To be fed up with food?

[Beatrixpotterspencil]

I'm one of those irritatingly healthy eaters, love good food and never had to diet. But the past year or two I seem to have just gone off everything. I have a normal appetite, but just so so sick of everything I cook.

We (just myself and DP) cut out most processed food long ago, so tend to make everything, plus sauces, any baking, etc from scratch. We like doing it so that's ok. But 80% of my plate is basically vegetables, the rest protein. Sounds good, but I am just sick to death of it.
I have tried all manner or recipes, from all cultures, and am still fed up.

I gave up bread many years ago and I can't recall why. Pasta and noodles also. Possibly due to hearing they were empty calories so didn't need them.

So there was this revelation when a friend made me a toasted slice of sourdough with a healthy topping of asparagus, mozzarella, mushroom, pepper, garlic, spinach - and it blew my mind with the taste! I can't recreate this without bread - i tried and tried and it isn't happening. It was the last thing I truly loved to eat and it made the veggies so delicious.
A week later, inspired by my reaction she made me another sourdough slice with a poached egg, avocado, cress, asparagus and mushrooms. Again I was in utter heaven, my head blown off with the taste.

When I roast vegetables with chicken breast, or make a soup, or various other healthy veg recipes I am so bored, uninspired and unsatisfied. And I am a good, adventurous cook! It's puzzling me.

Since we don't eat processed (hydrogenated oils) much I have shied away from sourdough and pitta. But it's like life is too bloody short to be this repressed. I suppose somewhere along the line I have been swept up in the 'good food bad food' evangelicalism and I just want to eat healthy but with more joy and variety than this!

So you google sourdough and it's all about glycemic index and baaaaaad calories. I am slim, otherwise healthy, I am sure eating some fucking grains a few times a week won't hurry me off to the undertakers.

Sorry, needed to get that out

Wait until you try a potato, OP

You have basically described a weight loss diet and they do seem to make people crave bread.

Well if you're "just" bored of the food you cook there's about a billion recipes in Google, try some new ones.

If this doesn't answer you have an eating disorder and you need to go to your GP, not the supermarket.

I know UK is not strong on sourdough bread but in my country normal sourdough bread does not contain any oil. Just flour, water, salt and the sourdough.

Your diet sounds very disordered and restricted. It should be all about balance rather than good and bad foods and not allowing yourself any bread.

you might have orthorexia, have a look up about it in case it rings any bells.

Get sourdough from a bakers that makes it with a traditional starter - it's much better for you.

A healthy diet is a balanced diet. Something as restrictive as yours sounds, isn’t healthy, it’s restrictive and that’s not good for you long term.

life is too short to be miserable about food. You don’t have to live on monstermunch and pizza but ffs have some fun

You don't need sourdough if you don't want to eat it. Put a chopped avocado, a few halved cherry tomatoes, some fresh lime juice and some chopped feta cheese into a bowl and mix it up a little bit not a lot. If you have some fresh coriander, add that. I have it with salmon or chicken and it's lovely.

You have been eating a very restrictive diet for years. You say yourself you've been completely uninspired by it for a good year. You can't even remember why you gave up bread. But yet you still won't just buy some bloody bread that you clearly want to eat

You are bored of your diet because its boring.

No one is stopping you eating the bread but you. This is pretty much the definition of orthorexia. You aren't enjoying your restrictive (not healthy) diet, you say you haven't been enjoying it for nearly 2 years?!

I don't think giving the OP any ideas about how to eat bread but healthier is going to help. She clearly has a disorded approach to healthy eating and your just giving more ways to obsess over the healthiness of her food. In reality if you want bread eat bread. Eat shitty processed supermarket bread. You will come to no harm.

Do you eat any carbs? They're not empty calories (where on earth did you read that nonsense?) carb containing foods also contain other vitamins and minerals and even some protein

I don't believe in cutting out any food groups, it's not healthy we need them all and some foods are best eaten together as nutrients in one help absorb nutrients in another (eg iron rich foods with vit c rich foods aid iron absorption)

Balance is the key.

Your body is telling you - screaming at you - that you need a variety of food

You also need healthy fats! Again nutrients in fatty items too and the oil themselves is good for joints, muscles and brain cells and the immune system

you’ve been on a very restrictive and controlled diet for years by the sounds of it.

I'd agree

Being SO restrictive with your eating IS disordered eating though

You say you've never had to diet, but that you stopped eating bread/pasta/noodles because they are 'empty calories' .....restricting calories is dieting.

Just eat a balanced varied diet....

I thought orthorexia referred to people who will ONLY eat 3 or 4 specific foods. A colleague eats rice cakes, crème fraiche and peanut butter and nothing else. She has orthorexia and is extremely underweight, despite the high calorific value of crème fraiche and peanut butter.

Your diet sounds healthy but boring. Add some fresh crusty bread and let the sunshine in.

Order a takeaway. Live a little
Try some Tapas

The only people who shouldn't be eating carbs are coeliacs.
Don't bother telling me different, I will fight you 😁

OP life’s too short! Have some bloody bread

I believe really strongly in listening to your body. For whatever reason, your current diet isn't working for your body just now and it's crying out for something extra.

Yoy don't have to overhaul your whole diet. Just a small portion of bread, pasta, noodles, pearl barley, quinoa, sweet potato etc alongside whatever you'd usually have. Or maybe just making a light batter and doing tempura style veg/prawns or something might appeal?

That is a different eating disorder called ARFID.

Get Gousto for a couple of weeks and let someone else define your recipes

It's totally changed how dp and I cook (though we are not healthy eaters to the degree that you are!!)

I don't think your eating is disordered. You just seem a bit bored with the same-old, as well as craving some carbs.

You say you've tried many different cuisines, but what about fusion type recipes? Indian fused with Latin American, French techniques using Indian-style ingredients (like Eddie on Masterchef...), Chinese tweaked with Thai, Italian with healthy carbs such as beans instead of pasta, etc.

I'd be hesitant to succumb to the sourdough bread temptation. Bread can easily become addictive, and once you've bought a loaf you have to finish it. And then you buy a slab of brie and your doomed..... LOL

Try quinoa, burghul, lentils, beans etc as a base for all those delicious ingredients your friend put on slices of sourdough 😀

Worth the tenner

Or stop being so controlling with your diet and go to a decent bakery.

Haha! I want this on a tshirt:)

Ok, just to put something to rest here: my diet has not been boring or restricted 'for years'. We just cut out junk and heavily processed stuff, and I gave up bread and pasta because I believed the hype that they were useless.

How this translates to a disorder is fascinating tbh, but this is AIBU so i gotta take it on the chin!

My diet involved lots of potatoes, too, I make my own sauces with cream, butter, cheese, my own veg stock, cottage pies, omelettes, etc, and have many tasty recipes of my own, so in no way was there any restricting in my habits. To cut out junk is not a restriction, it was a healthy choice, and that's ok.
I also enjoyed chocolate, my own biscuits, cake, sausages, all the lovely fatty things with some sugar.
I would hardly need to see my gp about restricting food

I said i was bored with my food and didnt enjoy it, but it's certainly plentiful! And the thing is, I did used to love it.
I even wonder if this is a sign of meno....
I have just changed, it seems, and need to incorporate some other things now. I am just sick to death of everything lately.

Thanks to everyone for the tips and for your encouragement to hog all the bread. I have my lovely sourdough loaf here, which will be filled with turkey, cranberry sauce and all sorts of things shortly.

No, othorexia is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating - to the point where the sufferer fixates on avoiding certain ingredients or food groups, and avoids eating out (for example) in case certain meals contain ingredients they feel are unhealthy.

My dad has (diagnosed) orthorexia and it's taken over his life. It's an eating disorder by a different name and is an incredibly unhealthy way of living life.