A great piece that describes modern ‘trailing spouses’ very aptly.
You take what you can get AND FREEZE IT!
We’ve just come back from the Philippines after an 18 day Christmas break at a resort, lovely, relaxing, challenging on the food front. In some respects we ate like kings, fish (which we don’t eat too much of here in South Korea) and tropical fruits along with wonderfully prepared vegetables and salads. On the other hand, the menu was limited, and 18 days is a very long time to be in the one place, with the same menu. On the plus side, my son who turned a lighter shade of yellow due to his winter limited paleo vegetable selection here had a break and has returned to his former colour, YAY!
It reminds me that this is our life, we go where we have to and we make the best of what we can get, with schools, with the job, the new address, new friends, new food and menus and ways of cooking….. THE LOT! So, how are we making it work here?
As a woman not to used to seasonal cooking let alone seasonal cooking with limited vegetables that I recognise, South Korea has been proving tricky….enter the freezer! My life saving, freeze pretty much anything lifestyle. When a Costco trip every few months is vital and the limited (especially organic) vegetables are limited, I google my heart out finding out what is freezable. Smoothie packs, bone broth, bananas to make my children’s favourite ‘ice cream’ and most recently, spinach. The freezer is your friend, if for nothing else than a little organisation that will only become apparent when it is full of goodies and you NEED it! Though shalt not starve if your freezer is stocked! Enjoy xx
Scary paleo and scary driving in a country that is not mine!
We are currently based in a small island in the south of South Korea. Scary driving and scary food options are what I deal with every time I open my front door. When the language is made up of lines and circles that are so foreign to you, it’s undoubtably scary, just like the thought of going paleo! Although I’ve been toying with healthy living and improving my families all over health, I have also had two wonderful and exhausting children, moved country 5 times and moved house 8 times in a mere 4 years. So convenience was a little higher on my list, until my health finally took a turn and my body MADE me stop and listen. It wasn’t too serious, but enough for me to put my thoughts into action and change our eating habits forever.
We had already given up sugar, inspired by Sarah Wilson’s ‘I Quit Sugar’ book which I would recommend to everyone. She has a wonderful way of explaining things and baby steps to start your journey to health. I would also recommend battling that demon first, as a lot of people turning to paleo will make sweet treats to get them through, loaded with dates and maple syrup, not really the healthiest start to your new, healthy life. It will help your palate remember or recognise for the first time, what amazing flavours and natural sweetness organic plant based foods have (she says, currently addicted to sweet potatoes).
Another great go-to for health is my own personal guru (not that she knows it) is Cyndi O’Meara who runs Changing Habits. She has been spreading the word of eating real food and how to change those habits of a life time, one step at a time. She is the person who started my real journey, one of health, not just that of loosing that 5 or 10kg’s as fast as possible. She also introduced me to Thermomix, an amazing machine that makes ordinary, very average home cooks able to do pretty great things! it was 5 years after first seeing it in action that I invested in one, but it happened. Of course it’s expensive and not completely necessary, but it is a big part of my world and will feature on my blogs.
So I’m off to navigate the amazing traffic of Korea to my 5 go-to markets and supermarkets to find the more western ingredients that my family enjoy. We love Korean too but knowing what ingredients are in the food can be tricky and I’m yet to master cooking it. All to be frozen in smoothie packs and as many convenient/make ahead meals and snacks as i can possibly think of and learn from trawling other amazing people’s blogs on the same journey to health and convenience in a crazy, fast paced world.
The Trailing Paleo 