What are You Eating?

In this new year, I would like to promote a new way of thinking about food. I want to bring awareness to the ways America’s culture of convenience food is destroying our health and wellness. I want to encourage a different perspective and a more accurate picture of how food works in our country and how it affects our well-being.

Poor diet and poor health are certainly not invisible problems. The next time you are in the grocery store or walking through the halls of school or work, look at the unfortunate people who have pain when they walk or those carrying around too much weight. It is so common you should not have to look very hard. Maybe you are suffering. Your hips hurt, your knees are inflamed, and you know you need to get some extra pounds off. These health issues are often a result of the standard American diet, which is killing us.

We have come to know food as something that is readily available and very inexpensive. We don’t really have to think about what we are going to eat or where we are going to get it from. Hungry? Getting something to eat can be accomplished without much thought. If you are in the car, you can stop at any drive through window and minutes later you have a giant meal in your lap. We often take fast, convenience foods for granted and do not take time to consider whether they will truly nourish us or merely fill our stomachs.

The majority of the food marketed to us (processed food) is more akin to poison than an actual food. Yes, we can eat it, and yes it does contain basic nutrients like protein, fat and sugar, but so many of these foods are harmful to our bodies rather than nourishing. To process something, you have to first take it apart. When this happens, all the nutrients, fiber and goodness are either removed of destroyed. These bits are then reassembled into something that is designed to look appealing and, thanks to the work of food chemists, these processed food-like products can fool the best of us by tasting and smelling wonderful. But this satisfaction is short-lived because the only thing that can possibly create the real satisfaction our bodies need and desire is the consumption of naturally delicious, nutrient-dense foods.

How have we come so far in our modern world and yet lost the innate knowledge of how to be healthy? (See my article The Wisdom of our Ancestors.) Part of the reason, I believe, is our culture’s manic desire for instant gratification. We are so used to having technology constantly available, shopping is easily accomplished by the click of a button and even conversations are dumbed down into instant messages that lack the true value of a conversation. We are so obsessed with instantaneous, time-saving resources that we believe we don’t have the time available to prepare healthy meals. In reality, we cannot afford to ignore our diets because, by consuming nutritious meals, we are saving ourselves from a sick and unproductive future. A little extra time spent now on sourcing and preparing healthy food will reap endless rewards when we are healthy, energetic and strong as we age.

We pay a massive price for our processed food addiction. The time spent for doctor visits, hospital visits, tests, illness and endless trips to the pharmacy consumes countless hours of our lives. And I haven’t even mentioned the actual cost in dollars! It’s a terrible shame that it has come to this. We have more access to cheap food than any other country in the world and more sickness and disease than any developed country. Truly, we have been completely duped.

Who influences us to think this way? Marketing convenience food is very big business. We learn most of our food wisdom based on the subtle and not so subtle marketing we encounter every single day. When a company has a food product to sell, the marketing experts get the job done. Ads on television, in magazines (even our government weighs in, often incorrectly, I might add) and other media bombard us with the information we then start to believe is true, even if it is obvious that the advertiser has an agenda. And it works! We buy what they are selling to the tune of billions of dollars each year in this country alone. The profit margins on fresh fruits, vegetables and healthy meats are very low compared to the margins on processed foods that never go bad and have a much longer shelf life. And this is why healthy foods are not marketed to us like processed foods. One analysis I read recently showed that the value of the grain in a five dollar box of cold cereal was actually worth about five to ten cents. The box itself was worth more than the food inside! Food has become so dumbed down, so cheap, so worthless that the materials we package it in costs more than the food itself. And, as a result, we spend more money than any other country in the world on health care. This will bankrupt us at some point, as this model is extremely unsustainable.

The poor food choices we make today will contribute to health problems in the future. Conversely, we reap present and future rewards of wellbeing, happiness and plenty of energy by making good food choices today. My wish for this country is to see health care demand shrink because people are educating themselves about food and nutrition and consequently do not need as much medicine. I envision people coming together with the realization that they have allowed this crisis to happen by being complacent in their food choices and by believing without question what their government, television and all sources of media tells them. I hope to see small farmers grow in numbers and reach the level of importance they truly deserve in towns and cities across America. This will allow all of us to have access to the healthy, nutrient-dense foods that are so rare in our diets. Then, we can begin to heal our bodies and our precious Earth.

Also see my article Navigating the Holidays the Healthy Way.