The following is one of numerous short blogs I wrote for my kids as they graduated from high school. Each received 12 blogs, tailored to each one, in a book.
Food Fuels Me
“This magical, marvelous food on our plate, this sustenance we absorb, has a story to tell. It has a journey. It leaves a footprint. It leaves a legacy. To eat with reckless abandon, without conscience, without knowledge; folks, this ain't normal.” ― Joel Salatin
“You, as a food buyer, have the distinct privilege of proactively participating in shaping the world your children will inherit.” ― Joel Salatin
Scripture
He gives food to every creature. His love endures forever. Psalm 136:2
Story
I was always pragmatic and perfectionistic. So it made sense that I would want to eat well. When I was young I did not know that much, but I tried to do right. As I became an adult, I learned a lot more and did better. But the thing that really motivated me to eat properly was nearly dying or at least becoming disabled. Until my stroke, I held a typical mindset of youthful invincibility. I figured that I would be strong and healthy always. That stroke changed everything. Realizing how frail I really was, and how easy everything could change, made me really really care about managing my health. I knew I had to commit to eating much better for me, my family, and the chance to live out my years strong not weak.
Lesson
After my stroke, I read many books about food. A few of the best are listed in resources. Reading so much, my mind was spinning with thoughts. So I had to find a way to make sense of it all. So I began distilling all I read into simple concrete rules that could guide me. I looked for consensus ideas that were represented in various resources. I thought I should have 10 like “The Ten Commandments”, and then I thought 12 like a dozen eggs. I wound up with a baker's dozen, and I suppose that works too.
Rule | Reason |
Eat whole foods, cooked from scratch, as much as reasonably possible. (Buy food from chefs, not engineers.) | To get all the life-giving complexity that a whole food brings and to become connected to your own feeding. |
Prefer in season, local foods voting my food dollar intentionally to support local, organic, soil building farmers. Buy from local farmers and get to know them (Farmer’s Markets, on-farm stores) Buy from small retailers with integrity Buy from traditional grocers No convenience stores, vending machines
| To eat more healthy and grow the local food economy putting more dollars in the hands of farmers and making our food supply more stable while learning to appreciate the natural rhythms that God instituted. |
Minimize exposure to synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. | To avoid unhealthy chemicals that help the manufacturers |
Avoid packaged foods unless you recognize all the ingredients as whole foods. | If you can buy it individually, it is likely food and not a foodlike substance |
Don't be fooled by the food industry's marketing machine. | The food industry wants to sell you more and more and make money. Their goal is not your health but their company’s health. |
Drink water and lots of it. Vigorously avoid soda and other industrial drinks with sugar and artificial sweeteners. | Water is the best way to avoid kidney stones. It helps your body run well without empty calories |
Limit sensible carbohydrates to an appropriate level (juices, whole grain bread). Vigorously avoid empty carbohydrates. Especially | Empty carbs just overload our body with sugar which can lead to insulin resistance and eventually diabetes. |
Consume plenty of healthy fats especially olive, coconut, tallow, and lard limiting processed and seed oils. | Healthy fats help our brain and heart work well |
Consume meats produced in keeping with God's design for that animal. (pastured, natural diet) | God made us and animals a certain way by his good design. When animals grow as He intended, they nourish us as He intended. We are what we eat, eats. |
Eat loads of various vegetables. Match the amount of high starch vegetables to level of exercise. | Vegetables have loads of nutrition and should be the foundation of our diet to get what we need in forms we can utilize effectively. |
Focus on fruits with high nutritional value. Prefer whole fruit over juices. | The fiber in fruit was God’s mechanism to make us not eat too much sugar. Juicing allows us to consume lots of sugar without getting full. |
Load up on raw and fermented foods with great probiotic benefits. | The bacteria present in these foods help keep our gut healthy which has profound effects on our entire body. |
Buy food in its season when it is in abundance and preserve it for later | Preserving some of our own food, provides us with the very best food security |
Works Cited: Recommended Resources
Salatin, Joel. The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation First edition., Faith Words, 2016.
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food : an Eater's Manifesto. New York :Penguin Press, 2008.
Axe, Josh. Eat Dirt.Harper Collins. 2017.
Movie: Participant Media & River Road Entertainment present ; a film by Robert Kenner ; producers, Robert Kenner, Elise Pearlstein ; writers, Robert Kenner, Elise Pearlstein, Kim Roberts ; directed by Robert Kenner. Food, Inc. [Los Angeles, CA] :Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2009.
Movie: Soechtig, Stephanie. Fed Up. RADiUS-TWC, 2014.
Questions
Do you believe that your health is directly connected to the food you eat? Do you really really believe? How do your actions need to change?
How will you fight the “need” for convenient food during your life?
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