As an overzealous thinker, I’ve been searching for many years for a perfect diet - for the foods that will fill me with energy and provide the basis for health of my body and mind. Time and time again I’ve fallen prey to the illusion that “this diet will fix me”. I’ve tried various diets, I’ve spent time eating strictly meat free, eating mostly raw foods, eating mostly cooked foods, eating anything, refraining from sugar, refraining from artificial colours and processed foods, eating certain combinations of food in each meal, fasting, juicing….

And yet it seems to me that I’ve never really had a good relationship with food. When I was young, I didn’t like to eat a lot of things. I often struggled through meals, I ate agonizingly slowly [I remember once taking 3 hours to eat a salad, just sitting at the table failing or forgetting to eat or chew]. Later I sought highs in sweets and all manner of chemically created candies; I had begun to experiment with the effects on my mind of what I put into my body. As I came to realize the downside, I began to refrain. And refrain. And refrain some more. This food is bad. That food is bad. I’ll stick to this diet - these foods will be allowed, those will be bad. I had missed the point.

Yes, I achieved some good things, vegetarianism worked wonders for my mood and energy and lightness, but only for a few months, and then I felt ill and weak, and fortunately, my dreaming self knew how to reach me - a dream of a flying bacon sandwich.. Delicious! And I returned to the world of the meat-eaters, and promptly felt better, stronger, more vigorous once more. But I soon also felt more foggy in mind, more subtle energies were no longer visible or tangible to me.

Many of the lessons I had been taught during these experiments have only just become accessible to me, I’ve only just begun to really benefit from the experiences I had. I’ve opened my mind and expanded the picture to give these things a more accurate context. I often talk of the science-spirituality divide in the same way, it is not that they are at odds or incompatible, just that they are not viewed within a large enough framework.

As my senses have improved, I learn from my body much more quickly about what nourishes it and what doesn’t, yet still I have some fixed ideas about certain foods being “bad”. Even if I base that on experience, how old is that experience? If I am not who I was then, would it effect me differently now? That’s something to consider, if we take the past with us as something set in stone, refusing to acknowledge the new information that this moment gives us, how can we expect to make enlightened choices?

So then, I’ll bring out the metaphor which inspired the title of this post here. We may consider food to be our body’s fuel. So many of us focus on refining that fuel, trying to work out that special diet which allows our body to function at its very best. But what we so often fail to realize - and I see just how much this has directed my entire relationship with food - is that it doesn’t matter how good the fuel is if we have a madman behind the wheel.

Yesterday I baked my first loaf of bread from scratch! It was a wonderful experience from the outset: the smell of the flour, the yeast, mixing it all around, the textile fun of kneeding the dough, and watching it rise when I left it alone for a while. Then of course the smell of it cooking in the oven, and finally the glory of having this odd looking bread staring back at me, but tasting good, and of something new.

I used spelt flour, which is a kind of ancient grain, made good use of in olden times, but not so much these days [until all the recent trends in wheat and gluten allergies or intolerances.. though spelt does contain gluten, it seems many who find wheat intolerable are ok with spelt]. I also used easybake yeast (a dried yeast with re-hydration stuff and ascorbic acid added to it.. this is used mostly in bread-makers as it doesn’t require you to start the yeast working before you begin the recipe.. something I intend on replacing for future attempts, the less extra unnecessary ingredients, the better I think). Other ingredients were a little bit of olive oil, and a little bit of salt, and of course warm water. Once the dough was made and shaped and ready to go in the oven, I sprinkled sesame seeds on the top.

In all, I thought it was very successful. My family each tried it and though they found the taste a little different to the breads they normally eat (which of course are made from wheat rather than spelt, and have various extra things added (preservatives, and the like) which I wished to escape the use of), they did find it quite edible. I enjoyed it a lot, though I appreciate I have a way to go in the art of bread-making, and perhaps I had the chef’s pride going, that which we put love into, we get love out of.

The loaf was polished off today, and I experimented eating it plain, with something on (butter, or jam, or peanut butter), and toasted (today I put natural yoghurt and strawberries on it, but then I have quite a few unorthodox eccentricities in cooking and food preparation and combinations), and all stood up well. The bread sliced nicely (once it cooled after cooking), though I think I could have let it rise more before cooking it to get a taller loaf.

My love for cooking is increasing, as is my love for good, wholesome food. My next cooking projects include more bread (I got some strong wholemeal wheat flour to have a go with), some oat cake type things, biscuits (if anyone knows how to make shortbread without using refined sugar, let me know!), and I’d love to make an apple pie, and some rhubarb crumble. I dare say I’ll document my attempts, and you’ll hear of them here. Until then, I’ll dream of my perfect kitchen, with me in it, creating wonderful things.