ON THE ROAD TO HEALTHY FOOD

I want to take you on an adventure: an adventure in Food.

If Food is one of three pillars of maintaining life, along with Shelter, and (Sex and the City fans will love this one) Clothing upon which the rest of human civilization is built, then it deserves our utmost respect. After all, as a pillar it is helping to hold up everything else, such as the leisure to gain knowledge, the leisure to create lasting bonds with others, the leisure to have leisure. If we hadn’t figured out how to clothe and shelter ourselves and how to produce food and store it all those tens of thousands of years ago, we wouldn’t have a lot of time to get curious about other planets, or how the earth spins, or to write sonnets or symphonies, or to invent the stiletto heel. Food deserves to be given a place of honor in our lives.

Our adventure in Food is going to include investigations of how we grow food, how we process food, how we cook food, even how we dispose of food. We may get waylaid on the road by current events, occasionally, but whatever we talk about, it will all eventually end up back at the three pillars, creating a rich fabric of appreciation for Food—and Shelter and Clothing. Now, by Food, let me make clear that I am talking about Healthy Food.

What is Healthy Food? Is it the bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes that the television ads tell you to feed your kids for an afternoon snack? Is it Sunny Dee, fortified with vitamins B1 and C, and Yellow Dyes no 5 and 6? Is Healthy Eating having soy yogurt for breakfast, a Macdonald’s salad for lunch, and Slim Options frozen meal heated in your home microwave for dinner? Is it the ingestion of several types of supplements every day? With obesity, diabetes, heart disease and strokes on the rise, as well as a demon’s own closet full of other debilitating diseases, we would be wise to pick out the truth from the tangle of information and misinformation we get on the subject of Food.

I propose that Healthy Food is any food that does your body a great deal more good than it does it harm. More foods than you might imagine do us harm, because of the way they are grown and processed. The discovery of those foods and how to recognize them will be part of our adventure. The discovery of Healthy Foods and how to recognize them also will be part of our adventure.

More than just doing the eater of the food more good than harm, I think that Healthy Food should also do no harm to the farmer who grows it and to the planet that it is grown on. On our adventure, we will also consider this, and get to view what effects Industrial farming are having on people and the world. We will also explore the various alternative methods of farming that can help to cure some of the ills that Industrial farming have visited upon our fellow humans and the Earth.

If you are thinking that something healthy in the way of food would be a fine thing right now, try an organic orange. Take one that is firm with no hint of green. Peel back the bright orange rind, exposing the fruit’s firm white pith and bodacious fulsome segments: take your time dividing it. As you bite down on the first section enjoy the sudden explosion of flavor that pounces on your tongue and springs over the sides of your molars; let the juicy sweetness trickle down your throat. You will be treating yourself to a healthy dose of vitamins C and B1 and enzymes, that will give your body more than just a taste treat. Warning, don’t try this with non-organic oranges. There is severe danger of being disappointed.

Join me on the road to Healthy Food every month. Namaste