Health and Happiness Club

For Women’s History Month, the Health and Happiness Club will be featuring a month of interviews with women who inspire us.  The women we highlight will span a variety of backgrounds, ages, localities, and experiences.  We hope you enjoy the extraordinary month of March! 

Photo courtesy of Choosing RawI am both honored and excited to introduce Health and Happiness readers to my friend, Gena Hamshaw.  Gena is a twenty-something New Yorker who currently balances two careers as a book editor and certified clinical nutritionist.  In addition, Gena is the brains behind the superstar website, Choosing Raw.  Choosing Raw is a place where all types of eaters can learn more about a plant-based diet from an educator and writer who is steadfast with her research and compassionate with her delivery.  Gena is committed to providing her readers with thought provoking posts that will empower them to take charge of their own health.  Her balanced approach to diet encourages her readers and clients to “live as naturally as we can, eschewing processed food and toxins”.  I took this opportunity to ask Gena about what it was like to start her own business, how she transitioned her passion into a second career, how her recovery of both an eating disorder and IBS helped shape her career and what her thoughts are on the current state of feminism.  

While working a full-time job in the editing world, you managed to launch the wildly successful blog, Choosing Raw, get certified as a clinical nutritionist and build a strong nutrition consulting practice.  From a business standpoint, what were the important steps you took to creating your own business and brand?

This is a good question! I know nothing about marketing, nothing about branding, and nothing about advertising. I’m not being coy when I say that I really, really didn’t expect my blog to take off: I expected—or, I should say, I feared—that I’d get a bunch of people who were interested in hardcore veganism and in raw foods, not a broad base of readers who hail from all different lifestyles.

It was my dream, though, to get a mainstream readership, and to try to show people that living a plant based and unprocessed lifestyle can be fun, manageable, and (most importantly) an active choice, rather than some crazy self imposed regime. So that’s where my blog title came from. I guess that it, coupled with a set of clearly stated intentions, worked. Everyone seemed to pick up on who I was and what I was about right from the start.

Many figures in the holistic and mainstream nutrition communities seem not to have an identity: they parrot what other figures or experts say, or they tell us what we already know. I think I tell my readers a lot of stuff they already know, but I think I like to invest it all with an attitude (passionate but non judgy) and a perspective (some raw, not all raw; raw for digestive health and nutrient value, rather than a zealotry about enzymes; belief in eating thoughtfully, but without nitpicky paranoia about dietary imperfections) that’s my own.

Do you have any advice for bloggers who are trying to establish a solid readership? 

Write well. Whenever anyone asks how I’ve built a readership, I simply say: write well. I am far from a superb writer—I think I’m a decent one at best—but the posts of mine that have gotten the biggest responses have most definitely been the ones that I put the most care and time into writing. In this new internet age, text abounds, but I’m sorry to say that a great deal of the writing simply isn’t good. The more we try to write with care, the more our blogs will be read, period.

When did your interest in nutrition begin?  What made you decide to turn your passion for nutrition into a career?

I’d have to say it began in earnest after my eating disorder recovery (this is hard to stick a date on, but I consider myself out of the thicket when I was 17), but I’d always been a different sort of eater than the rest of my family (the only vegetarian) which means I’d been conscious about nutrition for a while.

I decided to turn it into a career over a year ago. I felt that my life had changed in truly dramatic ways because of plant based foods, and I wanted to share that with others. My particular goal was to help women who have also conquered disorders, and who find a whole foods and plant based paradigm appealing; I believe that it’s a model that can help many people who have suffered disconnects and trauma with food find a healthy and joyous relationship with what’s on their plate again. It must be done with lots of common sense and lots of respect for science, which is where counselors come in.

In the past ten years you have overcome two fairly major health challenges, an eating disorder and IBS.  How has your success with managing these conditions help shape your practice?

Tremendously! Again, my own eating disorder, coupled with the IBS it left me with, is what compelled me towards the lifestyle I live now. If you’d told me a decade ago that I would live without these conditions ruining the quality of my life, I would have been dubious. Today, I, like all women who have had eating disorders, face down ghosts now and then, and I, like most IBS sufferers, have stressful moments when my symptoms flare up. But the frequency is minimal.

Not all eating disorders are the same, and not all IBS is the same, so I am careful to never EVER assume that what worked in my own life should be a rule with clients. My practice is 100% shaped around customization. But I think that my own success in managing what are chronic conditions for many people has given me a certainty that healing is always possible, and an optimism that I try to pass on to the people I work with.

Diet is so personal and can be a touchy subject with families, friends and co-workers.  How can we gently encourage those around us to begin to make healthy changes? 

SO touchy! Gosh. I’ve experienced both the best and worst kind of family and friend reactions, but the overall reception in my life has been resoundingly positive. I’m lucky—I have cool and open-minded friends, a mother who listens to and trusts me, and coworkers who are sweet and respectful.

A few people in my life have responded to it all in a less than enthusiastic fashion. I know I can’t change their minds, so I simply try to avoid conflict, and I refuse to preach. Anyone who’s made up their mind is, in my opinion, not worth my breath. I’ll save my energy on sharing information with those who are receptive and open.

I always tell clients to share their lifestyle by living it happily! The more our family and friends see us thriving, the more they’ll get it. So don’t rattle of statistics, or go out and purchase copies of THE CHINA STUDY to hand out at Thanksgiving (unless you really want to). Show people it works by smiling and glowing and being happy. It’s hard to argue with success. As people become intrigued—and they will!—then that’s the time to begin gently sharing rock solid information, resources, etc. 

It's no secret on your blog that you recommend a plant-based diet.  How do you approach a client who wants to make healthy choices but does not want to completely eschew meat and dairy altogether?

See tip #1, below: add first. Then subtract. Adding more plant foods and recipes is a surefire way to begin realizing that you need far less animal protein than you thought you did!

Specific diet and lifestyle plans differ from person to person depending on their physical and emotional states.  However, are there any general suggestions you have for our readers regarding beginning steps?

Sure:

1)      Reduce consumption of animal products. If this means going from a turkey sandwich at lunch and chicken at dinner to only one animal protein daily, great. If it means giving up all meat for simply fish and poultry, do it. If it means taking the leap from vegetarian to vegan, rock on. Just reduce. Reduce, and if you feel that you can take things a step further, do. Stop when you feel you’ve hit a groove—and you’ll know intuitively when that is.

2)      Reduce premade foods. I used to say “processed” foods here, but it finally dawned on me that nut butter and Larabars and canned organic tomatoes and organic chicken stock and some other staples I recommend are technically processed. What I mean is, stop eating microwave meals, boxed rice pilaf, frozen stir fries, packaged burgers, and the like. Begin making all meals from scratch. It’s the single best thing you can do to get acquainted with a truly raw (raw as in close to nature) diet.

3)      Amp up the greens. The first thing I tell a new client to do is never to give up something they like (even if it’s something I hate), but rather to add more greens to their diet. Most people think that a handful of mesclun greens daily is enough, and it simply isn’t. We need hefty servings of greens as many times daily as we can possibly manage. Eating more greens will immediately make you more energetic, reduce cravings for junk food, boost the body’s alkalinity, give you a heaping dose of iron, calcium, protein, and Vitamin A, and generally put a kick in your step. As I always say, the first step is to add, not to subtract.

4)      Eat proper meals. So many clients of mine have been steeped in the culture of “six small meals a day”—a terrible way of eating, if you ask me, that does nothing but promote constant snacking and constant hunger. If you’ve gotten seduced by mini meals and it isn’t working—and you’re not alone—I urge you to try good ole breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eat well, eat healthy portions, and try not to overdo it on snacks in between.

5)      Avoid combining proteins and starches. As any of my regular readers know, I’m a big fan of food combining, which means that I try to avoid mixing up too many different food groups at once. I don’t think one has to be religious about it, or to do it all the time, but I do think it’s a smart habit to follow loosely. If nothing else, avoid eating proteins (animal products, soy products, and, for simplification purposes, nuts) and starches (grains, winter squash, yams, avocados, breads and pastas, etc) together; these two don’t digest optimally together, and separating them can be really helpful in combating bloating, gas, and indigestion. Again, don’t be a zealot: go ahead and have a few pine nuts in your quinoa pilaf, or some tempeh and avocado mixed up in your salad. But watch out for combining big portions of a dense protein and a sizeable starch (aka, sirloin and a giant baked potato) at the same time.

You recently wrote a fantastic post on Choosing Raw entitled "I Love to Eat: Embracing Our Appetites" where you address the guilt, shame and suppression women struggle with when it comes to food.  Where do you think the pressure to suppress, deny and/or apologize for our appetites comes from?

Oh, I think it’s as old as misogyny is old. Or at least, it’s as old as the fear of female sexuality is old, which is to say, pretty ancient. I think that women have always been socialized to want less: to eat modest portions, to have tiny waists, to be sexual only within the confines of what’s deemed socially proper (and, until the late twentieth century here in New York and to this day in many places worldwide, “socially proper” means nearly frigid). Whereas men can express appetites for food and sex comfortably—in fact, appetite in a man is considered a positive trait—women are urged to keep appetites in check. A man who wants lots of sex (possibly without attendant commitments) is virile, potent; a woman who wants lots of sex, and especially a woman who wants sex without commitment or domesticity, is lewd, loose, slutty, or any other one of a bastion of derogatory terms.

Sexual appetite and physical appetite have always been linked in popular imagination, which is where the food part of things comes in. With food, as with sex, women are encouraged towards abstinence. And with that mandate comes a mandate to be thin (and even this is tied to sexlessness – a terribly slender body isn’t one that’s particularly fertile looking). Denying appetite and need is, in its own way, terribly addictive, and I believe that a woman who is pushed in that direction, socially or for personal reasons, can become prone to disordered eating.

It’s worth noting that women with eating disorders only sometimes claim to want thinness. More often, they express wanting to be “tiny” or “light” – they want, in other words, to transcend physicality altogether, to stop needing, among other things, physical nourishment. They want to deny their bodily urges, of which appetite is one of the most fundamental.  When I had an eating disorder, I loved the idea of needing nothing, of proving my transcending my physical mandates. I had no idea how dangerous (and useless) a mission that was.

It’s a complex issue, but I really recommend Hilde Bruch’s THE GOLDEN CAGE or Caroline Knapp’s APPETITES for a deeper account of these connections.

Obesity is a huge issue in our country.  How can we embrace this notion of loving our appetites and at the same time be mindful of over-indulgence? 

Great question! Balance is key. So many people get into raw foods because of the stupid “you can eat whatever you want as long as it’s raw and not gain weight” claim, which is just bogus. I don’t believe in calorie counting because I believe that calories are not created equal, and merely tabulating them isn’t a wise way to gauge how healthy one’s diet is. But I do believe that exceeding a certain range of caloric density will bring on weight gain regardless of the quality of what you eat.

The trick is not to go wildly beyond natural hunger signals. This means not stuffing yourself or picking at your food long after you know you’re satisfied. It means realizing that we humans eat three times a day, and we all have many chances to eat again, so there’s no need to chow down like you’ll never have another meal. Relax! Food will come again. In a few hours, even. There’s no reason to gorge.

Women are notoriously out of tune with their hunger signals because they’ve been so subjected to diet advice and weight loss talk: this makes food feel forbidden, and makes them feel as though they aren’t allowed to eat it. What’s the upshot? A sensation that each meal is a stolen opportunity, a last chance to go hog wild. What women (and men) have to learn is that we’re going to spend much of our lives eating food, and that no single meal is a last shot for anything. Relax, enjoy, and stop when you feel that sensation of fullness. You’ll have new tastes and flavors to enjoy—or the same ones, if you wish—sooner than you can say “bon appetit!”

Typically, though not completely, the nutrition field is primarily made up of women.  Why do you think this is? 

I think women have more complex relationships with appetite and food, largely for the reasons discussed above. This makes us want to heal our own disconnect with eating, and to help others heal, too.

Women are also, for better or for worse, more prone to weight gain and food addiction, which means that we tend to have to be a little more vigilant of what we put in our bodies than men are. But again, I think that most of our issues with food are not the result of biological inequities, but rather the harmful way in which we’ve been socialized to think about appetite, food, and our own bodies.

Personally I feel empowered in the kitchen preparing healthy food for myself and my family.  I am a feminist who CHOOSES to be there.  In your opinion, how can we use food, nutrition and the kitchen to support feminist ideals?

I think it’s quite simple: taking charge of what does and does not go into your body means taking charge of your physical self. This is proactive. I also think that having power over where you choose to purchase your food, and being discerning about where it was sourced, is proactive. I associate proactive choices—especially those that award me control over my body—with a feminist position. And certainly, being a discerning consumer can be a big part of feminism, too.

No woman needs to slave in a kitchen if her work schedule and life don’t allow it. But I think that all women should exercise control and judgment about the food choices they make, rather than relying on restaurants, delis, friends, or partners to dictate those choices. Cooking doesn’t have to connote 1950s nostalgia: all it means is that one’s enjoying an organic and assertive connection to food.

Aversion to taking a proactive stance about food goes well beyond kitchen-phobia. I know so many women who eat what others eat in social scenarios or who bite their tongue when food isn’t to their liking in a restaurant because they’re scared of looking fussy. This drives me crazy: as long as we’re polite, why shouldn’t we want to insist that what we eat be reasonably close to what we want?

Do you feel that feminism continues to progress in a positive direction, or has it lost some of its momentum? 

Unfortunately, I think it’s at a tricky crossroads. I would say that most women I know actually hew to feminist ideals, but very few will call themselves feminists out loud because they’re afraid of the word itself. This makes me miserable, but the only thing I can do to change it is to remind women that being a feminist means supporting the social, political, legal, and economic equality of women: who wouldn’t want that? Of course, many young women assume that feminism means bra burning and hairy armpits. There’s nothing wrong with hairy pits, but if that’s not your jam, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a feminist. It’s very much like the word “vegan” – veganism means avoiding animal products (food and otherwise) as a consumer. But the word implies, to many, a kind of hippie extremism that it certainly needn’t.

I think that feminism has lost some steam, and it’s because many of today’s women are only familiar with the stereotypes, and not the realities of the movement. I think they’ve also lost a historical memory of what feminists had to fight for, and why. The only way for this to chance is for women to stop fearing the “F” word, and to start getting familiar with the realities of what it means. Hopefully this will mean they can embrace the concept of a feminist position without feeling as though they’re being forced into an identity that doesn’t fit who they are. 

Who are the women in your current life that you look to as role models? Why?

Oh gosh, so many! First, I’ve had several incredible female coworkers. I’ve heard plenty of talk about so-called “bitchy” women in the workplace, but I’ve never met one: my female colleagues are tremendously supportive, strong, and energetic. They’ve encouraged me to be discerning about what I want, but also to pursue it with single-minded determination.

Various professors of mine were and are role models, especially my thesis advisor. Many of my mom’s friends, who are now my friends, have inspired me, too: one of her dear friends has a high powered finance job and two kids, and she still manages to put healthy meals on the table each night (and to read my blog once in a while, too!).

But I’d have to say that my true role model was/is my mother. She is my best friend, my mother, my confidante, and my mentor. She raised me on her own, working as a teacher and giving me all of the love, attention and guidance I could have asked for, too. The best lesson she taught me is that a woman can live a whole and happy existence without partnership. My mother is in a wonderful relationship now and has been for some time, but for many periods of my childhood she was single. I am so, so glad that she showed me that an independent lifestyle is, for men and women both, a happy option: too many women see life without a romantic entanglement as a life that’s somehow incomplete.

My mother showed me that love and partnership are wonderful possibilities: they enrich life and make it more interesting. But being without a partner doesn’t mean a life that’s less valuable, less joyous, or less worthy. There continues to be little or no social stigma when a man is single, but plenty of stigma when a woman is. I’m glad that I’m not overly sensitive to this, and don’t spend my time fretting—especially as I move closer to thirty—about being on my own. Partnership is beautiful, and autonomy is beautiful, too. 

I love Choosing Raw recipes!  Do you mind sharing a simple one with our readers?

Sure!

Raw Tortilla Soup (serves two people with appetites)

Photo courtesy of Choosing Raw Ingredients:

2 tomatoes, chopped
2 large red bell peppers, chopped
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, packed
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, packed
2 large stalks celery, chopped
3/4 cup water
1 tbsp lime juice
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp paprika
1 clove garlic (optional!! raw garlic is powerful, folks)
Dash cayenne pepper (optional)

Optional toppings: tomato, avocado, onion, corn chips

Instructions:

Blend all ingredients minus the olive oil in a blender (a high speed blender will work best, but any will do). When the ingredients are well combined, drizzle in the olive oil with the motor running until the whole mixture is creamy and emulsified. Pour into bowls and top with the chopped veggies! Serve alongside chips (raw or Guiltless Gourmet), some pita strips, an Ezekiel sprouted wrap that you’ve warmed in the oven, or simply some chopped veggies for a delicious lunch!

Thank you Gena!  Gena is currently celebrating International Women’s Day this week on Choosing Raw.  Be sure to check out the fantastic posts, “Until We Are Free” and “Work Lunches For Real Women”.   You can find out more about Gena’s consulting and counseling services here.