I believe there is wisdom in availing yourself of foods that are in season. When you have a cheat day, do you pay a price? There are those who do, and that tends to keep them on the straight and narrow, so to speak. I love chocolate, but since I discovered it was one of the triggers that caused my debilitating migraines, I swore it off forever. Never thought I could, but when the price is so high to step out of line, I find it amazingly easy to refrain from eating it.
Actually
@AllThatJazzZ , my journey is only obliquely tied to my arthritic maladies. Having twice achieved near-normal conditions in that regard (since Yah gave me a get-out-of-the-wheelchair-free card), I kinda know the game plan already for the next round of that. That's just about getting up and starting walking again, when climate and conditions align... And then weeks and weeks of screaming-yellow-bobsled-run-from-hell pain... In several and varied forms. Thankfully, all I need to do is crank up my natural stupidity and stubbornness all the way to the wall again and all pain will unconditionally surrender to that near limitless well.
This is more of a life-change for me - A while back I quite worrying about money and treasure, and how to get mine, and switched over to a subsistence-styled life. That sounds weird, but there is always and has always been a dichotomy between rural life and fiscal success... All you really need to do is accept that money hardly matters as much as living does, and begin to participate in subsistence, finding the vast relief from stress that rural life provides, and self-reliance ensues, amid a vast array of non-monetarily aligned pleasure, like hunting and fishing, foraging and gardening for a living instead. And health naturally follows... because active people don't have health issues that aren't uniquely tied to stress somehow, IMHO.
But in the course of that, (and this is going to sound really goofy), I happened to remember all the Huskies I have had for companions in my life, and their need for fish in their diet. It is a real thing. They can live without fish, but thousands of years in companionship with Man across the north have left them dependent on an otherwise unnatural food source. I can guarantee that, especially in their senior years, they will become arthritic without it. And the simple addition of a raw, frozen, whole, 2 lb fish twice a week to their menu will have a near miraculous effect... not to mention many other health benefits and a vibrant excellent coat.
That got me thinking about my own similar malady, and I went wandering down that trail, thinking about what might be a similar need for a something that my current lifestyle does not provide - What artificial thing might be missing in my life that my constitution might require due to the same sort of millennia-long dependence?
That may have been a fruitful bend... Firstly, the natural man needs to (at least) mimic what the natural landscape provides... and then account for the one thing that he has acclimatized to across many centuries that cannot be found easily in nature.
And that was a pretty simple thing. Before home canning a generation ago, Northern man (I am Dutch) relied on fermentation for preservation. Fermented foods are nearly as absent in the modern, processed diet as that raw fish is to a kibble-fed Malamute.
So that is the line of thought that brought me to this weird circumstance, and my commitment to vinegar, and other fermentation means. and so far, so very good...
I know. I'm a weirdo. But I may be licking this arthritic thing, once and for all.
We shall see.
As for the chocolate... I can take it or leave it. I like it alright (and actually, cocoa tends to help my arthritis in large, bitter quantities)... But the last thing I would ever give up is caramel. Pralines and cream ice cream with home made caramel topping will always be my joy.
