The coast as a teacher
I grew up a few steps from the sea, in this harsh white light that transforms a simple fish fillet into a sacred meal. My food practice was not built in books, but on the docks, in the middle of drying nets and the smell of iodine that saturates the air. Here, freshness is not a luxury, it is a law. Grilled fish, bitter leaf salads, herbs crushed between the fingers, and above all these citrus fruits which give the necessary tension without ever calling for sugar. What I call eating 'with the light' is this ability to let the product shine on its own, without suffocating it with coatings of carbohydrates or unnecessary flours.
The wind is turning. The smell of salt mixes with that of the lemon being cut.
When the product is abundant and of brutal quality, there is no need to mask it. We learn to listen to the season, to understand that real energy comes from natural fat – that of sardines, anchovies, olive oil pressed in the village – and dense proteins. Refined carbohydrates here seem almost incongruous, like a discordant note in a perfectly tuned sea melody. We don't deprive ourselves of bread out of dogma, we forget it because the plate is already full of life and depth.
The almost religious relationship with candied lemon or light vinaigrette is not a simple culinary habit; it is a profound metabolic marker. Lemon preserves, concentrates, and provides acidity which cuts the feeling of artificial hunger. In my daily life, citrus replaces the expected sweetness, and olive oil stabilizes energy for hours. I observed that reducing cereals is never experienced as a deprivation in our coastal families, but as a gesture of taste, a loyalty to the land which has no use for starches which weigh down the mind and body.
A feeling of lightness comes over me after the meal. No fatigue, just clarity.
In the market, the smiles of the fishmongers and the heady smell of citrus fruits taught me how to create dishes that are naturally low in starch. The stalls impose freshness; freshness imposes simplicity. I stopped looking for sweet substitutes a long time ago. Instead, I work on textures: the crunch of young purslane leaves, the silky fat of a caught sea bass, the bitterness of a bitter orange peel caramelized in the oven without sugar. It's a cuisine of balance, where satiety is achieved through nutritional density, not empty caloric filling that leaves the stomach heavy and the mind foggy.
This choice has invisible but powerful social consequences. At family celebrations, we find concentrated dishes, candied citrus fruits that burst in the mouth, salads rich in herbs and fish served whole, dripping with olive oil. Local culture values this direct relationship with the product. The reduction of sugars then becomes a legacy, a form of gentle resistance to globalized food fashions which try to impose sugar everywhere, even where the sea already offers everything.
I remember my aunt, her hands stained with lemon juice, explaining that sugar 'puts courage to sleep'. She didn't know the word insulin, but she knew the feeling of the energy drop.
Sensory practices and resonances
I keep the zest like treasure. I macerate salty citrus fruits, I use the juice to marinate the most delicate flesh, but never to sweeten. Local curing and fermentation allow me to add aromatic complexity and long shelf life without resorting to sugary additives. When cooking, I favor gentle heat, giving the natural fat time to express itself and concentrate. The spices – cumin, coriander, sweet paprika – are not there to mask, but to support the lively acidity which is my compass.
On a daily basis, bread disappeared from my table without a fuss. It has been replaced by crunchy lettuce leaves, slices of grilled zucchini or simply by the more assertive presence of oilseeds which provide the necessary chewiness. At the table, the emphasis is on color, on the thermal contrast between the hot fish and the fresh salad. This is enough to fool the desire for sweets, because the brain is too busy decoding the richness of the actual flavors.
Eating low-carb, for me, has never been a subtraction. It’s an addition of sensations. It's choosing the fat that nourishes the brain, the proteins that repair the muscles, and the fibers that soothe the digestive system. It is a sensory learning experience that is rooted in a landscape where each wave brings a lesson of sobriety and power.
Evening falls on the pier. The air becomes fresher, and my energy remains stable, without the need to snack that haunted my years spent eating cereal.
Ultimately, reducing sugar and cereals in this region is less a nutritional dogma than a poetic adaptation to reality. The climate, the fishing, the citrus orchards have dictated a cuisine made for lasting satiety, for endurance under the sun. It's a lesson that I try to apply wherever I go: seek the light of the place, listen to what the earth and water offer, and let nature guide the plate towards a metabolic health that does not say its name, but which is felt in every movement, in every breath.
The sea never lies. It offers us salt and fat, the two pillars of a life without sugar, where pleasure is not an ephemeral reward, but a constant state of presence. That's my cuisine: a return to basics, a tribute to the light that nourishes us well beyond calories.
I close my eyes and I can still taste the virgin olive oil on my tongue. It's the taste of freedom, far from the chains of glucose.
Tomorrow I will return to the market. I will choose the heaviest lemons, those with thin, fragrant skin. I will choose the fish whose eye is still sharp. And I will continue this silent dialogue with my body, this body which has finally found its rhythm, far from the storms of sugar, in the flat calm of a rediscovered satiety.
