"Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food" - Hippocrates. That is the message from the founding father of modern medicine.
In my efforts for not only me but my family to eat healthier, I ventured into the world of Whole Foods and Trader Joes this weekend. My decision to shop there is two-fold. One, for the reason I just stated; two, my 9 yr old son was diagnosed with ADD about a year and a half ago. I have never been super happy with having him on medication (which we only gave him during the school year) and we really weren’t seeing markedly improved results with what he was taking. Even after adjusting the dosage, we still weren’t thrilled with what we were seeing. Perhaps deep down it was the fact that I don’t like giving my kids medicine unless it is really, Really, REALLY necessary. After some research, I am going to try keeping him off medication and drastically altering our diet to see if eating as much organic, non-chemically treated, non processed foods as we can afford will have any effect on him. Even if this idea fails, we all will end up eating healthier foods so the way I see it, we win either way. Anyway, back to the grocery stores…
Finally!! Ingredients that I can pronounce! Meats that do not have hormones and fillers and colors added to them! Cereal that I don’t buy my kids begrudgingly! (Hell even if at $5/box I don’t feel the guilt of knowing I am essentially buying chemical laden crap for my kids to eat. I did feel the guilt of the price tag and how to explain that to my husband…) And fruits and veggies that are grown the way I would grow them, with no pesticides or chemicals added. This was fantastic! It will take some adjusting to phase out the junk currently in our kitchen but I think it’s going to be well worth it. Allow me to say that for about 3 years before I got married I didn’t eat ANY red meat, but then in a moment of sheer starvation I gave in to some ribs from Texas Roadhouse and it’s been all downhill from there with the meat (I remember that moment so clearly, where I was, what I was wearing, etc. Scary!). I’ve said to John several times recently that I would go vegetarian again if I weren’t the only one in the family that wanted to do so. John is a diehard meat eater….. He would eat only red meat if he were single. Ugh, I just dry heaved thinking about that.
Anywho…… so I went through Whole Foods with John last week before we actually needed to grocery shop so we could get an idea as to what we would be paying for food in the future. That way we weren’t so sticker shocked when it came time to put food on the table. Wow! It will be an adjustment to our budget but in my opinion well worth the sacrifice. As a parent I want to give my kids the best that I can, and so for us that includes spending a little extra on foods we feel good about. However an analogy that I thought of as we were walking through the store was (bear with me here, I will bring it all full circle so it makes sense) “This must be the way American companies must feel regarding labor costs.” Here’s my rationale- Over the past several years more and more American businesses have been either paying to have their companies moved overseas where the labor is cheaper, or paying for the cheaper labor here in the States (most often to illegal immigrants that they don’t have to report and who are willing to work for less than National minimum wage standards) so much so that it would be nearly financially impossible for them to take a moral stand and go back to hiring only employees who can be documented. Well, WE, the American consumer are those companies. We have become so accustomed to paying only $1.99/lb for boneless, skinless, hormone filled, processed chicken breast that the thought of paying $5.99/lb for chicken that isn’t filled with all those toxins is more than our budgets can withstand. Especially in this tight economy where almost 10% of Americans are out of work and an unaccounted for number of Americans have stopped looking for work altogether. So we continue to buy food devoid of much nutritional value because we can’t afford not to. Phew, deep breath! That was way deeper than I thought I would go!
I watched a documentary two weeks ago called ‘Food Matters’ on Netflix (http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp/View%20Film%20Online) which attempts to show us that “With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide 'sickness industry' and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.” (Excerpted from the website above). This film really has helped propel my line of thinking and validated some of the thoughts I have had for years. I am very excited to see how our bodies change as we begin to eat more healthily, especially as John & I train for this half marathon. A final analogy (I’m really big on those, it helps me understand things better): I wouldn’t put diesel fuel in my Toyota Camry because it would junk up the insides of my car and it wouldn’t run properly. Same with the food I chose to put in my body. This isn’t to say that I won’t have moments of weakness; a hot Krispy Kreme is a hot Krispy Kreme! So goodbye Cheese-Its, goodbye Capt Crunch, goodbye Doritos, and goodbye Coke (a cola)….. It’s been real. :)
