My Car Was Trying To Eat Me + Whole-Food Plant-Based Teff Porridge

Let’s rewind this track to 2012.

I’m lying on the living room floor of my friend’s house in the fetal position. I hear my friends talking in another room.

“You guys, I’m worried about Molly. Is she okay?
She got so fucked up so fast. My homegrown has never had that effect on anyone before. I hope she’s okay.”

I hear my friend, Jane:
“I’m going to check on her.”

Jane’s footsteps are coming toward me. She bends down and strokes my hair.
“Molly – honey. What do you need? Can you sit up? Can you talk to me?”

My head feels like it’s in outer space and my body feels like a grain of sand. The two units are barely being held together by a thin string. My reality is no longer my reality and it makes me nauseous. I’m drifting between pure panic and sleep. I can’t explain myself to my friend because the sound of my own voice makes me feel echoey and empty. I manage to communicate my needs in under 4 words.
“I’m good. Need Luanne.”

I hear Jane’s footsteps walking away from me, back to my concerned friends and my girlfriend.
“She wants you, Luanne. I really hope she’s okay. I’m worried about her. This isn’t like her.”

Luanne tells our friends goodbye and she comes into the living room.
“Come on Moll, want to go home?”

She pulls me up off the floor and I take her hand, not saying a word. She leads me to my dark blue Volkswagen Golf and guides me into the passenger’s seat, fastening my seat belt and kissing my cheek. She gets into the driver’s seat and pulls off into the night.

As we’re driving home, my head is still hanging out with Mars and Venus and my body is still a grain of sand. But now, a new sensation is beginning to form. I feel like I’m being sucked into the car and at any moment, my entire body will be enveloped into its mouth, which happens to be the seat in which I’m sitting.

Shit.

All I can do is grab either side of my seat with my hands, bend my legs and put my feet up on the dashboard, lifting my butt off from the seat. This is obviously not a long term solution, but it works for now.

Luanne chimes in, concerned:
“What’s wrong now, Moll? Babe, what’s going on? Do you need a hospital?”

I give her the only response I have:
“The car is trying to eat me. Home. No hospital.”

We finally reach our house, my thighs tired and shaky from holding up my body. It was worth the effort though because my car didn’t eat me.

Luanne parks way up the street from our house due to a crowded Saturday night in Berkeley. There’s a long black car parked in front of us with people in it. Paranoia sets in and I’m convinced that the people in the car are out to get me.

To this I blurt out:
“I’m gonna stay here for awhile.”

Luanne doesn’t look surprised.
“Moll, we’re home. Let’s go.”

I’m not feelin’ it.
“Those fuckers will get me if I get out of this car. I have to stay for a bit.”

Luanne sounds annoyed for the first time all night.
“You can’t stay here. This isn’t like you and it’s freaking me out. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

The seat that was trying to swallow me whole moments ago is now a glue stick and I’m stuck. Luanne tries a different approach.
“You’re right – those people are out to get you, but we have a really important mission that we must complete. But the mission requires us to get out of the car and go into the house, so let’s rally. It’s okay, I’ll protect you from those fuckers.”

Ding, ding, ding. Maybe it’s her cute accent or maybe I needed someone to agree with me – for whatever reason, this clicks and I agree to carefully make my way to our house. Luanne gets out of the car and comes around to open my door.

I slowly get out of the car and proceed to squat down and slowly walk like a crab on the sidewalk, hunched over, making myself as small as humanly possible. I’m obviously doing a really good job because the people in the car don’t notice me and we’re nearly to our house.

Luanne gives me some words of encouragement:
“Good job, Moll, we’re almost there. Those fuckers had no idea you even left the car!”

I smile at the compliment, feeling disproportionately pleased with myself. As we reach our porch, I get nervous because I don’t want them to see where I live.
“Lu – we have to be fast and DO NOT turn on the light when we get inside, okay? I’m serious. We CANNOT turn on the light.”

Luanne obeys, as only someone who really loves me in that moment would, and she quickly opens the door.

I run in, she runs in after me and I slam the door shut and slide down on my butt, totally exhausted. I’m safe.

I carefully move to the couch, drink a glass of water in the dark and pass out in my clothes. I wake up some hours later and I wait for the awful feeling of disconnect. I wait for my head to feel like it’s in outer space. I wait for my body to feel tiny, like a grain of sand. I wait for the paranoia and nausea to set in.

But nope. Nothing. Only HUGE relief and a promise to never smoke pot again.

I’m back to normal and I’m so happy that I cry just a little. I take a shower and I join Luanne in bed.

Here’s the thing.

I don’t do well on pot.

Want the kicker? I KNOW this about myself. But yet I got shit stoned anyway. Let’s explore this because I don’t know about you, but I find it fucking fascinating.

When the above fuckery popped off, I was trying to quit smoking cigarettes (one of my many attempts). I was at a party and I started craving a cigarette like mad. Instead of smoking a cigarette though, I uncharacteristically took several huge hits off a joint that was being passed around, just so I could have the sensation of smoke in my lungs. And then I proceeded to freak the fuck out.

Why did I make this genius move?

Because cravings make us do shit that
we wouldn’t normally do.

If you’re craving junk food and you pass a convenience store on your way home from work, that craving could very easily convince you to pop into that convenience store, grab some chips and candy bars and scarf them down before you get home.

If you passed by that same convenience store on your way home from work, but you had zero cravings for junk food, there would be no reason to stop. You’d just keep driving and it wouldn’t even register that you had passed a convenience store.

If I wouldn’t have been craving a cigarette, there’s no way I would have hit that joint because historically, I don’t do well on pot. And I KNOW this about myself.

So instead of trying to ignore your cravings for unhealthy shit and white knuckle through them, isn’t it a better idea just to get rid of those cravings altogether? That way, you consistently avoid unhealthy shit by virtue of not wanting it or thinking about it.

And it doesn’t matter if we’re talkin’ booze, cocaine, nicotine or junk food – they all stimulate the dopamine receptors of our brain, making us want more and more and more.

The only way to stop unhealthy cravings is by going without whatever it is you crave for a minimum of three weeks. This gives your body enough time to clean out your system and to reset your dopamine receptors.

The only reason I don’t crave cigarettes, booze or crap food anymore is because I went long enough without them to get rid of the cravings. It’s easy for me to eat whole plant foods and have a healthy lifestyle circa 2016 because I don’t crave shit that’s bad for me anymore.

Unhealthy cravings gone. Healthy diet and lifestyle easily adopted and maintained.

If you want to try something different and get rid of your cravings for unhealthy stuff instead of sweating through them (booze, cigarettes and junk food included), changing what and how you eat is the first step in that direction. Check out our plant fueled meal plans and take a test drive of our free meal plan trial.

You go do that and I’ll continue to avoid pot. Deal? Do you battle cravings? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Today’s recipe is a must try. It reminds me of chocolaty, malty, nutty Cream of Wheat. If you don’t like oatmeal, make this instead. If you do like oatmeal, give this a try.

Just make it is what I’m saying!

Plant Based Teff Porridge

This recipe makes two very big bowls of porridge or 4 smaller bowls.

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Author: Molly Patrick of Clean Food Dirty Girl

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Ingredients

• ▢ ½ cup teff grain 100g / not teff flour, the actual grain
• ▢ 4 dried dates about 1/4 cup / 40g, pitted and finely chopped
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 2 cups water 475ml

Toppings

• ▢ Chopped almonds
• ▢ Chopped apple
• ▢ Sliced banana
• ▢ Non-dairy milk

Instructions

• Heat up a skillet for a minute or two over low heat. Add the teff and toast it for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Transfer the toasted teff, dates, vanilla and water to a medium-sized pot over medium heat and stir with a whisk. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently (with a whisk) and then turn down the heat to super low and place a lid on the pot.
• Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally with your whisk and then take the lid off the pot and cook for an additional 5 minutes, stirring frequently until the porridge is nice and thick.
• Serve with the suggested toppings or play around and come up with your own toppings.
• There should be no lumps in your porridge. If there are lumps, either the heat was too high or you didn’t whisk frequently enough. You really have to whisk often, especially at the end of cooking in order to avoid lumps.