Health Revolution

I often come home with different kinds of fish, preferably ethically sourced. Chicken thighs have more taste than breast fillets, and you can buy them in bigger packages with six or twelve thighs and then freeze the part you don’t use in smaller bags. I buy according to season, price and quality. Cans of mussels, salmon and sardines, and quick protein solutions with lots of omega-3 fats. And also lots of eggs. They have to be from cage-free, happy chickens. I also buy beans and lentils of all kinds and shapes, since it turns out not everything is a good fit for my stomach.

I buy low-lactose milk, yogurt and sometimes soy yogurt. I often try different kinds of nut milk, like almond, coconut and hazelnut, and soy milk. I use butter once in a while, preferably organic.

The spice shelf expands. New tastes turn up there, and more experiments. At the base are of course salt and pepper of different kinds, and now also turmeric, which I’m beginning to learn is extremely anti-inflammatory. But other spices reduce inflammation as well. I check lists and find cinnamon, oregano, cumin, coriander, thyme, rosemary, basil, different kinds of chilli, garlic, ginger, capers . . .

I buy different kinds of oil and begin flavouring it myself. A sprig of rosemary, some garlic and a few lemon peels quickly add a new taste in a couple of days. I try new kinds of vinegar – there are so many to choose from. I learn more about my trigger points – whipped cream and toasted bread.

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY SPICES

• Basil

• Capers

• Chilli

• Cinnamon

• Cloves

• Coriander

• Cumin

• Garlic

• Ginger

• Lovage

• Oregano

• Rosemary

• Thyme

• Turmeric

• and many more!

I become a seed and nut eater and also buy lots of dried fruit, with favourites like goji berries, dried apricots, dried plums, figs and cranberries. Little delicacies.

I put all these little things in plastic jars in a row at home.

My usually good-natured husband bangs around angrily among all the new jars that are crowding out his tubes of caviar, fig marmalade and cheese, when he’s in his home-economics-teacher mood. We start having new types of arguments. About foods in the cupboards. What goes where? It is not dignified but it is the new reality at home.

I also learn to make more food than I need.

Apparently, this is called ‘food prep’ in bodybuilder language. You’re prepping food when you grill long rows of chicken thighs, for example, and save them in the freezer. Or boil sixteen eggs at once. Or make a big batch of vegetable stew at a time.

Rita thinks I should cook in bulk twice a week so that there’s always something at home that’s easy to serve. I wonder if I have the time, but I soon discover that it doesn’t take more time to make food in advance. It takes exactly the same amount of time, sometimes even less. But the difference is that you eat better when you’ve planned better.

But what if you’re not eating at home? This will be a big challenge for me. With work in several countries and with children who are studying or working abroad as well, the year includes many days of travel. At such times, I’ll set off early, on crowded morning flights where they serve sandwiches packed in plastic and a cup of coffee, and return late on other planes, where they serve even more sandwiches in plastic and more coffee. Food on the go, food in canteens, meals with clients – always on the road to somewhere.

How will I manage this?

It will be especially hard when I’m headed out on a really long trip to a completely different corner of the world, where I might be able to get a few more leads to how all the remarkable things I’m experiencing actually fit together.

Ayurveda is the holy science of life and serves the whole human being. Both in this life and the next one.

– Charaka, the father of Indian medicine, c. 300 BCE

4. HEAL (#ulink_211cba03-fbc6-552b-9a0d-e8c28cbe46ec)

When you travel to India, the plane flies through the night and over the Indian Ocean.

On this night, there is so much turbulence that the red safety belt sign never turns off. No food or drinks can be served, and the toilets are closed for hours. Luckily, I’ve learned to bring food with me. Little cherry tomatoes, almonds and protein bars become my salvation when the food trolley is chained down all through the shaky trip.

We land in Mumbai early in the morning. I see an older woman in a sari leaning on her son’s arm. She looks pale and worn out from the trip. We all desperately want to use the bathroom. But I’m continuing on and take the bus to the domestic terminal. It’s been a few years since I was last here. The development has been rapid.

What was then like a sea of walking people now consists more and more of people on motor scooters, often carrying two or three people. Young women dressed in saris sit behind the men in their white shirts and black gabardine trousers. The women sit sideways, sidesaddle, with a tight grip on the waist of the person in front; they travel at high speed on the road between terminals. Through the bus window I watch this bustling city pass by.

India has everything, extra everything, of everything.

More colours and more joy, but also more pain and a vaguely menacing feeling. The poverty hits you like a blow to the gut. We pass slum districts where little children play among piles of rubbish and puddles of brown water. But beyond the poverty, there are many other aspects to India.

India has one of the world’s most sophisticated and cohesive systems of integrative medicine. It’s called Ayur-Veda in Sanskrit, the ancient Indic language that was spoken by India’s conquerors around 2000 BCE and is distantly related to all the languages of Europe, even our Nordic ones. Veda is basically the same as our word for wisdom, and ayur means life, youth and health. When I was working in India, people explained this to me as the eternal and genuine knowing.

I’ve been invited to a course especially for women. It’s a leadership course, but Ayurveda treatments are also included. Might I find more knowledge there?

I’m going to head to one of India’s most advanced health spas for Ayurveda, outside Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of the state of Kerala. The name of this city is almost unpronounceable. I just have to cross my fingers and hope that I’ve booked a flight to the right place.

When I arrive, I get to meet a doctor.

An Ayurvedic doctor is not like a medical school doctor, like the ones we are used to in Europe. She does take my blood pressure and measure my pulse. She is also professional, with a white jacket over an exquisite sari in blood red and gold. She asks me about any apparent diseases and ongoing medication, after having first asked about my medical history and past surgeries.

But that’s where the similarities end.

I get a questionnaire with forty questions. What kind of food do I like the most? What kind of exercise do I do? Which smells and sounds do I react to? Digestive habits are extensively handled, as are sex drive, sleep rhythm and the colour and intensity of my dreams. The doctor looks through the questionnaire and makes some remarks to her assistant.

‘Sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.’ She nods meaningfully.

The doctor creeps closer to me and suddenly peers up my nose at very close quarters. She listens to my voice and my way of talking. She takes my pulse for a long time and gently rotates my hand on my wrist.

Then the last question.

‘You like bitter tastes?’ she asks again.

‘Yes, I do,’ I say, thinking of my favourites: tea, Campari and rocket.