Eating well is an issue for everyone. Every day, several times a day, one must make multiple decisions regarding food. These decisions are inescapable, and relevant to every other decison we make. What you choose to eat becomes the foundation for your physical, mental, and emotional well being.
Animals are born with an innate sense of what they should eat. Instinctual recognition of food in their enviornment is a survival mehanism. There are still cultures of people who use their instincts to survive, but for most of us, this is not a factor.
Going to the market to purchase food is a surreal experience. Everything is packaged to attract, distract, and convince us that we must have it. Even if you go with a pre planned list of items, you will undoutedly buy several more.
How do we survive the food mecca, and all the products, many of which we could live without?
Do we live to eat or eat to live? Don't misunderstand, I love to eat. But is there a line between eating healthy and eating unhealthy? When have we overeaten, and why did we eat something we absolutely knew we shouldn't have? Does it even matter and why are we taking drugs to "kill" the pain of indigestion?
There really is no excuse for eating unhealthy when we have so many healthy choices.
Eating unhealthy is self destructive. Like smoking cigarettes. Many young people understand the effect of smoke on their lungs and organs at an early age due to proper education in our schools. They get to make an informed decision. How does a young person today get proper information on eating healthy?
For most, we eat what our parents or "culture" dictates. Children grow up eating the same foods everyday until they become teenagers and have some freedom and opportunity to begin making personal choices.
Most families do not support menu choices that deviate from their standard family fare.
Not until a person moves out of the home do most of the new choices take place.
Parents choices are also dictated by enviornmental factors. If you live in a remote area, a city, a university town, another country, or your home town, influences on your dietary habits will change.
College life can present new opportunites to make choices and be influenced by others with different habits, but generally speaking, there is no formal opportunity to learn about food and its affects on your life.
My own case is interesting. I went to college in Vermont with Julie, a long time high school best friend.
The support of a friend can be a wonderful thing. We roomed together in the dorm and ate at the cafeteria with friends. Two months into the first semester, I noticed I had gained almost 10 pounds.
We both agreed the starchy, fried fare was not what we were used to, so we purchased a hot plate and a small refrigerator. Now we were in charge of buying and preparing our own meals. This was new territory for both of us, but fun and challanging. Cooking in a dorm room, on the sly, is no easy task.
The following year we moved into an apartment in town and cooked the most wonderful meals and were never short of dinner guests, as college students love to eat. We moved again, into a house with another student. Michael was a healthy vegetarian. I had grown up to believe that vegetarians were pale, sickly, desperate people. Needless to say, vegetarianism was fun, easy and felt healthy. Many of my quirky digestive issues as a child, began to subside and eventually disappear. Being a vegetarian for the past 40 years has been the best choice for my dietary needs. I have learned to pay attention to my body's responses to food, digestion, energy, and my minds crazy desires to overturn the wisdom of self discipline and sordid need to self destruct. Everyone has eaten something they wish they hadn't. That's the self destructive demon that chooses short term pleasure over long term well being.
Staying healthy is quite the job in this world. And extremely important. Not only is getting sick miserable, it is expensive and you have to rely on doctors, nurses, aides, tests, friends, family, co workers, etc. who have to take control over your health and your life while you are down. No one really chooses to be sick, but when we make poor choices for ourselves, that's were we are headed. Do you want what you want or do you want what works?? If you chose what works, you end up on a road that takes you, ultimately to what you want...health.
Karen
Animals are born with an innate sense of what they should eat. Instinctual recognition of food in their enviornment is a survival mehanism. There are still cultures of people who use their instincts to survive, but for most of us, this is not a factor.
Going to the market to purchase food is a surreal experience. Everything is packaged to attract, distract, and convince us that we must have it. Even if you go with a pre planned list of items, you will undoutedly buy several more.
How do we survive the food mecca, and all the products, many of which we could live without?
Do we live to eat or eat to live? Don't misunderstand, I love to eat. But is there a line between eating healthy and eating unhealthy? When have we overeaten, and why did we eat something we absolutely knew we shouldn't have? Does it even matter and why are we taking drugs to "kill" the pain of indigestion?
There really is no excuse for eating unhealthy when we have so many healthy choices.
Eating unhealthy is self destructive. Like smoking cigarettes. Many young people understand the effect of smoke on their lungs and organs at an early age due to proper education in our schools. They get to make an informed decision. How does a young person today get proper information on eating healthy?
For most, we eat what our parents or "culture" dictates. Children grow up eating the same foods everyday until they become teenagers and have some freedom and opportunity to begin making personal choices.
Most families do not support menu choices that deviate from their standard family fare.
Not until a person moves out of the home do most of the new choices take place.
Parents choices are also dictated by enviornmental factors. If you live in a remote area, a city, a university town, another country, or your home town, influences on your dietary habits will change.
College life can present new opportunites to make choices and be influenced by others with different habits, but generally speaking, there is no formal opportunity to learn about food and its affects on your life.
My own case is interesting. I went to college in Vermont with Julie, a long time high school best friend.
The support of a friend can be a wonderful thing. We roomed together in the dorm and ate at the cafeteria with friends. Two months into the first semester, I noticed I had gained almost 10 pounds.
We both agreed the starchy, fried fare was not what we were used to, so we purchased a hot plate and a small refrigerator. Now we were in charge of buying and preparing our own meals. This was new territory for both of us, but fun and challanging. Cooking in a dorm room, on the sly, is no easy task.
The following year we moved into an apartment in town and cooked the most wonderful meals and were never short of dinner guests, as college students love to eat. We moved again, into a house with another student. Michael was a healthy vegetarian. I had grown up to believe that vegetarians were pale, sickly, desperate people. Needless to say, vegetarianism was fun, easy and felt healthy. Many of my quirky digestive issues as a child, began to subside and eventually disappear. Being a vegetarian for the past 40 years has been the best choice for my dietary needs. I have learned to pay attention to my body's responses to food, digestion, energy, and my minds crazy desires to overturn the wisdom of self discipline and sordid need to self destruct. Everyone has eaten something they wish they hadn't. That's the self destructive demon that chooses short term pleasure over long term well being.
Staying healthy is quite the job in this world. And extremely important. Not only is getting sick miserable, it is expensive and you have to rely on doctors, nurses, aides, tests, friends, family, co workers, etc. who have to take control over your health and your life while you are down. No one really chooses to be sick, but when we make poor choices for ourselves, that's were we are headed. Do you want what you want or do you want what works?? If you chose what works, you end up on a road that takes you, ultimately to what you want...health.
Karen
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