The Healing Power of Denial

My mother tells a wonderful story about a friend of hers back in graduate school who once explained how he dealt with a cold. He explained that he crawled into bed with a bottle of tequila.
"Does that help?" my mother asked.
"Oh, Sandra," he answered, "who the hell cares?"

A stroll through the self-help section of any major bookstore leaves us with an unescapable conclusion: we have not given nearly enough recognition to the healing power of denial. In fact, denial is passed over as a psychological modality. Personally, I think that positive thinking is an outdated schema. Have we not yet learned that thinking good thoughts day in and day out is taxing to our psyche, whereas denial and negative thinking is simple and cathartic? When someone tells you to, "Have a nice day," do you actually start to think about how you can have a nice day, or do you think about how you can do bodily harm to the well-wisher?

I am going to write a book titled Who the Hell Cares?: The Healing Power of Denial and Negative Thinking. It will have its own place of honor in the self-help section of the bookstore. It will have a place of honor because none of the other self-help books will talk to it. This, of course, won't bother my book, because it will spend every evening coming up with new ways to deface Wayne Dyer's cover jacket photo.

See, I'm feeling more relaxed already.

Speaking of denial therapy, my wife had a dance performance last Saturday night. She did a bang up job (of course), but she was concerned about feeling congested the morning before the performance. "It's just allergies," she told me. And it was just allergies, all the way through the performance Saturday night, after which, on Sunday morning, it turned into a whopping case of the flu.

This coming Saturday, I am biking the Hilly Hundred. I am doing everything possible to shield myself from my wife's flu (getting a flu shot, sleeping in another bed, spraying my surroundings with disinfectant, dosing on vitamin C and elderberry extract, chewing whole cloves of garlic...). I even have been drinking my new favorite vitamin C drink, which is kind of like a poor man's Tequila Sunrise. I call it a Tequila C.

Tequila C

1 highball glass
3 ice cubes
1 jigger tequila
juice of one lime
3 oz orange juice (or enough to fill up the remaining space in the glass)

Mix all ingredients. Drink.

Every now and then, I started to feel a little tickle in my throat or a touch of congestion, but I know that because of all my preventative measures, anything I am feeling is simply allergies. And it will stay allergies through the end of the Hilly Hundred.

Of course, I fully expect to get one whopping case of the flu on Monday morning. But that's okay, because I can simply crawl into bed and cuddle with the remainder of the bottle of tequila. And will it help me recover? Who the hell cares.

My Buddy Carob

Show of hands please...how many of you came of age in the 1970s? OK, good. Now how many of you had parents who belonged to a food co-op? Wonderful. Now, of those, how many of you remember carob? Great. One more question...how many of you have introduced carob to your children?

Both of you? Thank you. I hope you two are proud of yourselves. You may put your hands down now.

For those of you who know nothing of this wonderful fruit, carob (a.k.a. St. John’s Bread a.k.a. locust bean a.k.a. boxer) is the edible pod of the carob tree. Carob trees are large trees (50-55 feet at maturity) that primarily grow in Mediterranean climates. Carob pods contain both pulp (90%) and seeds (10%). The seeds yield locust bean gum, a complex polysaccharide (galactomannan) which is an important commercial stabilizer and thickener in bakery goods, ice cream, salad dressings, sauces, cheese, salami, bologna, canned meats and fish, jelly, mustard, and other food products. The rest of the pod can be roasted and ground into carob powder which is made into a wide variety of foods, including drink mixes, baked goods, candy bars, candy-coated fruit and nuts, and ice cream.

Carob has a very long and proud history. Its seeds are very regular in size and are thought to be the origin of the word ‘carat,’ as jewelers would use carob seeds to weigh out diamonds. Due to its high sugar content and relatively low cost, carob pulp was among the first horticultural crops used for the production of industrial alcohol by fermentation in several Mediterranean countries.

Carob seemed to really come of age in this country back in the 1970s, primarily as a chocolate substitute. Carob powder is higher in fiber, calcium, and vitamin A than cocoa powder, and it is lower in saturated fat, theobromine, and caffeine. More recent studies have shown that carob plays a role in treating hypercholesterolemia.

Back in the day, healthfood stores and restaurants sold carob goodies in every shape and size. I fondly remember the healthfood store in South Bend, Indiana that sold carob ice cream along with its bran muffins and fruit juice-sweetened cookies.

So, what happened? Where did all the carob products go? Why is it so hard to find good, tasty, sugar-sweetened carob candies nowadays? I am sure that the food scientists and agronomists will point to the world-wide decline in carob production over the past 50 years primarily due to low prices and low consumption. However, I blame it on all the idealists and hippies and new agers and health foodies. You all got lazy. The moment those first studies came out linking dark chocolate to antioxidants, you dumped carob like a bad prom date.

Shame on you.

Granted, as a chocolate substitute, carob is a paltry surrogate. Carob truly has its own personality. It had a roasty, earthy, sweet flavor that does not have the bitter refinement of chocolate. It is the Jerry Garcia of confections.

However, carob will always have a place in my heart. When I was a young boy, I was allergic to chocolate. From the age of about five through high school, I ate no chocolate. Picture it: no Three Musketeers bars, no Klondike bars, no Oreos, no Hydrox, no Hershey bars, and no M&Ms. I grew up eating only half of black and white cookies. I could only eat two-thirds of Neapolitan ice cream. Chocolate was this ubiquitous presence, always laughing at me, taunting me, giving me the proverbial wedgie.

But carob was my loyal friend. Carob stood by me when chocolate left me out in the cold.

So, even now that I have outgrown my chocolate allergy, I still have a soft spot for carob. Every Tu B’Shevat, I make carob bars (recipe to come later). I still occasionally make carob chip cookies, carob brownies, and carob cake.

A couple of weeks ago, my youngest son begged me to make some peanut butter carob chip cookies. I happily acquiesced. When my wife, who equates dark chocolate with earthly pleasures usually only found in the Kama Sutra, heard what we were making, she had only one question. “Why?”

How could I explain to her the nostalgia, the comfort, the companionship inherent in a single carob chip? How could I explain to her the childhood memories that flood back every time I open a canister of carob powder? I didn’t even try.

“Why not?” I answered. And that seemed good enough for her.

Almond Chipotle Burgers

Almonds have an exalted place among the "superfoods," foods that go bey0nd basic nutrition to help fight disease or improve health. Almonds provide a nutrient-dense source of vitamin E, manganese, magnesium, copper, phosphorus, fiber, riboflavin, monounsaturated fatty acids, and protein, and they have been shown to reduce low-density lipoproteins (the bad, naughty, evil cholesterol often portrayed with a pencil-thin mustache and a black cloak). Almonds have a low glycemic index and do not adversely impact insulin sensitivity. Furthermore, almonds can be an effective part of a weight loss strategy even though the nut is 50% fat by weight. According to a review in the Journal of Science of Food and Agriculture, "habitual almond consumption does not lead to weight gain, and their inclusion in low-calorie diets appears to promote more weight loss than a comparable carbohydrate-based low-calorie diet."

Furthermore, nutritionist Monica Reinagel (my latest hero/obsession) reported a study in a recent Ask Monica blog that found that those people who chewed almonds for a longer period of time (40 times) felt more full than those who chewed them for a shorter period of time (10-25 time). I don't know if the take home message of the study was that almonds are an effective appetite suppressant or that masticating is good for you, but I think it's worth mentioning nonetheless...particularly because I heard it from Monica. And she is my new obsession. Or did I mention that?

Anyway, here is a good summer recipe that came to me tonight in a flash of inspiration. If you can cook these over a charcoal grill, go for it. Otherwise, the broiler works just fine.

Almond Chipotle Burgers
2 cups almonds
1/2 small onion
1/2 green bell pepper
1 carrot, peeled
1 medium stick of celery
1/2 cup rolled oats
6 oz. tomato paste (1 small can)
1 egg
1-2 tsp. dried chipotle pepper, ground in a mortar and pestle
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven on the broiler setting. Grind the almonds, onion, bell pepper, carrot, and celery in a food processor. Mix in by hand the rolled oats, tomato paste, egg, and dried chipotle pepper. Add salt and pepper. Form the mixture into 10 burger-sized patties and cook under a broiler for 2-4 minutes per side.

This burger is best served on a bun with a slice of tomato. The cool of the tomato perfectly balances the spicy burger.