Tree-hugging hippy cr*p
I know what British people think about Cornwall.
The Land of Eternal Summer.
Dazzling sunshine, blue skies, lush greenery, golden beaches.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, just to let you know, here in Cornwall, it has been raining for the past five weeks. Yep. Every. Single. Day. And pretty much all day, too. Whoever told me it can't rain in one place for more than four hours...you were wrong 
.
It's not just your normal rain either, oh no. It's torrential, tropical-downpour-type rain. I have just finished pulling up all the plants in my garden which have rotted from the ground up.
So this year, along with the rest of the British population, I expect, we are having to get our summer in different ways. Fake ways.
Eating summer veg from the farm shop, looking at holiday brochures for next year, reading gardening books to get some ideas for when we can finally get out there.
It's working. It's making me feel surprisingly close to nature. And I am hoping this explains some worrying developments in my psyche. Or maybe I'm just going mad. Either way, there is only one way to describe my general air at the moment.
Tree-huggy.
Yes, along with everyone else, I am being swept along on a tide of enthusiasm for all things environmental.
In Britain, the obsession began last New Year. The government obviously decided it couldn't go on ignoring the Greenhouse Effect any longer. Just like all the scientists had been telling them for the last 20 years, it was causing problems.
Not least the rain.
I spent the first few months of 2008 ignoring it all, feeling vaguely superior. Who were all these people suddenly reusing their carrier bags? Bit late, wasn't it? I had cared about the environment since, like, forever.
But after some thought, I had to ask myself exactly what I had actively done to help the planet in the 14 years since the school 'Environmental Club' I started in Year 9 folded due to lack of interest (I was the only subscriber). Why wasn't I reusing my toilet roll/wearing hemp/erecting a mini wind turbine on my shed?
I had to assume it was because I didn't really care, anymore. I had become depressingly middle class.
I mean, I recycle, but these days...it just seems like that's not enough.
So then I felt guilty. But not quite guilty enough to do anything. No, all I needed was to assuage the guilt by coming up with something - anything - I already did to help the planet. Then it would all be OK.
I knew where to start looking. Yep. Food. I am good at that.
I quickly found my niche, settling on one of the environmental buzz areas of 2008. 'Seasonal eating.'
The idea of basing your diet on locally-produced, seasonal foods.
Lately, everyone has been spending a lot more time thinking about what goes into their mouths and how they choose it. And seasonal eating is a part of that. It is great. It lets people link up their new-found concern for the environment with their other obsession of the past few years...health.
Here is the basic principle: Who wants to be responsible for however many billion tonnes of CO2 are released by the plane importing your baby sweetcorn from Thailand in the winter? You'd have to recycle a lot of loo roll tubes to make up for that.
No, it's so much better to eschew Sainsbury's (and other evil corporate giants) in favour of a quick trip down to the local farmers' market, where you can grab yourself some lovely organic...cabbages. (It's always cabbages.)
It's healthy, it's politically correct, you can have a nice walk there and back...and you get to feel all self-righteous at the same time.
In case you hadn't noticed, it seems I am still feeling rather superior. I have to admit, I sit at my desk and laugh at all the simple souls heading off to the farm down the road to buy some overpriced beetroot or something.
Bah, I say. Bah! Fly-by-nights, the lot of 'em! Seasonal eating? I've been doing that for years.
Seriously, I may be woefully inadequate on many environmental playing fields, but this is one arena in which I really shine.
I always, but always, plan my meals around what food is in season.
In summer, in Cornwall, despite the weather, there is a glut of local produce available. And I always polish my halo and make the most of it.
To that end, last week I had four ice creams, a cream tea, five beers (they always taste better in the pub garden), fish and chips, three Pimms(es?), strawberries and cream and a barbecue.
Yep, seasonal eating. It's great.
OK, so my way of doing it might not be exactly orthodox (the cod and chips certainly doesn't come recommended by Greenpeace), but it has definite advantages.
Less cabbage, for one.
In fact, I plan to carry on my campaign in earnest for the rest of the year.
Autumn - delicious hot puddings, hot chocolate, Halloween candy, Bonfire night toffee apples, baked potatoes and maybe some candy floss.
Winter...well, where to begin? Thanksgiving dinner, at least two weeks of Christmas treats, New Year's feasts and Valentine's chocs.
Spring will bring hot cross buns, Simnel cake, Easter eggs, birthday chocs.
However. I am seeing a problem here.
Is this seasonal eating...or more seasonal cheating?
Because many of these foods aren't...exactly...healthy. And when does it stop?
All these celebrations make it so tempting to give up on 'the diet' for a while. After all, it isn't forever. But then it becomes so easy to make excuses - 'There's no point starting straight after Christmas. Wait till New Year's...Well, I know I've only been going to the gym for three weeks, but I'll just get Valentine's Day out of the way and then get back into it. I can always give chocolate up for Lent...Ok, so I ate all my Lent chocolate in one go at Easter...but never mind, summer is coming soon. All those salads...'
But as you can see from my week's menu above, summer can be pretty tough. And that doesn't include your summer holiday, which, in terms of food, doesn't even count, really, does it? Summer is actually about the worst time for many dieters. Well, excluding Christmas. But by then you're in your winter woolies, so you can ignore the weight gain...until the New Year parties roll around again, that is.
We kid ourselves the gorging is going to stop after just this one event...but it never does. And all this eating can make us feel really horrible and actually stop us enjoying the season. Add in all the other foods which regularly tempt us - takeout on a Friday night after a 'hard week' , anyone? - and it is no wonder so many of us struggle to make much weight loss progress through the year.
So we are back to the age-old dieters' dilemma - how to enjoy ourselves and still lose weight? Because no one wants to be the person who has no fun at the barbecue/the party/whatever.
And the answer, as I see it, is good for us and for the world we live in.
Yep. It's that other buzz word again. Moderation.
Don't deprive yourself. Have a small amount of the treaty stuff. Enjoy it...and move on.
So many of our seasonal treats can actually be tasty and good for you. Do delicious strawberries always have to be smothered in cream and ice cream? Do those just-picked corn cobs, bursting with juice and sweetness, really need to be drowned in butter? (Ok, maybe the answer to this one is yes, but you get the general idea).
In fact, this all sounds so fantastic I am going to sign up to that organic veg box scheme right now. I am sure it can't be that bad. Winter isn't just about cabbage. There's also kale, and curly kale, and kohl rabi and...yeah, it is just cabbage, isn't it?
But seriously, there are so many ways we can use our healthy local produce in new ways. We just have to be a bit creative.
We get the best of both worlds - enjoying the season and losing weight.
And our world does pretty well out of it too.
Yeah, I told you. Tree-hugging hippy cr*p.
But if it gets us better weather...
Love Rach xxx 