So tonight was yet another night that I came home (from a grocery store, mind you) yet I hadn't thought of what I should eat for dinner. I started flipping through one of my cookbooks, and saw a recipe for a butternut squash pizza...yum. Then I realized I didn't have any yeast, or even any flour. But what I did have was an easy pizza dough mix that my mom had just sent me from her Wild Tree business (there's your plug mom). It was basically a mix of the flour yeast and sugar that you just have to add water to. Perfect! You didn't even really have to let it rise, it was super quick and easy, and kind of made me want to start making bread on a regular basis. I always forget how soothing the kneading part is. I think that's why I first loved making paper, there was such a lovely rhythm to it, that I could easily get lost in, alone, for hours.
I worked off of a couple of recipes, and put the butternut squash in some butter and oil with garlic and onion in the oven for 15 min while I prepared the pizza dough. I had thrown some quinoa in my rice cooker before I had decided what I was going to make, and it occurred to me at this point that a pizza is really just like a giant open faced sandwich. As long as you like the flavors together, anything goes. So I rolled out the dough, and layered quinoa first, then butternut squash mixture second, then bleu cheese last. Cooked it for about 12 min and it was great! Most of the flavor really came from the bleu cheese, but it felt like there was lots of nourishing goodness going on too.
Then comes the after attack. Part of the reason I usually avoid pizza as a dinner meal is that I get these intense sort of empty hunger pangs about an hour or so after eating it. This time, maybe an hour and a half later, I started having a sneezing fit. I sometimes get this when my blood sugar drops and I need to eat again, and I was starting to feel hungry. But it was a little more than that too, because I almost felt congestion forming in my throat too, like I was having an allergic irritation. (I don't want to say allergic reaction so much, because it wasn't as if my throat was closing up, it was more like mucous was forming...yum!) Then after the sneezing had calmed down, but I felt stuffed up, those kind of sharp hunger pangs came again. The kind that feel much more violent than just "hey you, I'm kind of getting hungry again down here"...more like "Why!!! Are we not EATing??? I will jab you til you fix this!!"
So I'm seeking advice on this one. Recently someone mentioned to me that wheat/gluten allergy can keep you from gaining weight, make you feel fatigued always, etc. I don't think I have celiac's, but it's one of those things I feel I should look into a little more. A sensitivity, or intolerance to some wheat perhaps? Kara, you are my expert on this one :)
Em, I'm calling on you as the expert on blood sugar here. Is there way that I could make this meal less empty feeling? Some better balance of protein to carb to fat? I'm wondering if I could just try out some gluten free pizza dough, which would take away the wheat and the empty carbiness of the flour and solve both problems.
The funny part is, I don't even like pizza that much, but this was so fun to make it would be a shame to have to avoid it always :)
4 comments:
The culprits that first spring to mind listed in order of perceived likelihood (much as you said):
blood sugar
wheat
gluten
poor chewing
So, first some questions.
~Are there other meals that make you feel as bad as pizza does?
~Does every encounter with pizza end like this or are there exceptions?
~How about pancakes, sandwiches, baguettes, bagels, pasta? Do other meals composed largely of wheat products cause similar symptoms to your pizza dinner?
~How about rice heavy meals that are lacking protein? Do you ever eat a big plate of rice with little protein/fat? How do you feel afterwards? (Trying to figure out if high carb in the absence of protein/fat always causes trouble).
~Do you scarf pizza down or do you feel that you eat it slowly and chew each bite as thoroughly as you do other foods you eat?
mori! thanks for the "blood sugar" shout out, haha! i had to answer it on FB b/c it wouldn't fit here (my usual tangential self....)
lots of love and talk soon.
em
Thanks to you both. Kara, yes, I'm leaning more towards the blood sugar now too. Which is usually why I avoid pizza type things. I think I just got freaked out a little bit, because I've talked to people about avoiding wheat lately. And I felt like I should explore other oftions of what my body may be telling me. But no, I'm not usually negatively affected by other products that have wheat in them. And I'm generally the slowest eater in the bunch, I hate eating fast and rushed!
Do you have any recommendations to make a different kind of pizza? I was wondering if some of the gluten free pizza crust recipes tend to have more complex carbs in them because they use nut or bean flours? Thanks again for your thoughts!
Although I've never tried it I have heard of making a pizza crust out of cooked whole quinoa...the protein in the quinoa might help with the blood sugar issues.
In practice when I have pizza it is as a side dish. I count it as the carb, eat no more than 2 slices and eat protein along side it. Even when you stick meat on a pizza the bread to meat ratio is way off for people who need a good deal of fat and protein to balance carbohydrates.
For that reason I am more likely to make focacia, plain cheese pizza with herbs or a more italian pizza light on tomato sauce with a few basil leaves and mozzarella slices so that it makes a better side.
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