My Dear “Kindred Spirit,”
You’re reading that title and thinking “Her “take” on food? She takes it and eats it! Duh!!”
You’re absolutely right.
Ahhh, I do love my food…
I love pretty much everything about food – growing food, cooking food, talking about food, thinking about food, and especially eating food.
I even love shopping for food! Some girls relax and have fun by going to the mall and wandering around looking at shoes and clothes. Me? I go to grocery stores and wander around making a mental inventory of selection and prices. Roadside farm stands can and have made my day multiple times (don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been known to whoop and cheer quite loudly when I catch sight of one). And Farmer’s Markets? Oh… Yes. YES!
Sorry, I’m rambling already, aren’t I??
Ok, back to the subject at hand…
What I mean when I say my “take” on food isn’t necessarily my love of food, it’s more… well (I can’t believe I’m about to say this. This is ridiculous. This is laughable) – it’s more my “philosophical beliefs” about food.
As soon as you’ve finished laughing, you can get up off the floor and wipe the tears from your eyes.
Let me try to explain what I mean:
We all have a reason for eating the way we eat.
Whether your reason is: “I eat whatever I want because it tastes good and I don’t care if it messes up my health or not.” Or “I live on green smoothies because I’m trying to lose 100 pounds real quick,” or “I’m a Vegan because I’m trying to save the animals” (whatever that means…), or “I eat Paleo because that’s the diet of cavemen and warriors!” (which are you going for? Caveman or warrior??), the common denominator with all of them is “because.” Everyone has a reason: I eat ________ because _______.”
So I’m giving you my “because.” My beliefs about food.
The turning point for me with my attitude and thoughts about food was (you’re gonna kill me for bringing up Weston Price again, but…) reading “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.” Reading what these people ate all their lives and how healthy they were on those different diets, and seeing from the pictures that, yes, they were healthy! They were happy, healthy, and beautiful people, as long as they were eating their traditional foods. It just blew my mind!
And, more than that, it made sense to me.
You see, I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe God created the world.
That includes food.
So in my mind, real, unprocessed food that you go out into nature to find IS superior to all the processed garbage that is sold as “health food,” because it’s been created by God for us to eat and enjoy. Who would know better what to provide for us to eat than our creator?
I believe that God put an amazing variety of food on this earth for us to enjoy, and we will be healthiest when we are eating a wide variety of *actual,* REAL food, in as unprocessed a form as we can eat it.
I think if we got rid of the over processing, chemicals, and additives in our foods, and learned how to cook and prepare food the way our ancestors did, most diseases would just go away. We’d all be SO much healthier, and we wouldn’t have to worry about “are grains bad for you?” “Is red meat killing you?” “Is dairy good or bad?” and all the other dilemmas about we currently have about food.
In other words, I don’t think our issue is the food. None of the food “groups” are making us sick. It’s what we’re doing to our food, and the chemicals we’re adding to our food that is making us sick.
Now, while I don’t like or agree with the extremes so many diets these days go to, I do recognize that for short periods of time extremes can be helpful. You know… “Desperate times call for desperate measures…”
For example: I don’t agree with Veganism because I think it’s unsustainable to try to live without animals and the food and resources we get from animals. It’s also unhealthy – our bodies assimilate vitamins and minerals best and most efficiently from animal sources.
However, if Veganism is done right, it can be a “cleansing” diet. It’s a valid way to eat for shorter periods of time. It will accomplish the same thing fasting accomplishes: cleansing and “restarting” the body, only it does it a little slower and gentler than all-out fasting does.
I also don’t agree with Paleo. Mostly because I don’t think we “evolved.” So the idea that we “evolved” to only eat certain things just doesn’t work for me. I don’t believe grain is inherently bad, and that because some foods take more work to gather and prepare that we shouldn’t eat them.
But, if Paleo is done right, it can be a healing diet. The Paleo diet eliminates many foods that tend to be inflammatory, especially if the body is already struggling with inflammation.
So, long story short: use extreme measures/diets for temporary amounts of time when extreme measures are needed.
And the rest of the time eat and enjoy a wide variety of real, mostly unprocessed, traditionally prepared food.
That’s my 2 cents, at any rate. (You’re welcome).
Love, N.
P.S. Of course, keep in mind that in today’s day in age, eating real, unprocessed food is considered pretty “extreme” anyway…
My Dear "Kindred Spirit," 