I often get asked, "Do you eat"? They say this because I am thin. People who befriend me and even complete strangers will ask me this question. I usually find it annoying, but sometimes I have fun with people. Like the salesman at staples, who as I approached him for some help asked me "Why don't you eat?" I flatly answered, "I only eat when I deserve it." I followed my response with a long forlorn stare. He became quite uncomfortable and stared back. I let this awkward silence go on for about 10 seconds and then I had to break it. I smiled and said I was kidding. The truth is, two of my favorite things to do are to cook and eat!
I enjoy discovering new foods for my palate and searching for ways to make my diet healthier. I feel very lucky to live a mile away from a healthfoods store that takes alot of guess work out of deciding what to eat. They're prepared foods section has exposed me to health foods I wouldn't otherwise know how to make or obtain. I now enjoy raw kale and curry pate, raw tofu broccoli and carrot salad, unchiken salad made from vegetable protein, tofu walnut sandwiches and a whole slew of different kinds of burgers that aren't beef.
I've also been reading a bit more about a raw foods diet and how much healthier our food is when it is not cooked. A recent documentary called Food Matters revealed to me that cooked food is unrecognized by our bodies and is actually attacked as a foreign substance through a process called Leukocytosis. Our most supercharged nutrient rich foods are those that are eaten raw. I decided I needed to get a raw foods recipe book and start learning how to make some of these amazing health foods. I got my book from Amazon.com and was excited to be on my way to even healthier eating. My excitement came to a halt when I met up with my wonderfully eccentric hairstylist for a much needed haircut. It was about a week ago and I was sitting in the hairwash chair with my head tilted back looking up at a picture of Marylin Monroe on the ceiling. I was talking to her about my new raw foods book. "No No!" She warned. Raw foods are very damaging to your emotionally charged spleen. Raw foods are bad at any time, but especially in winter! Apparently in chinese medicine, organs do more than bodily functions, they are emotional, and my spleen will be upset if I keep eating that tofu brocoli carrot salad. All I could do was sigh with all this conflicting information.
Margarine was supposed to save us, now we're told it could harm us. Eggs were good, then they were bad, now they're "the perfect food". "Got Milk?" The dairy advertisements that consuming more milk is better for us must be true right? If this is so, then why do the populations that consume the most dairy, USA included have the highest incidence of bone loss diseases such as osteoporosis? Through further reading, particularly a book called "The China Study", I realized that dairy isn't all that good for us and that the dairy industry is less interested in our health and more interested in selling milk. There has been much conflicting information regarding what foods are good and bad over the decades. What I do believe is that it is wrong to assume that what we are told through public health initiatives such as the government sponspored food pyramid and even our medical doctors is the best health information. Buisness is business and food is a business. Remember when Oprah got sued for saying she wasn't going to eat hamburgers anymore? Even though the meat industry lost that suit, they flexed their muscle. The meat and dairy industry and other big agribusiness such as corn and soy all have a strong voice in government, and power and money talk. I've learned to trust nutrition experts, trust the science, and trust my own instincts.
A principle that has helped me eat a healthier diet is learning which foods to add and not to focus on which foods to take away. I believe people can be more succesful in changing their diet with this approach. If you suddently say, I can't eat red meat, I can't eat chicken, I can't eat icecream, I can't eat bread, you will start to feel like you have nothing to eat!. If, however you decide to try marinated beets for a side dish, or put hummus on a sandwich instead of having a club bathed in mayo, or perhaps start eating sweet potatoe burgers, or quinoa burgers instead of beef burgers, you will start to replace the not so good stuff with better stuff. This principle has really worked for me. A word about cost: To those who say these healthier alternatives are more money, I'd like to respond that they are not as much as a bypass surgery or heart disease medications. Eating healthy may come at a price, but eating unhealthy comes at a bigger price in the form of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
So what do I do with all the conflicting information. I continue to enjoy reading and wathcing documentaries about food, eating, and our health crisis in this country, and I will continue to reflect upon and integrate the information I learn. I've decided going all raw doesn't really work for me, just as going all vegan or vegetarian doesn't work for me either. I am not a purist and don't pursue much of anything in a strict nature. I will continue eating lots of salads and still plan to experiment with my raw foods book. The truth is, I got a tummy ache for a week after consuming lots of raw foods and I felt happy when I put some warm soup, a baked sweet potatoe, and a honey spice chicken into my belly. My spleen was happy too.
Some interesting resources I have enjoyed are:
"The China Study" (book) - scientific studies supporting a purely vegetable based diet
Supersize me (documentary) - Fast Food is no good.
Food Matters (documentary) - support of a raw foods diet
The Omnivores Dilemma (book) - a really great book about farming and food
Against the Grain (bood) - another really great book about farming and food
Food Inc (documentary) - relationship between food industry, people, farmers, government
Dirt (documentary) - the importance of soil in our crops
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