This may seem super obvious to some of you out there, and I freely admit that I may appear “out there” to a collection of a few of you, too. But I’m just going to go for it, state what makes sense from a purely personal perspective, a point of view that has four years of undergraduate biological sciences, another five for medical school, plus an additional fifteen or so years of living consciously food-wise. Take it or leave it, I have nothing to gain from convincing you in either direction. Instead I get a cathartic release from all the times I experience frustration when I read about some fascinating dietary fad in the world of pop culture media. Be forewarned: this is a dietary diatribe. Digest the following information at your own risk.
A healthy and balanced diet has the potential to make a lot of things happen for those wishing to achieve all sorts of personal health goals. I will personally guarantee it for anyone out there who chooses to mindfully pursue health through the medium of food. When I say diet, I’m implying that the consummation of whole foods, unadulterated by processing or chemicals, is the optimum goal for ingesting. And I don’t need some fandangoed research study to understand the effects of a healthy, well-balanced diet, nor do I need to rely heavily upon my seasoned years of experience with health.
In fact, my diet as a kid consisted of fast food specials, and I openly admit that I kept and discretely dined upon Halloween candy throughout the year (some of which was so well hidden that, much to the dismay of my mom, ants had a heyday before I recalled the sweet spots). I am what some would call a born again slow-foodie and proud of it. This is not meant to sound puritanical, far from it. I simply feel that the food facts are glaringly self-evident, and it doesn’t take rocket science to figure it out. If you wish to achieve health, you need to start with you and your diet.
I am absolutely flabbergasted that research is still debating the fresh food factor, despite all the thousands of years successfully living, growing, reproducing off of such unfounded habitual choices. Something needs to be said for all those hedonistic ideas that we adhered to, without question, without research, without some big-hitting renowned organization saying that they figured it out. Why can’t there be a world-wide proclamation that the foundation of health starts with you and the foods you choose to expose yourself to? In order for this to be a true reality as a society, we need to put our money where our mouths are. Let’s start by funding choices that:
Make wholesome foods both more affordable and widely available.
Emphasize foods produced at the local level in order to provide the freshest ingredients possible; this directly supports the community on multiple levels.
Support programs that educate consumers, from kids to adults, about how to prepare meals with whole foods.
Don’t get me wrong, I work for the Helfgott Research Institute, and I’m not against the pursuit of science, the pursuit of figuring out mechanistic actions of how all these various forms of foodstuff and herbal components interact and react with our body chemistry. Discovering the unknown pretty cool. I’m into it. The unknowns are where the foci need to be directed in order to meet the growing concerns with health care, not on the super blatant time-tested years of eating a well-balanced, nutritionally packed meal.
Can’t we all just reach a point of understanding and admit that eating healthy can solve a lot of the health misfortunes that we suffer from today? AND support organizations that promote healthy eating habits in our communities? We’re wasting valuable time and energy on these silly debates that never amount to anything higher than a pile of beans on any side of these fad diet equations. Come on guys, let’s really start to impact health and delve deeply into the meat and potatoes of making this dream a reality.
Interested in knowing what you can do? Check out our blogroll, it’s loaded with good info! A great resource to check out first is: Health Taken Seriously
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I, for one, have been subsisting on a well-rounded intake of the four food groups - literature, nicotine, Spanish Red, and chocolate - for as long as I can remember. I am now 108 years old, and attribute the robust health I enjoy not only to the dietary balance I partake in, but the freshness of the ingredients I dedicate myself towards pursuing. Kudos to you all for trumpeting this cause, and to your health. Happy New Year!
Correct-amundo, Zebulon Shank,,.
Quality and balance are of upmost importance; a quote from one of my favorites that you’re sure to enjoy:
“Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.”
Ernest Hemingway
I, for one, have NEVER been able to get my mind around the fact that we export most of the food grown in our country, and import much of our food. Can’t we just eat what we grow? Why am I eating grapes from Chile when they grow perfectly (and plentifully) in my backyard? And why are US farmers becoming less prevalent due to Big Farm-a and/or bankruptcy? I grew up in the South, and unless it was citrus, tomatoes or tobacco, I grew up eating food from goodness knows where. I didn’t even know about co-ops or CSAs until I moved out west.
You’re right, it’s not rocket science, and we are doing better than we have. Education is the key!
Thanks for your comments Kristen,
Growing our own food supply and keeping it local are part of the equation, and it keeps the gasoline price tag at a minimum. I cannot help but fall back upon the resources we have in Portland, a city built upon community collectives with a rather important goal of sustainability. So here are some resources out there for those outside the Portland area that could serve as bluprints for your own neighborhood.
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The Portland Community Gardens provide plots of land within the city limits for people to grow their own foods and flowers:
http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/index.cfm?c=djieg
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One problem that some folks may face, especially in the city dwelling locations, is lack of space. Recently, i have looked into compact garden designs, some of it’s pretty ingenius and remains easy to build/manage, check out these sites:
For a motley crew:
http://www.cityfarmer.org/subrooftops.html
Something easy to do:
http://www.islamonline.net/english/Science/2004/09/article03.shtml
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Portland’s Growing Gardens helps to install and maintain school gardens. This is pretty neat because they teach kids how to plant, care for, and harvest vegetables and herbs. Their line of thinking is perfect as it feeds into what you were saying about education:
http://www.growing-gardens.org/portland-gardening-resources/school-gardens.php
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Farmer’s markets and co-ops are quick ways to facillitate food to the table, cutting out the middle man, too. Oregon’s Farmer’s Markets helps you to understand more of the process, from farmer to consumer, and how to start your own farmer’s market:
http://www.oregonfarmersmarkets.org/directory.html
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Thanks for the comments! Keep ‘em coming!
Smiles,
Kimberly Ann