Wow. Thank you all so much for the amazing response to my post on coping with unwanted body commentary. One of my main goals for Choosing Raw in 2010 is to have many more conversations about body image, self-perception, self-acceptance, and life with and after disordered eating. I was amazed by the quality of discourse in the comments section after my post (I always am), and I thank you for it.  I hope you’ll keep doing that as I ruminate on these topics, starting provocative conversations with each other and with me.

I thought I’d take a little interlude from body and self-acceptance talk to talk about something far less deep: yesterday’s lunch. Remember my raw, vegan spin on roast beet and goat cheese salad?

I made it, you may recall, because I had a beautiful hunk of fermented macadamia cheese handy, and because roast beet and goat cheese salad was my very favorite goat cheese dish in my pre-vegan days. My second favorite dish was roast vegetable and goat cheese sandwich creations (the finest one of these, I thought, was served at Craftbar here in the city). Yesterday, as I packed my work lunch, I realized that I had an abundance of three things: 1) leftover fermented mac cheese, 2) leftover roast beets, and 3) a big ‘ole tub of my raw, marinated veggies, which I’d also dehydrated for a few hours to soften (making them akin to a raw version of “roast” veggies). Lucky me, I also had some collard greens, so it seemed like a no brainer that my lunch would have to be a high raw, all vegan spin on a roast vegetable and goat cheese wrap.

When lunchtime rolled around at work, I simply layered my marinated veggies, my roast beets, and my “cheese”:

And wrapped it all up. In the end, it looked like this:

Avec salade, it fed body and soul better than any wrap I remember. Hooray for innovative work lunches! I sometimes say that I’m not a fan of leftovers, but every time I do something like this with them, I change my tune.

Before I sign off, I have two big announcements:

1) Tickets for the 2010 Healthy Living Summit go on sale tomorrow at 9 p.m.! For a recap of last year’s summit, you can read my review here; this year, I’ll be in attendance not as a guest, but as a speaker! Caitlin and I will be hosting a panel on body image and self-acceptance that we call “Stop Staring Over Your Shoulder: How to Avoid the Self Comparison Trap.” Our goal will be to analyze the negative effects of comparing yourself to others (specifically, comparing your body and lifestyle habits to others peoples’). I’ll be talking about the proliferation of healthy eating “trends,” the dangers of eating in a way that’s out of step with your needs, and the rise of orthorexia (a term I still have mixed feelings about). Caitlin will talk about the anxiety created in the media by photoshopping and unrealistic portrayals of the female body, and competitive fitness routines. We hope it’ll be a provocative and inspiring conversation, and we’ll want lots of participation. Which means I’d love to have to have some of my CR readers in the audience! If you’re interested in traveling to the Summit, information on registration will go up on the website tomorrow, so please check in.

2) Since we’re all enjoying these conversations about body image, I wanted to give you a head’s up that I’ll have a guest post up sometime tomorrow and/or Thursday on Kate’s blog, Eat the Damn Cake. The blog, which has been up and running for a few months, is full of daring conversations about body image, food, feminism, and beauty. The post I’m contributing is one of the more intimate ones I’ve ever written on my own relationship with my body, so I’ll be giving you all an invitation to check it out when it goes up. Hope you’ll take a peek!

On that note, I’m off to work and then sleep. But I wanted to let you know that I got through this morning’s workout with my customary friendly exchange with Gina (no hard feelings), and little thought given to my hulky, muscled, strapping lower body 😉

I also had my first physical therapy appointment, which left me momentarily sore, but my pain is a little better tonight. Fingers crossed for some real recovery!

xo