) war that had ensued between us, the new relationship would be one based on fairness and balance, not control. I would trade armoury for diplomacy. There would be some give and take on both sides. This new enlightened approach would hopefully pipe down my stress levels, which would then benefit the both of us. Hurray!

Of course, concessions were needed from both parties. From my side, I needed to promise to continue eating my greens and laying off sugar, gluten and other refined carbs on a general basis. In turn, my gut needed to refrain from sending out its army of Mr Albicans (why am I picturing Agent Smith in this moment?) whenever my hand was in the biscuit tin.

Okay, okay – so my gut and I are still negotiating on this last one. For instance, when I started eating more 'forbidden foods' after that first bite of chocolate cake, my eczema did flare up. However – and this is a big However – I have since managed to keep the inflammation under control by using a non-steroidal moisturising cream. During the detox, I had formed an almost evangelical belief in the singular healing power of food, blinding me to the utility of more conventional medications.

Even though my gut still likes to kick up a fuss, it has reassured me that its paroxysms to human weakness would be merely passing. Like showers in the meteorological sense. No flooding of hard feelings would result.

But the biggest and most important concession to come from my gut was a missive that went like this: 'Estella, unlike those poor people with fatal allergies and severe autoimmune diseases, like coeliac disease, you have choice when it comes to what you put in your mouth. As long as you're willing to accept the responsibility that comes with choice you can do what you want, my friend.'

After all the drama, it was understanding the deceptively simple idea of choice that finally unshackled me. It made me realise that my gut and the many prophets of gut health including Paleo Mom, Chris Kresser and Mark Sisson have no real power over me. It was I who gave them that power. Left to their own devices, why would they bother diving out from my laptop screen to hold me above a candle burning frankincense and make me sacrifice nightshades and white rice to Lamashtu and other demons. I'm not that special.

So, yes, I had gone a little bit mad.

But now I am sober and enjoying being a little dirty again. So much so that I am typing this up between indulgent sips of a full-fat, whipped dairy flat white.

Food for thought, duh!

With the dust all but settled, I am finally in the position to evaluate what went well during my dieting charade. The proverbial light at the end of a 36-day-long tunnel.

Apart from feeling trimmer, my brain cells got some welcome action. Paradoxically, the obsessiveness that had assaulted my sanity as detailed in Part II had simultaneously raised my level of consciousness about what it means to be a living organism within the vast ecosystem we call Earth.

Messing around with my diet meant that I got to lurk about the not-too-trivial subjects of the human body and, well, nutrition. Not only did I wake up to What I eat, I considered for the first time ever What my body does when I eat and Where the food I eat comes from. Foremost, it made me think seriously (rather than in passing) about the impact the food I eat has on my health and that of the planet's. In hindsight, it astounds me how, despite my intimate relationship with food, I had never once given much thought about food beyond its taste, how it looks on the plate and how satisfying, or not, it is.

As 2013 drew to a close, a minor revolution was unfolding in my head – not just stomach.

The common refrain 'is it good enough to eat?' took on a whole new meaning.

The following sections gloss over the journey my mind took as a newborn explorer of food and nutrition. Forgive me if it's all a bit disjointed. I can't seem to make it read better.

What is food?

This new interest in food nutrition inevitably threw up all sorts of weird and wonderful facts about the basic substances that keep us alive. I mean, what, after all, are these carbohydrates that we so despise? Does your body distinguish sugar in fruit from that in Coke? What does insulin do? How can your liver get fat? Are all saturated fats bad? What are macronutrients and micronutrients? Is there a preference for insoluble over soluble fibre? Why does soluble fibre make us gassy?

My mind boggled with such questions related to the bigger question of 'What exactly is food?'. It then occurred to me that these questions are as vital to our being human as the popular existential ones we all ask ourselves at some point – namely, 'Who Am I?'. These questions about our relationship with food are ultimately questions of identity. After all, We Are What We Eat, no?

(For those who like a puzzle: at what point does an apple that you eat cease being something independent of you?)

What is the impact of my food consumption having on the planet?

I learned that eating locally-sourced pesticide-free foods isn't just an idle treehugger's fancy but is really quite vital to promoting human health. After all, the longer it takes between harvesting a carrot, say, and getting it on supermarket shelves and then onto someone's plate, the more of its juicy beta-carotenes and antioxidants it loses. In other words, supermarkets shortchange us on nutritional value, and pump the air with carbon dioxide to boot. Moreover, chemical fertilisers and pesticides mess with the health of the planet's soil, which then messes with the quality of its food, which then messes with the health of our bodies. So there is a strong case to be made for supporting people who grow food on soil nurtured by organic matter, such as poo from livestock. Only now am I beginning to appreciate how intelligent and self-regulating the planet's ecosystems really is. Humans, with all their arrogance, always think they have the solution to everything.

How nasty is the modern food industry, really?

I'd been aware of the well-documented havoc agriculture and the modern food industry in the West is wrecking on our planet, our guts and our attention spans. Fast Food Nation and all that. But I never really understood the immensity of the problem or the fact that the fast food leviathan is just the tip of the iceberg, its ugly face.

For instance, I never knew that corn-fed, factory-farmed livestock, for all its moral implications, are so nutritionally deficient (all the good stuff like Omega-3s gets zapped out of it). Given that they have no room to wander freely, these poor caged birds also fester in their own shit. No wonder they are at risk of getting sick and so are pumped full of antibiotics – which incidentally also fattens them up. Yum! Moreover, the abuse of antibiotics has led to the emergence of so-called 'superbugs'.

On the other hand, grass-fed cows that are free to roam on green pastures provide a good source of Omega-3s, betacarotene, vitamins E and K, and trace minerals. No surprise considering these animals biologically prefer grass to corn. 

How our livestock are treated affects those who consume it. It's the food chain, stupid! And if it's getting too expensive to eat properly cared-for meat, then maybe we should cut back our meat consumption.

Food poverty in the developed world

Living by the dictates of the modern food industry means that even denizens of the developed world are more than likely to be undernourished. We no longer benefit from the colossal biodiversity that our highly resourceful, foraging ancestors once enjoyed. Estimates of the number of edible plants in the world currently range from tens of thousands to 250,000-300,000. Yet, according to Gary Paul Nabhan, author of the excellent book Food, Genes and Culture, we have whittled our consumption down to a few hundred domesticated plants and made ourselves dependent only a handful of cultivated grains. Even that sounds like a lot when I survey my weekly shopping basket.

Another fun fact: contrary to popular opinion, our pre-agrarian ancestors were actually less likely to starve than we are because they were less picky about what they ate, which enabled them to adapt to seasonal and climate changes. It's no accident that the most devastating famines in history all occurred after we invented agriculture, created the food industry and severed our connection to the land.

Hippocrates, you wise, wise soul

Food really is thy medicine innit? We've all heard this one before. But like most things, the penny only drops when something bad happens to you. In my case, I first experienced the gravitas of the proverb when I started attending to my poor gut. Here's a piece of vindication that I'm particularly proud of: during the Winter Flu Season of 2013, I started each morning with a glass of lemon water, ate raw garlic, did some yoga, and hoped for the best. And it worked. No flu vaccination needed. It's now February and counting.

As I mentioned in Part II, everything I was consuming – no matter the number of calories – had some nutritional value. I was fuelling my body like one really should from the perspective of wellness, and earning an extra layer of protection from airborne nasties to go with my new down jacket from Uniqlo.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the astonishing fact that, almost everywhere on the planet, we are being persuaded to diminish our body's natural healing capabilities by a manufactured desire to binge on toxins, whether in the form of cheap calories or drugs. The drug industry and medical profession profit from treating illnesses rather than in disease prevention. Now thinkers like Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, are hastening a Copernican Revolution in the way we think about health. If we can promote wellness we needn't sink billions into curing illness. In fact, I am currently reading about epigenetics, a newish but radical movement in biology that asserts that, contrary to almost a century reigned by the ideology of genetic determinism, we are not victims of our genes. We are ultimately in control over our genes - and so whether or not we will be healthy.

Instilling this thought should start with the younger generations. Schools that haven't already should introduce nutrition and food preparation lessons. Better yet, students should be taught how to grow their own food. If a child knows how to cook and where their food comes from, would he or she be more or less likely to snack on fried chicken?

Unfortunately, when I was at school, our home economics classes were a) optional and b) focussed solely on baking rather than on cooking dishes using fresh ingredients. So I had to do my own catching-up, ashamedly in my late twenties. Although I'd been cooking for as long as I'd lived on my own, I never paid attention to food preparation and the best cooking techniques that preserve nutrients. I guess therein lies the problem with our schooling. In school, you learn how read, write, do maths and memorise facts so that you can be a good work soldier. But you're lucky if you're taught vital life skills.

When I get over my insecurity at having killed more than one basil plant, I will try my hand at being an urban gardener :-)

Back to Slow Food, please. And not just in Italy

Given that food is thy medicine and medicine is thy food, I now find the notion of people mindlessly munching down their prepackaged supermarket sandwiches while trawling through emails or reading the Daily Mail irredeemably absurd. Not only is the quality of what we eat in question, the very act of eating in the industrialised world is not a priority even though it is a major determiner of how productive we are. Modern capitalistic culture simply does not allow time for eating without distraction even if its in its interest to do so.

To be fair, some companies have woken up to the notion of a healthy workforce. Mindfulness workshops are the trend du jour and companies offering free gym memberships to their minions are almost commonplace. Nevertheless, in the UK at least, it remains de rigueur to overwork its people 40+ hours a week. I reckon that the majority of lunch hour body crunchers get about as much time to eat after their workouts as it takes to slurp down a protein shake. I therefore suggest (with a smile) that there should be a strict enforcement of siestas in the afternoon to allow people to eat and digest their food so that they can return to work feeling energised rather than harried and grumpy. The world – that means, the economy – will have to slow down so that people can learn to use their tastebuds again. What is mindfulness, after all?

I think I will end this post here lest it gets insufferably long. To the one person who has clung on until the last paragraph, well done and thank you! As your reward, you will have Part IV to look forward to.

Confessions of a Diet Hacker – Part II - The Fallout

To recap on Part I: I found myself doing the unthinkable at the end of 2013. I cleaned up my diet. Getting married in December 2013 had something to do with it. But mainly, my gut was making noises that one can only ignore for so long. I managed to do so for about a year.

This post goes into the consequences of dieting in one of the foodie capitals of the world. 'Consequences' is probably too neutral a term. 'Collateral damage' better describes things...

Gut reactions

It took about 10 days before I began reaping the 'good' effects promised by a muscular detox. These effects included a whole gamut of so-called 'die off' Herxheimer reactions: bouts of nausea, headaches, muscle weakness, skin outbreaks and the brain fog came back. It was like an initiation process. Although I felt ill, I was comforted by the thought that the Big Yeast Beast ravaging my gut, Candida Albicans, was finally kicking the can, and letting out lots of nasties in the process.

Stabilised energy levels

But then after the initial turbulence, my energy levels began stabilising. In fact my blood sugar levels were so calm that my days assumed different shades of grey. No more flip-flopping between moments of darkness and rainbows for me! To M's relief, I had also stopped acting out my nightmares and nightmarish fashion.

I had also finally emasculated (though not fully eradicated) the eczema - which kickstarted everything.

Drastic weight loss

My body weight took a dive, which was actually quite unintentional. Starved of glucose and carbohydrates from food, I was burning mostly fat. Even though you'd think it is a piece of common sense, I didn't realise that fat is the best store of energy until I started seriously plundering it!

The ending of an affair

So drastic were the results, I managed to convince myself that I didn't need sugar anymore, ever. To be sure, cutting it out from my diet was a traumatic experience in itself. It felt like the ending of an affair, a relationship I had become so dependent on. Whoever said Chinese people have no taste for sweet things is just plain wrong! So. Wrong. Going sugarless the first week left me feeling bereft and vulnerable. Thankfully the grieving process lightened up after about 2 weeks when I reached the Acceptance Stage by forming the realisation that what I was actually mourning was the death of Mr Albicans. It was one of those “what were you thinking?” type relationships, a telling sign of which was the fact that I prefaced any talk of Candida with a possessive. My candida...

What empty calories?

A far less morbid side effect was the natural buzz I got from the realisation that everything I was eating was now packed full of nutrients. There were no more empty calories (like cake) or (known) toxins in my diet. I felt like I finally earned the title of Qualified Health Nut and the perceived moral high ground that came with the status made me feel pretty damn good. I had transformed into a Warrior Woman nearly overnight, fighting not just the scourge of Candida but the greater war against highly addictive sugary processed foods in the developed world! I was a poster child for the ravages of the modern food industry!

Now for the bad news

All this detox business was meant to be sobering me up. Yet, around Day 18, things started going haywire. My resolve to eradicate Mr Albicans started spiralling out of control. What began as a curiosity, a bit of self-experimentation, became a 24-hour preoccupation about what I was putting in my body. My monkey mind was gummed up with questions like: Is it clean? What's the sugar content in this can of coconut milk? How many carbs have I eaten today? Is it under 100g? Did I overcook the vege? Should I even cook the veg? Are the airtight jars for my activated almonds really airtight?

And I wasn't even counting calories!

This mental carousel quickly metastasised into a monstrous carnival, with my touchy gut as the headlining act.

Gut feelings

Several sources ostensibly written by scientists (here and here) state that, a part from everything else, dodgy gut health can be linked to mental diseases like depression, anxiety, ADHD and autism, which is probably a consequence of our modern diets and lifestyles. This is based on the idea of the so-called 'brain-gut' connection. Your gut is your 'second brain', containing some 100 million neurons, and it is the one system in the body that sends signals of distress or contendedness to the brain (not just the other way around). Apparently some 95 per cent of the emotion regulator, serotonin, is found in the bowels. This biological fact could explain why we talk about having 'gut reactions' and 'butterflies in the stomach'.

So if your gut is under the weather, so are you.

But I wanted to be over the weather (a tall order in England, I know). 

I felt compelled to patch things up with my gut (I should really give it a name). I had to do my darnedest to furnish it with friends like Lactobacillus acidophilus and other tongue-twisting good gut microbes. After the terrible havoc wrecked by Mr Albicans, I owed it that much.

But I took on this new project with the gusto of someone who traded one abusive relationship for another.

Where before sugar ruled my life, dictating my highs and lows, now it was my gut's turn. It was the partner from hell – demanding, childish and even a little bit suicidal. Unlike a person, though, I couldn't just walk away from my gut in a final act of defiance. I had to endure its seductive calm 'flat belly' moments which would be punctured by unpredictable shows of unpleasantness: noises that were as off-putting as Schoenberg's twelve-tone experiments, skin eruptions after lunch, and missed trips to the loo. I would then have to call in my crisis intervention unit which would start asking all the hard questions. Did I forget to take my probiotics? Did I accidentally ingest some mould? Did I mindlessly forget to chew my food down to a liquid pulp?

Instead of falling asleep with a big fat cookery tome left open on my belly (as any self-respecting normal person would do), I regularly nodded off to pages like this. 

By the fourth week of my detox, I had whiplash from an accelerated joyride through all the various diet crazes – Dukan, microbiotic, Atkins, FODMAPs, SIBO, GAPs, and the great, great, great grandaddy of them all - the Paleo Diet. As the British would say, with the colourful plethora of ways one can restrict oneself, I might as well just sod off to a cave and eat air. Or heed Little Britain's Marjorie Dawes' advice and eat dust. 

Even now as I write this, I feel the urge to scream.

By now you can probably guess that my hapless efforts at placating my gut (Godzilla!) backfired miserably. I was unhappy and stressed and no fun to be around with. Sorry M.

Unhappy together

Firstly, about being unhappy. By taking a forensic eye to what I was eating, I had managed to hoover up all the romance and pleasure out of the activity. Eating now became a purely functional matter. I ate to live rather than lived to eat because I was constantly being surveilled by a phantom health and safety inspector. This left me with no choice but to stick to eating salads sozzled with extra virgin olive oil (cold-pressed, of course), raw garlic, lemon and turmeric powder. But it was November going on December so the days were turning nippy and I was literally left feeling cold.

If I got the mid-afternoon munchies (which, disappointingly, did not go away), I ate a spoonful of coconut oil a la Elle Macpherson and her ilk. Its health benefits notwithstanding, it didn't vanquish my cravings for the satisfying crunch of a piece of chocolate or a bowlful of granola. My gut may not have teeth, but my sentient being does!

Mr Albicans' scaremongering gave me a scarcity mindset. I fixated on what I couldn't eat rather than on the little known abundance of edible foods sprouting from Mother Nature's bosom (did you know that the world has 250,000-300,000 edible plants?). But when you're down in the dumps, the last thing you want to be thinking about is foraging for food. Especially as a committed urban dweller.

For self-preservation reasons, I began living vicariously. I continued watching Nigel Slater lovingly prepare his hearty comfort foods on television in full knowledge that I could only ever look not touch. I found myself staring intently at all those people digging their gnashers into flavoursome food truck pulled-pork baps and the like without a care in the world for their gut's feelings. I reached the point of insanity when my compulsion to be around 'real food' led me to journey around London Soho's many fashion-forward eateries so that I could peer through their fogged-up windows. 

It was all very masochistic and voyeuristic.

There's only one word for it: Stress

And then there was all the stress to accompany all the unhappiness. For some of us, stress is just another thing to be addicted to. It's like a security blanket. As soon as we gain a handle on our stressors by, say, doing less, we begin to worry about not doing enough. Stress shields us from having to air out our soul's dirty laundry. We needn't face the harsh light of living in the present, content as we are at carrying on well away from the precipice of peace. And we think we prefer this state of affairs to the alternative.

But this was not that kind of stress. I was focussing too much on the present and I was airing enough dirty laundry to draw complaints from the council. I was meticulously attending to every whim and disappointment of my gut. This level of obsessiveness must have sent my cortisol levels through the roof! I was shooting myself in the foot instead of Mr Albicans' weed-like roots. As you might recall from Part I, Mr Albicans loves it when you're stressed. Chris Kresser, a Paleo guru, has this to say on the subject:

“Stress-induced alterations to microbial flora could increase the likelihood of intestinal permeability, which in turn sets the stage for systemic and local skin inflammation.”

Which was essentially my problem in a nutshell.

So not only was my gut stressing me out, I was stressing my gut out by being stressed. This circle of stress provided enough stress to fire up the sympathetic nervous systems of an entire village of hunter gatherers facing an onslaught of lions.

Worse, I couldn't do much exercise to relieve the stress. Because my carb intake was so low (less than 100g a day), my body's energy metabolism was totally thrown out of whack. The body burns carbs and glucose most quickly and efficiently during moderate-to-intense levels of exercise. Whenever I tried pushing my aerobic activity level higher than that demanded by a power walk, I got lightheaded and felt nauseous. I was probably in ketosis which is not advisable if you want to do intense aerobic exercise. So I stuck with yoga. But even then, I felt my strength weaken.

Spanner in the works

So what put the stop on this whirlpool? I went on holiday.

Confessions of a Diet hacker - Part I

There is a lot of drivel out there on what constitutes the 'perfect diet'. My intention here is not to add to it. I merely wish to share the wondrous drama of my recent attempt at diet 'hacking' (apologies if I've misappropriated a term of the moment). My reasons for this are that a) writing about it helps me come to terms with it, and b) there might be something in the detritus beyond a generous measure of gossip.

HEALTH WARNING: this is not an advice column on how to lose weight and quickly. Nor do I deign to proselytise on what you should and shouldn't eat. It's simply one woman's rocky and windy journey to getting to know her body from the inside out. If you wish to skip the tummy-turning details and head straight to the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel wherein lies all the wisdom, you're very welcome. But you'll have to wait until Part III.

As for the rest of you (you nosy parkers!), hold on tight to your seats and stomachs!

***

Before I begin, I'd like to erase any doubt that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool food lover. I'm a terrible food TV junkie. I wish to know where Nigel Slater lives so that I may stalk him or at least find a sneaky back entrance to his kitchen garden. I read Jay Rayner's brilliant restaurant reviews whenever I need cheering up despite the fact that I'll probably never go to those restaurants since it's easy enough in London to live beyond one's means without eating out.

If, in the past, I ever felt the need to 'clean up' my lifestyle, the last place I'd police is the food cupboard. There would always hang a 'Please do not disturb' sign, making it a true last resort.

Unfortunately that last resort came knocking in October 2013. And it was grim, like the reaper.

The gory preamble

By that time, I knew things weren't going all that well 'down there'. I had been suffering from some truly undignified IBS symptoms (that's Irritable Bowel Syndrome for those lucky enough not to know!). At the same time, my left middle finger and right ring finger became semi-permanently adorned with a weird sort of eczema, known as pompholyx. To top it off, my sinuses were chronically stuffed whether or not it was hay fever season. My ears itched like they had little worms living in them and my pores were having their gizillionth oil bonanza. For a 29-year-old, this sign of unending youth was just embarrassing.

Yet to the best of my knowledge, I had been following the conventional wisdom on how to live happily and healthily. I was getting my 7-8 hours of sleep every night – albeit interrupted by semiconscious mumbling and certain night 'incidents' that were scary enough to put my horror-movie-loving bedfellow on edge. I was taking moderate-to-intense exercise 5-6 days a week. I drank so much water I had to visit the loo every hour or so like an incontinent granny. I steered clear of alcohol. And to sooth the eczema, I ditched steroids for a witch's brew of hemp oil, olive oil, safflower seed oil, nettle and chamomile that has made one mother rich.

On the surface, I wasn't even particularly naughty when it came to what I was ingesting. One cup of coffee every day, nothing excessive. A slice of cake and sugary drink, every other day – okay, could do better. But I figured that by exercising loads, all that excess glucose, fructose, sucrose and whatever else you can call sugar would be burned and sweated out, right? I also made sure I got my 5-a-day serving of fruit and veg. Finally, if I had an addiction (aside from sugar), it was to healthy, hearty oats. Every meal could be a bowl of oats.

In other words, I felt that I had got The Big Picture right. Yet I was still beset by said gastrointestinal upsets and skin disruptions.

So on one fine grey, autumnal day, I told myself I had to succumb to the bullet and do IT. In other words, to go on a Detox – my first ever. My attitude toward detoxing had always been one of great scepticism – perhaps a convenient veil over my visceral dislike of voluntarily denying myself based on the recommendations of people with dubious credentials. I mean am I not right in saying that only quacks would recommend liquid vegetable diets?

But what I was about to put myself through reached far beyond trying on the latest fad designed to test my sanity. No, my self-diagnosis (thank you very much Internet!) told me I needed to consider something altogether more dramatic. Drumroll please. It would amount to making a lifestyle change, and a [insert suitable expletive] blitzkreig of a detox would be at the heart of it. No doubt it was going to be a scary experience, maybe even existential in its fallout.

Not for the weak stomached, then. Which was exactly what I had (see Part II).

In the beginning...

By design, I began hacking my diet during the run-up to my wedding (and Christmas) in order so that I could look amazing for the former. In hindsight, the decision of timing was either incredibly foolish or the best thing ever (see Part III). The detox lasted a paltry 36 days. Here's how it all happened. (See Part II for how it all fell apart.)

On 31 October, I started my elimination diet, beginning with gluten and dairy. Or rather I tried to eliminate gluten given that it is in practically everything, including sausages, soya sauce, stock and oats - which are by nature gluten-free! Although I love bread, I found it easy enough to give up the loaf thinking I still had 'gluten-free' options. But I soon discovered that gluten-free breads taste rank, are highly processed and have dubious nutritional value.

Then after about a week, I began to feel better. I no longer suffered from the so-called 'brain fog', an unpleasant intoxification effect that anyone who has ever fallen asleep on the couch after a particularly indulgent meal can attest to. My bowels also seemed to be working better albeit not perfectly.

But the eczema dug in its blistering heels.

Given my symptoms, I researched what else I might be allergic or intolerant to (the two are not the same!) Crikey! The offending candidate could be any number of things. All nuts, caffeine, eggs, corn, soya beans... even garlic and lentils.

For reasons I forget now, I eventually settled on yeast as the missing offender. I tested this theory out by slipping into my soup a store-bought (gluten-free) stock cube. And what do you know? I promptly broke out into something resembling hives on my lower back. Little chicken skin-like bumps also appeared on the backs of my arms. Sexy.

So problem solved? No gluten, no yeast. I was free to go on and live my life.

Not so fast! I had yet to experience a watershed moment in the form of a conversation I had with one of my fellow qigong students. The woman, for the record, is a wellspring of knowledge when it comes to the subject of clean living. She lives an unconventional life, fasts intermittently and distills her own water, that sort of thing. But she looks 10 years younger than she is and her abundant energy is otherworldly.

Unfortunately, as soon as I told her the story of my skin and stomach woes, she came right out and said that I had Candidiasis. A yeast overgrowth.

So I had been half right.

But Candidiasis was bad news for the food lover in me. Very bad news indeed.

Enter Mr Albicans, chief villain

Apparently we are not alone in our bodies but have for company some 100 trillion microbes.

Candida albicans is the name of one type of fungus that lives in the human gastrointestinal tract. Everyone, even healthy individuals, have some quantity of this critter making hay in their gut flora. However, Mr Albicans is a particularly nasty and opportunistic brute. Like cockcroaches, it has a strong will to survive and thrive at the expense of others. Several factors are believed to lead to its overgrowth, which can cause all sorts of health problems affecting the immune system.

Overdosing on antibiotics, for instance, can not only wipe out the bad germs but also destroy the 'good' ones that are crucial in aiding digestion, flushing out toxins and preventing cancer. But guess what survives this annihilation? Yes it's Mr Albicans. Not only does it survive, it gains dominion. 

In fact, modern living in general seems to put us at risk: taking oral contraceptives for women, stress and eating a diet high in sugar and refined carbs. Unfortunately, I'd been guilty of every kind of Albicans baiting, bar doping on antibiotics. Then again, I must have eaten a fair share of vaccinated chickens...

I was definitely exhibiting many of the symptoms of Candidiasis. If I tell you what these are I risk losing all my sex appeal. But here goes: bloating, diarrhea, constipation, brain fog, fatigue, oral and vaginal thrush, itchy ears, problems concentrating, anxiety, acne and eczema... In fact, when reading through the impossibly long list of symptoms, one begins to wonder who isn't suffering from some form of fungal imperialism!

How exactly does a yeast overgrowth cause so much trouble? One popular theory, known as the 'leaky gut syndrome' is that our friend Mr Albicans has particularly solid legs that attach onto the thin gut lining of our intestines, boring holes in the process. These holes then increase the likelihood of undigested food particles and proteins, such as gluten, and toxins that should really be excreted through the 'back passage' infiltrating the bloodstream. The body then thinks these intruders are foreign pathological substances and sends its infection-fighting brigade to neutralise the leakage. This inevitably sends the body into a tizz, causing inflammation, which can be exhibited anywhere from the skin to the brain.

Me vs Mr Albicans

Worst of all possible worlds.

Based on the suspicion that my body was overrun by a fungal fiend, I was driven to turbocharge my detox in order to choke it to a messy death. Being gluten-free was no longer enough of a weapon. I had to eliminate sugar and carbs as well. That's because Mr Albicans loves sugar and carbs. Not only that, the greedy bugger likes all carbs. No matter how complex – including fruits – carbs eventually metabolise into a form of sugar.

So out went all grains, including oats and rice, as well as starchy vegetables like my beloved sweet potato. Alcohol, being essentially liquid sugar, is the drink of the devil. Yeast (e.g. in vinegar and all those lovely Asian sauces) is also an obvious no-no as are most nuts, which attract mould and are hyperallergenic. Dairy, containing lactose, a sugar, is also BAD, as is soya sauce because - again - it contains gluten. No soya sauce? My forthcoming trip to Hong Kong was going to be well fun.

Worst of all, I had to give up chocolate and coffee! Whatever else might be bad about the latter, it seems pretty certain that coffee beans – especially the bad quality stuff – and mould (and the mycotoxins they produce) make great bedfellows.

Ummmmm.... I mean Ommmmm!

So I was officially on route to becoming one of those oft-caricatured yogi-types who sip Ayurvedic herbal remedies all day. (Yes, I do yoga.) But at least I had some choice when it came to tea. In fact, I went a bit overboard with my purchases after thinking I would never be able to eat again. I cleared an entire bench in our kitchen to make way for teas containing cinnamon, liquorice root, ginger, fennel, dandelion, chicory root and the anti-Candida dynamo, Pau D'arco. Then there were the more familiar caffeine-free teas: peppermint, camomile, rooibos. I stopped short of trying a quietly touted alternative to coffee: dandelion root coffee. If I can't have the real thing, why bother (she says tearfully)?

Like I mentioned in the introduction to this post, the scary thing was that there was no knowing how long I'd have to live life as an ascetic. After all I was fighting a Very Powerful Nemesis. Even a smidgen of the sweet stuff could be enough to send me behind enemy lines.

Fuel of the Fury – a survival guide

Not kidding.

So what was left then? Was there any point in me looking at another plate of food?

Needless to say, when one uses the internet in place of professional advice given by someone in the flesh, one is bound to face a Pandora's Box of conflicting information. Wading through it all felt a bit like having to find green shoots while trudging through snow that had fallen to knee height. But after much effort, bordering on unhealthy obsession (see Part II), I managed to papier-mâché together a survival guide.

The resulting diet felt scarily macho and suspiciously Paleo diet (easy on the bacon though my friends!). It was bulked up with lean proteins, wild fish, heart-friendly fats, fats that made you burn fat(!), and a forest of raw greens, some of them completely alien to me. I quickly became well-versed in all things 'wild', 'raw', 'cold pressed', 'grass fed', 'extra virgin'... The food had to be as nutrient-dense and unadulterated as is possible when you're not yet growing your own and keeping cows and chickens on a nice chunk of virgin land...

So here is the list of 'inoffensive' foods that I more or less stuck with for 36 days:

• Leafy vegetables like spinach, rocket and kale (nasty stuff)
• Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower
• Wild (not farmed) salmon
• Organic, free-range poultry (it was really hard to find the grass-fed kind)
• Organic free-range egg yolks (egg whites are potential gut villains apparently)
• Good unsaturated fats from avocado, olive oil (but none of that newfangled stuff like canola and sunflower)
• Good saturated (medium-chain) fats, like coconut oil
• Essential fatty acids, like omega-3s (4:1 ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s) from chia seeds and linseed
• Spices: turmeric, cinnamon, cayenne, ginger, cumin
• Anti-fungals: coconut oil, garlic, apple cider vinegar
• Alkalising foods like lemon but otherwise NO fruits
• Seeds and nuts except tree nuts (so only macadamias)
• Anything fermented with a healthy dose of good bacteria: kaffir, sauerkraut, kimchi
• Good quality mineral or sea salt (the extra fastidious go for the pink-coloured Himalayan salt)
• Homemade chicken or beef bone broth
• Water (at least 2 litres a day and distilled if possible)

… and a frightening smorgasbord of other anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory treats that nature has kindly lavished upon us. Anything to KILL the candida!

But my shopping list didn't end there. As I no longer had fibre from grains, and eating plenty of veg perversely slowed everything down, I bought fibre (inulin) in a jar. I also heeded the advice of healthy gut activists by adding to my daily regime probiotics, minerals (like calcium, magnesium, potassium and zinc) and vitamins (Vitamin A, B complex, C, D, E), and 'superfoods' like chlorophyll-rich chlorella omega-3-abundant chia seeds and an amino acid called L-glutamine. It's easy to imagine the whopping great hole this new 'lifestyle' left in my wallet (I can still smell the embers). It also left me with the need to purchase a pillbox lest I never leave the house again.

Stay tuned for the fallout in Part II.

Book review: The Circle by Dave Eggers

My interest in consumer technology is a bit like my interest in fashion. I'm a knowing pawn of both industries but I take only a superficial interest in them. I find the business of technology and start-up culture somewhat fascinating and I am unashamedly seduced by the aesthetics of gadgetry. (I like the Nike Fuel Band even though I don't really know what it is.) It is with this attitude that I decided to give Dave Eggers' new book The Circle a go.

I was expecting a tragicomic teardown of the world run by a Google-style multinational enterprise and duly got it. Eggers takes the social, moral and political implications of a totalitarian digital utopia to the nth degree. The reader is haunted from the get-go by the distinct possibility that this is a very real prognosis of the future. It's all very cringeworthy.

Like Google, The Circle has a 'campus' that sprawls over acres of sunny verdant California and is designed so that nobody ever wants to leave it. It's like Disneyland with grown-up touches provided by star architects and art through the ages. The place is built in lots and lots of layers with lots and lots of glass. It's the ultimate candy store for geeks. Any service (clean, of course) and anything that anyone wants or didn't know they wanted is provided to employees – known as Circlers – for free. Whether it is healthcare, culinary classes with the world's most famous chefs, the latest newfangled variety of saki or talks from visiting world leaders and celebrities, Circlers have it all and the rest of the world, including the President, wants to join them. Of course, no cutting edge technology escapes the spindles of The Circle. Beyond phones and tablets, Circlers are going 'retinol'.

Different departments are named after historical eras in nature (e.g. Mesozoic) and culture (e.g. The Enlightenment). The Circle's cult-like status is reinforced by references to Communism, such as the Great Room, a giant arena for Steve Jobs-like presentations. Then there are the all-important religious references. The Circle is not only the de facto owner and generator of most of the world's data, but pitches itself as the world's ultimate saviour. It's job is to eliminate ignorance and all its unsavoury byproducts like crime and social injustice. The Circle's God-like machine is engineered by a trio of Wise Men, including a Jobs-like character in Eamon Bailey. The Circle is powered by tens of thousands of wide-eyed top percentile twenty-something worker bees, all of them vessels void of personality but full of great ambition to make the world a better place. Projects at The Circle span from the world changing (a surveillance system involving embedded chips in infants that will prevent child abductions) to the frivolous (counting the sands of the Sahara).

The reader is parachuted into this odd but scarily believable world via Mae Holland. She is a 24-year-old who is lucky enough to have landed a coveted place at The Circle after working a dull, cul-de-sac job in a small town that would rather not be there. Her rescuer is her ex-college roommate Annie, a 26-year-old charming WASP child with a sarcastic streak who is part of the 'Gang of 40' InnerCircle and therefore not far off from being a demigod. It is through her relationship with Annie that Mae fast-tracks her own ascent through the ranks of the world's most exciting company. She begins from being a Customer Experience (CE) desk jockey, answering a daily avalanche of advertiser queries in the most 'personalised' and winning way possible, to becoming a celebrity in her own right, with several tens of millions of 'followers'. Her 'fans' are kept informed of everything about her, including minute-by-minute breakdowns of her 'vitals'.

Highly ambitious but equally impressionable, Mae is first in line to be recruited to live out The Circle's holier-than-thou raison d'etre: to defend the 'human right' to know everything and make privacy a crime. One of Wise Men Eamon Bailey's pet projects is SeeChange, a worldwide network of invisible cameras capable of capturing footage at impossibly high resolutions. Plant a cluster of SeeChange cameras on Mount Kilimanjaro, and the billions who use The Circle network (imagine Facebook unbridled by pesky privacy laws) won't know a broadcast experience of being high up on a remote mountain from really being there. More relevant, still, is the revolutionary potential of SeeChange in political hotspots like Egypt and Syria to uncover violent oppression. Bailey's idea is that no corner of Earth (and perhaps beyond) will escape the benevolent glare of The Circle.

Mae herself becomes an unwitting guinea pig of SeeChange when she 'borrows' a kayak for a late night paddle in the San Francisco Bay. Mae 'repents' by becoming the poster child of crime-busting transparency. She chooses to 'go transparent' by wearing a small camera the size of a locket around her neck which sees the world as she sees it during her waking hours. And what she sees the whole world sees via The Circle network. Private moments are restricted to bathroom visits, but then only for 3 minutes at a time. If there's one thing The Circle can't do, it is to delete data.

So you get where this is going. Mae is completely hollowed out as a Circler. She is an uber-celebrity without a personality. She is defined by the social 'interactions' she participates in: the constant barrage of 'smiles', 'frowns', 'mehs' and 'zings' (akin to Tweets) she exchanges with her followers and causes and companies that need her (The Circle's) endorsement, all of which go to make up her own all-important participation rank, which she hopes will be high enough to get her into the InnerCircle. She loses touch with her parents when her digitised humanitarian interventionism goes a step too far. She is shut off from her former best friend and ex-boyfriend, Mercer, when she tries to 'save him' from the 'shadowy' analogue world.

The Circle is no piece of literary genius. The author's style is bland and journalistic (Eggers is a journalist), it's delivery can be annoyingly moralistic. Eggers does not do subtlety or humour. My initial doubts about this made me imagine a similar sort of book written by an author like Jonathan Coe in which you might get a devastatingly effective parody of a subject matter that is inherently ludicrous. But as I progressed through the book I realised that the lack of colour in Eggers' writing is deliberate and affecting in its own way. It is an unfiltered – transparent – reflection of Mae's reality, which is convulsed to its core by data and its propaganda. The need for full transparency, which results in chronic self-censorship, makes Mae's reality, her thoughts and behaviour, highly regimented. Even though she is not a cyborg in the conventional sense, her enslavement to the unfettered freedom of information amplifies her power over others to a terrifying extent. In this way, Eggers cleverly lets Mae's story speak for itself, allowing the cultish menace around her to gather pace. The reader is urged to plough through the suspense-filled second half of the book to see whether Eggers draws Mae's story to its logical end. All in all, The Circle is not a comfortable read. But it is probably essential for anyone who has ever felt jittery at going a day without the internet.

Pen portrait: Nasia, Broadway Market

One Saturday morning in January.

I meet Nasia while visually sampling naughty baked goods at Broadway Market. I can't help but admire her arresting presence, scarcely contained within her pearly mocha skin, bouncy blond-streaked curls and radiant smile. She talks boisterously about her love of London, amply reassuring me that there is no need to diminish one's passion for life once you're in your 50s. Her journey thus far has been a global one. As such she is a beacon of London's multiculturalism. She has variously embraced Denmark, London, New York, Melbourne. I can only guess where her forefathers originated from. We bond over my Antipodean accent. I say I like Melbourne. It has an enviable art and the coffee culture. She agrees. But as a musician – a black musician no less – she says there's no place like London. It's where she is able to riff off other musicians making her kind of music. She says that she prefers New Zealanders to Australians. “Much friendlier” she said of the former. I agree. Nasia and her daughter (also a looker) run an artisanal bakery stall on Saturdays at Broadway Market in London Fields. Otherwise, she is busy writing music.

Haggerston, that in-between place I call home: Part II

Having dusted off some of Haggerston's uglier socioeconomic realities in Part I, I proceed to shove 'em back in the attic, having no immediate solution as to what to do about them. Apologies if that sounds disappointing! For now, I can only urge you onto happier thoughts.

Onto the good news...

Haggerston Park in the distance

The flipside of living in Haggerston is that there is much to gratify urban lifestyle junkies like M & I. We live a stone's throw away from Haggerston Park, a massive green space with sports grounds that's beautifully tended to. We once met a park ranger who indefatigably waxed on about the park's history as a former gasworks and the location of a fleeting scene in Odd Man Out (1947) starring James Mason. In between polite nods of the head, we complimented him on his contribution to the park's landscaping: a prim English rose garden in its corner versus defined patches given permission to run 'wild'.

Having suffered an unbearably long winter in 2013 (it was still snowing in April, as I recall), M & I milked every last drop of what ended up to be a deservedly decent summer in this neighbourhood oasis. We attracted stares of bemusement as we practised qigong (every day) and realised my 15-year-old dream of learning to skateboard :-). But we didn't care. Those dog days were an absolute godsend for, er, getting one's skate's on.

And not just for us. We spotted groups of women wearing hijabs and trainers warming up their joints, newly qualified personal trainers making a hash out of pad work (dear I say, they were always Barbie doll-like females), couples training each other, the odd lone tai chi enthusiast and a heavily pregnant Chinese woman power walking.

The park's multiple points of interest are astounding given that the surrounding area was, until recently, a veritable inner city pocket of London. Yet it comes with a mini-BMX track and abuts Hackney City Farm, a community educational project bringing the delights of farming to urban dwellers. All those city slickers less than 2 miles away in the financial district could do with some slowing the f--- down to smell some fresh manure!

Our little one-bed rental flat overlooks Regent's Canal, which runs from the luscious Victoria Park in the East through to Camden Town via King's Cross to the north. Our perfect vantage point gives us the opportunity to gawk and chuckle at the daily gaggle of people who run and cycle along the canal. Unfortunately, we also occasionally bear witness to some pretty nasty cat fights between youths loitering around the estate across the canal. Such events serve to remind us that Haggerston isn't all roses.

...Which you can buy at Broadway Market in London Fields. Although the street of the market is called Broadway Market, the market only runs on Saturdays. On all other days, the strip is a destination in itself thanks to its quirky cafes and boutiques. But on Market Day, it transforms into a paradise for serious foodies, people who like to buy fresh produce and handmade foodstuffs, as well as for book lovers and craftspeople. Unlike the greater and larger tourist magnet Borough Market, Broadway Market still feels quaint and village-like, a destination aimed at locals. A destination where masters of the ukulele don't seem out of place.

The Market also doubles as a veritable street parade of the current 'East End' fashions. As of this writing: studded motorcycle jackets, overpriced carpet bag vintage jerseys, tweed, cordoroy, velvet and some sort of hipster haircut… sometimes all worn on the same person. In other words, the more pretentiously homespun, mismatched and 'ironic', the better one looks. (Looking ironic has been around for, like, a decade. How is it still considered a trend? It's more like a quirk. Like having red hair.) Pace the haters, though, London Fields, and especially Haggerston, would be so much duller without this sort of street invasion. There would also be a lot less for curmudgeons to rant about.

Cafe snobbery

When the market isn't running, M & I like to while away our time sipping the cream of London's cappuccinos at the French (or is it Italian) deli-cafe, La Bouche. It's the place to watch all the boys and girls of London Fields go by. Either you sit outside on its cast iron furniture (so heavy, no one can steal it), or you peer out of the cafe's large street-facing windows if you're lucky enough to find a seat. One quickly notices that despite the diversity of the surrounding area, the people who frequent Broadway Market tend to be white, middle-class/affluent. If you're not white, you are likely to be a foreign student with some means or well-educated, greased enough or just plain progressive (stupid) to ditch the corporate day job for a shot as an artist.

But people watching only gives you one dimension of the area's quintessence. What's more telling can be in certain blithe utterances. I recently overheard a trendy mum asking her sartorially dashing 2-year-old daughter, “Would you like a pan au chocolate?” Another conversation that kept me from attending to my reading was a yoga therapist lecturing her client on the technicalities of postural alignment. Maybe because her client spoke with an Italian-sounding accent that she felt she needed to crank up her own volume and over enunciate.

Unfortunately, a seat at La Bouche is never guaranteed, even on a Tuesday morning. Whenever M & I fare badly in this regard, our second choice is normally Gossip. The tiny cafe reminds me of the living room of my old flat share in South London (Camberwell), painted in bright colours signalling the proprietor's obvious love of all things spiritual and creative. The cafe's main draw is its impressive assortment of loose leaf teas displayed in glass jars on the wall. While I was detoxing and having to avoid caffeine, I relied on Gossip to give me a break with its Soho Spice and Rooibos teas.

Once I broke the caffeine fast, we followed the strong coffee scent across the strip to Climpson and Sons. Much more than just a cafe, CS is London Fields' answer to All Press, the (New Zealand) coffee roaster that made its name in Shoreditch. The space itself is a bit too cosy for comfort. Initially, M & I held off becoming regulars until more seating was installed. Otherwise it was just an espresso bar/takeaway; M & I aren't the types to drink our coffees the Italian way! Also, coffee in paper cups??

Thankfully the interior was made more settler-friendly in the last quarter of 2013. I now sit with my back against the wall on one of the shallow wooden benches elbowing M as I type this post up. It's a bit like sitting in a sauna without the heat. I need to wear my acrylic fingerless gloves. Not the ideal place to write, then. The cafe's acoustics are poor too. But a visit is well worth all the discomfort and multiple distractions that a tiny, noisy place promises. The coffee is truly a beautiful thing. And being forced into such close quarters with other customers, I have found it easier to start conversations with them. Today, I met an imposing figure in his forties who was devouring (with a disconcerting hint of sensuality) yogurt and granola in a generous paper cup. There was no need for him to sell it in the way he did. That bit of humble breakfast sold itself. The man's shades, mohawk, motorcycle jacket and killer leather boots made it hard for me not to stare at him. He told me to drop by The Outsider Motorcycle Club on Mare Street in Hackney Central, which he owns. It figures.

From C&S, it's just steps away from Broadway Bookshop. I admit M & I hardly ever venture into this charming little shop lest we succumb to its multiple temptations. (I know that as a book lover with a bit of a conscience, I really ought to support small independents rather than undercutting their efforts as a Amazon Prime customer.) But I do occasionally relent and cross the threshold of Artwords bookshop next door. Not doing so would take about as much self-control as Carrie Bradshaw snubbing a Manolo Blahnik window display. With its amazing selection of beautifully-bound photography, design, fashion and all that, Artwords is always a welcome escape from the drudgery of the artless quotidian. As with my policy towards Broadway Bookshop, I have to ration my visits.

Bite-sized London Fields

Before I decided I had to go gluten-free (for dietary rather than modish reasons), M and I hung out nearly every weekend for a month at E5 Bakehouse. This bakery – nay, mini-factory – is one of the many newish businesses tucked inside the arches of the railway track that runs from Liverpool Street to some place in Essex (Braintree?). It makes the best sourdough breads ever! Our appreciation for the bread ballooned after a particularly enthusiastic TV tutorial given by Paul Hollywood on how to bake one at home. Which we haven't got around to, typically. That's one of M's goals for 2014. I even got him Paul Hollywood's Bread book for his birthday. Pity I'm now gluten intolerant. Maybe its a result of eating too much of that sourdough.

And Dalston

For the cafe lover, Haggerston's proximity to Dalston is rather convenient. Near Dalston Lane (the road of the mural of the Hackney Peace Parade) is Cafe Oto. Hip doesn't even begin to describe it, but it has all the right elements to make it so. Run by a Japanese-British couple, the cafe looks every bit like the garage it probably once was. Its scruffy minimalism (read: minimally renovated) however makes the space functionally flexible, serving also as a venue for music performances by emerging left-field musicians, film screenings and community art workshops. Activities M & I still need to experience. The staff are often a little dopey if downright absentminded. I guess this insouciance is something one should expect of such places. The coffees served are not bad (not overwhelming either) and the Japanese sencha tea is almost worth the £4 a pot if you plan to massively overstay.

I liked going to Cafe Oto because I never had to struggle to get a good table just after it opens, around 9am, early in the week. The place would largely be mine. Of course, I could just stay at home, which is also mine after 9am. But at Cafe Oto I got the additional gift of imbibing the pleasant odour of fresh coffee, which I find hard to replicate with our Bialetti coffee maker. 

Why the past tense? Cafe Oto was a regular haunt until I discovered something way better: L'Atelier north of Dalston Kingsland station and the Rio cinema. As it serves the cheapest coffees (price not quality) in the area (£2.20 for a very good flat white circa 2013/14) I am always in danger of ordering more cups than my body allows. Luckily, I've managed to show an impressive amount of restraint when it comes to the cafe's impressive selection of homemade (but sadly, gluten) temptations. L'Atelier also scores highly for closing far later than most other cafes (10.30pm) thereby offering M a place to chill after work (we don't do pubs). Now that I wake up around 6am, I can usually get to the cafe around opening time (at 9am). Which means I can normally find myself a spot next to the window, and count any amount of light streaming in as part of my daily Vitamin D intake. The interiors are pretty typical of this kind of joint: a hodgepodge of 'vintage' and recycled furniture (think 1960s formica tables), banquettes and enough amount of shadow to warrant some candles. I confess I still find such arrangements inspiring.

On the days when I get cabin fever from cooking lunch every day, M & I some times head to Route. This restaurant opened early in 2013 in Dalston Square, the newish residential complex and poster child for Dalston's controversial gentrification. (Two- and three-bedroom flats went for a minimum of £400,000 in early 2013, and the much-loved Dalston Eastern Curve Garden is faced with the wrecking ball.) We always go for a selection of three Ottolenghi-style hot Middle Eastern and Mediterranean salads, and a side of freshly baked bread, to share for £11.50. I would stay well away from the coffee though.

Good vibrations

Until 2013, Haggerston was considered a geographical interregnum between Shoreditch and Dalston. Marked by a particularly ugly chunk of Kingsland Road, its relative drabness in the eyes of those wanting for entertainment and watering holes made it a largely forgotten slice of Hackney. Since Haggerston was one of the last areas in the borough to be descended upon by visionaries and creatives, its hidden stock of warehouses along Regent's Canal stood idle for years despite their relative affordability. Inevitably, the tide is now turning. Projects and collectives have moved in to supply the area with a good dose of the arts, sport, yoga and coffee. The Dalstonist, a local publication, recently promoted TripSpace (theatre, dance), Proud Archivist (yoga studio, art gallery and events) and Curio Cabal (coffee!). I'm proud to say that I haven't been to any of these places yet. It's nice to know Haggerston has yet to reach saturation point.

Even without these new spaces, though, Haggerston has had a creative vibe for as long as M & I set up home here. Maybe it was just a result of a creative osmosis emanating from Shoreditch and Dalston. Wherever it's coming from, though, it has done the artist and coffee lover in both of us a world of good. Home sweet home!