Healing past trauma is a big topic in the world of healing. Experts believe it is key to solving many of the problems and challenges we face.

Did you ever think about whether there is any past food trauma that is limiting your healthy eating efforts? That may sound silly, but consider this email I received after last week’s newsletter featuring the recipe for Curried Salmon “en Collard Leaf Papillote.”

“Unfortunately,” the reader explained, “I was raised in a Texas home where greens (collard, mustard, turnip, and some others I thankfully cannot remember) were frequently on the menu – after being cooked to death and stinking up the entire house! So, even though I often see recipes with more reasonable cooking times, I just can’t bring myself to even consider them.”

Over the years, I’ve offered many “quick cook” demos at health fairs that featured simple things like sauteed fresh spinach with garlic and lemon, roasted beets with toasted walnuts, or peas with spring mint. Invariably, after tasting some vegetable cooked up fresh and tastefully (and not boiled to death!) people would be surprised how good it tasted!

Like the reader above, they had been introduced to some vegetable or other food that had been overcooked, undercooked or otherwise rendered tasteless. These kinds of food encounters can easily result in foods being axed from our food repertoire, limiting the diversity of vegetables and other real whole foods in the diet.

So here’s encouragement to acknowledge these kinds of “traumas.” They’re both real and pretty common. Hopefully a little awareness can help you work through them and take advantage of some health-giving foods you were avoiding, since more diversity = more health! (Although there may be no healing the appetite damage of over-boiled Texas greens!)

P.S. Healing past trauma is a serious subject and I don’t mean to make light of it but rather to simply use this kind of inquiry to address “light” traumas in our past food lives. However, it is certainly possible to experience much more serious trauma around food and eating that can impact many areas of life, including the ability to eat for health. Please be aware of this possibility and seek professional help. I interviewed Eating Psychology Coach Mindy Gorman-Plutzer who seems very knowledgeable and could be a good starting contact.

Lightly sauteed fresh spinach is delicious with these Thai Turkey Patties. Contact me if you’d like the recipe.