As you’re reading this, I’m in the Colorado Rockies on a week-long retreat. I’ve left my computer, phone, and to-do lists behind along with caffeine, refined sugar, and caffeine, and when I return I’ll have reset my circadian rhythm, my digestive system, and my little busy brain too. I’ve been plotting retreats like this in my calendar for the past few years now, and I look forward to them more and more each season. With each retreat, I feel like I come home with more wisdom about my body, about my brain, about how to organize my full-on life so that I can do (almost) all of it, and still save room for spaciousness, intention, mindfulness, and FUN.
I’ve learned a lot about what to hang onto, and what to let go of.
I’ve learned how to hold space for myself, how to stand up for what I need, and to be my own best ally.
I’ve learned that sometimes the stories I tell myself about my life, my health, my fitness, or my ability to hold it all together aren’t true. And, by second-guessing those stories, I’ve learned to break beyond them and climb higher than the lowly little story I was previously settling for.
In many respects, this retreat is actually a cleanse. Of body, mind, spirit.
And one of the last things I did before I left made this: Something Like Spicy Chinese Noodles w/Pork + Broccoli. So, there.
Whether you’re brand new here (hi!!!! welcome!!!) or you’ve been subscribing for a while, you’ve likely noticed that a grand majority of the recipes I share here do not contain meat. This is deliberate. It’s very easy to add your protein of choice to just about any of the main course meals I share (and the desserts too I guess, eww.) And I highly encourage you to incorporate whatever works well for YOUR body and lifestyle. Whether you’re plant-based, an avid meat-eater or something in between doesn’t matter – we can all get around eating more plants, enjoying delicious recipes, and they’re not any less powerful as fuel for your life by lacking the meat protein — if you need it, and want it, go ahead and add it.
But this week, I wanted to share these noodles specifically because this is not exactly what you’d imagine a woman deep in the preparation for an Ayurvedic retreat would be eating. And, really, brothy soups and stews are optimal. But these noodles aren’t off the table…not in this holistic world I’m in. Meat is absolutely part of my diet, and a strong therapeutic piece to boot. Here’s why.
Ayurveda is a 5000-year old holistic medical system rooted in the idea that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance of mind, body, spirit, and the natural world. As modern humans – and even as ancient humans – our every action and thought challenges this balance. And, particularly as athletes, we make this balance very difficult to strike. We try to pack too much into our days, we ask our bodies to move too much, our brains to think too much, and being in constant motion is almost our church. But this isn’t great for balance. In fact, it’s horrible for balance. Hot needs cold, fast needs slow, and bodies in motion NEED stillness and groundedness to be balanced in the world.
We aren’t necessarily willing to give up our movement, our sports, or our passions. So we need to examine our recovery – and the amount of stillness and grounding we incorporate into our lives – deeply and completely. Carving out time to be still when we aren’t training, racing or simply enjoying our movement. Planning restorative times for our minds to stop swirling, and our energy to stop stirring. And, we need to eat foods that ground us and nourish us, deeply and completely. We can learn to identify these foods by examining their flavors: sweet foods such as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins all fall into this category. But we can also examine and learn their values by considering where they come from. Things that come from the ground and connect closely with it have the capacity to ground those of us in constant motion: mushrooms, root vegetables, pumpkins that sit on the ground through their lives, and meats that graze the plains.
Just as each of us is unique, so too are each of the ingredients we eat and need to eat. There is no set protocol for how to balance a body. Proteins are not created equally, and some are more grounding and nourishing than others. Meat is not necessarily appropriate for all bodies. But for some of us, well-sourced, organic, grass-fed meat is one of those foods that can be critical to our health and well-being and is one that is recommended in holistic Ayurvedic texts.
Now, it’s critical for me to mention here that sourcing is half of cooking in Ayurveda, and in my own personal philosophy as well. In my own home, meat doesn’t arrive on the table until I know the farm that it was raised on, the way that it was handled and fed, and also honored through its entire life. When I talk about eating meat, I’m not talking about commercially raised products that are purchased out of the grocery store case on styrofoam packages.
If we are what we eat, then we are also the energy that the animal carried and the experiences that it endured in its lifetime. And for that, we need to be very careful – in my opinion – to source well as a service to our bodies and spirits, and also to the animals who are helping our lives to perpetuate and thrive.
It feels worth mentioning that even if you aren’t eating meat, and are choosing to be plant-based, that sourcing is still critical to making sound protein choices. Many plant proteins contain fillers, are packaged in plastic or have traveled great distances to reach the grocery store where they’re purchased, making null and void the argument that plant-based diets are better for the environment. Plant-based diets that are dependent on plastic packages are absolutely not better for the planet than supporting small-scale, local regenerative agriculture (that requires livestock to sustain it.)
That’s a lot to think about. I know.
So let’s make a bowl of noods and let it all sink in, right?
So sorry – I’m just not going to get over the noodle puns.
SO! These noodles! They’re VERY easy to make, very satisfying to enjoy, filled with powerful flavors, grounding protein, and if you wish you can leave the pork out and put in your favorite plant-based protein instead. Seasoned tofu or peanuts come to mind.
You’ll need to make a little trip to the Asian grocery store for the Korean pantry staples that make up the sauce. OR, you can order them online from Origin Foods (my grocery store DID carry these lovely sauces, but then stopped stocking so this is my next resort too!) But from there, you may be like me and always have some spare scallions in the fridge, a little bit of frozen pork in the freezer, and broccoli is easy enough to pick up from the grocery store.
We love this dish, and have enjoyed it quite a few times when it was a convenient option, and craved it so badly it’s forced a grocery store run on others. I hope you LOVE them too.
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