A Story About Mushrooms (No, Not That Kind)
Last week, when I made the rounds of the market for my weekly groceries, I stalled out at the green grocer. More specifically, I was entranced by a bin of cremini mushrooms. I could feel myself drooling, just a little, and the urge to buy all of them, every single one, and eat them right there out of the bag like a ravenous beast, was overwhelming. My head was full of fantasies of mushrooms, frolicking in salads, mushroom risotto, mushroom soup, mushroom lollipops…
Ummm…?
There was definitely a theme. And it was a weird one, because I don’t like mushrooms.
By which I mean that I really don’t like mushrooms. Not the texture, not the flavour, not the way they smell when cooking. Never have. My parents ate a lot of mushrooms, both very enamored of fungi. My sister and I would sit at the dinner table somewhat queasily, refusing to taste any of the wee buggers just one more time. We had tasted and found them wanting and once was enough.
To this day, neither of us eat mushrooms.
See? Completely incomprehensible. But something had to be at the root of it. Because when I have cravings, it’s usually because my body needs something. So I called the one person I knew could tell me the reason for this inexplicable craving for mushrooms: my naturopath. And into words, she solved the problem.
“Vitamin D,” she said. Apparently the things are full of it. And although the liking of mushrooms does not run in my family, the winter blues definitely do.
You could positively hear the clicks as the pieces fell into place. I’ve been on top of absolutely nothing for weeks, wanting nothing more than to sleep until April. Also. I’m having trouble coping and tear jerker commercials make me cry (more than they normally do).
So it’s time to do something about it. And to at that end, here are my Depth of Winter coping tools:
- Leave the house and get to the outside once a day with my camera, because spending days trapped inside by winter makes everything worse. Note: during intense cold or inclement weather, go outside for a minute, then come right back in again. This could be an especially important addendum, as the forecasters are calling for a “ferocious” to winter).
- Take some vitamin D already.
- Look into light therapy.
I’m stopping short of eating mushrooms, though.
Do you have the winter blahs? What do you do to feel better? What are your feelings about mushrooms?
6 Comments
Read More
Discover what else I've been writing about...
Ahh, your missing one of the great joys of life. Mushrooms are pure bliss. I have no idea about the magic kind, but thsoe in the market, oh yeah. I also take vitamin D. Oh yeah!!
I am sure that is what it feels like when you like mushrooms. PS I also don’t like broccoli 🙂
It’s weird what your body tells you it wants. When I was taking diuretics, I craved bananas. I am not fond of bananas. I can force myself to eat no more than 1 a week during the winter when in-season fruit is limited. I do not eat them at all during the summer. Of course, what my body wanted was Potassium. When I stopped the diuretics, the craving went away.
P.S. I love mushrooms. I especially like Shiitakes. I also take a calcium/vitamin D supplement.
I’m convinced that if we were better at listening to our bodies, we wouldn’t have all these deficiencies. Now I just need to figure out what regarding wants when craving for chocolate. 🙂
Oh, I love mushrooms. I had a similar experience craving red meat when I started biologics, not an easy time for a mostly vegetarian.
I used light therapy for years until iritis rolled into town and now I have to avoid it because it’s a trigger. But it’s super effective, says me, who until recently lived in the very far north of Wisconsin.
I do take Vitamin D, either 2000 or 3000 IU daily all year long; when the lab was done years ago, it was laughably low.
I had (almost) the same thing when I first started Biologics! I needed protein, it had to be animal protein, and the more and more often, the better. In retrospect I think that my body needed protein to help the Biologics in the process of making me a healthier person. Grow muscle? Who knows. All I remember is that voracious craving for protein.