White bread and bread were things that I was deadly afraid of before going to the hospital. I guess it also plays into that that all the news and magazines were saying "bread is bad for you", "don't eat wheat products" and so on. Even if I didn't let it affect me, it kind of stuck in my head. Thus I made the decision to not have bread. I often had salads for lunch, or - I have to admit - those 5 minute cup of soups, which are really unhealthy. They are worse than bread could ever be.

When I was at the hospital, me and my family went to have lunch together at one point. They offered  some home baked bread with seeds and butter and it was amazing. Also at the hospital we had 2 slices of bread at every meal. And this actually helped. It is true that you have to repeat eating your fear foods. When I hadn't bought bread when I was discharged, I probably would have started to be afraid of it again. But I did buy it and it was a great decision.

For lunches at work I started to make myself sandwiches. It was amazing. I usually had them with butter, cheese and cucumber or tomato, sometimes with hummus or something similar as well. Then came the period where I didn't have bread as much and I already could feel it becoming scary again... until i finally bought some new bread.

The moments where my sister made some toast in the morning, I always tohught that toast smelled so good. I craved for bread more than usually. With this illness, I think the more you forbid yourself, the more you start to want it. I think I could have a whole bread in a day and it would still not be enough. It is like this with many things that I have been wanting but haven't let myself have. I am constantly thinking about it.

For example when I haven't let myself have cheese, I start craving it. And when my mum came to visit us and we had some wine and cheese, I had to really be mindful and try not to just eat ALL the cheese. I finally let myself have it and I had it so much that I started feeling physically sick. I just couldn't stop.  So it would probably be better if I gave my body the things it wants. Constantly. But it is difficult. And I have no idea if any of this has a point that I have written down...

Now that I am at the home office due to corona virus, I decided to tackle my fear and bake bread myself. I happened to stumble on a recipe and I have translated it into English as well:

This recipe was good, because it had few ingredients and I had them all at home.



It had a lot of seeds in it, but seeds and nuts are really difficult for me, as they have a lot of calories in them (but at the same time they have a lot of GOOD fats and they are healthy in their essence. My mind still only focuses on calories though...). But anyway, I followed the recipe wholly and I didn't leave anything out (for example I thought oil was unneccessary). I made it as it was supposed to be made!



Right before going into the oven when I still let it rise for 30 minutes.



Added some extra seeds on top.

And it came out to be wonderful! Really really good. It was really... thick and nice. The taste was so good, especially with hummus and fresh spring onion. And with roasted bell peppers. Definitely one of my favourte breads! I am sure I will make it again in the future and probably will bake it for my parents as well when I go to visit them.



Of course with eating it came the feeling of guilt. Because, well, I cut myself some really thick slices and I had only had soup on the previous days. Was it a good idea to have bread now? There are more calories... and so on and so on. I am tired of myself sometimes. But at the same time part of me was really proud about baking this bread that it kind of made up for the feeling of guilt.

I really want to bake something else as well. I have been thinking about making healthy carrot cake or something similar, but at the moment I couldn't find a recipe that would not have tons of sugar. I will look into it more. Like, it would be nice to have Friday as a baking day like we did at the hospital. I also need to take into consideration that my sister doesn't eat wheat (honestly she just frustrates me sometimes) and this kind of sets boundaries for the cooking (as I will be unable to eat everything myself. I also don't have a big enough freezer to keep things there).

I guess for the next fear food I want to challenge pasta. I don't understand why it is so difficult to have this, but I can easily eat noodle dishes, woks and something like this. I just don't understand.