The Advocacy of Health Food

I love food. I love all kinds of food, and I am not one to pass up a great food opportunity. But in making my own choices and developing my own tastes, I have transformed my entire food mentality.

I was raised on home-cooked meals and I continue to cook at home today. It was rare for us to splurge on take-out, and we actually made a family ordeal out of cooking dinner and doing the dishes. There were five of us, so we each took a night of the week and cooked for the rest of the family. I remember the first time my night came to cook, and my brothers will not let me forget it. I thought it would be a great idea to take these hard, little breadsticks and melt cheese over them. Little to my knowledge at the time, breadsticks are not a meal by any means-- especially for a family of five. ESPECIALLY the kind of breadsticks that these were.. they came in a huge plastic bag and they were almost meant to be used as a crunchy salad addition. So basically, croutons for dinner. I was (still am) much of an inventor of sorts, and would always have a vision in my head to work towards, even in the kitchen. I have NO IDEA the vision I had in mind that night, all I know is that we ended up not having breadsticks for dinner. And BTW- humor was common-place in the house, so this was one of many scenarios that we will not let each other forget.

While growing up, we never had many sweets in the house. We would have a pack of cookies here or there, or a half-gallon of ice-cream on the weekend. But desserts and overly sweet foods were not often seen in our house. When I began developing into the young woman I would eventually become, I also began to eat less healthy and less at home. I also gained weight and was like the many awkwardly developing teens with low self-esteem. I attribute a lot of my weight gain and non-food-sense to the addictive qualities of soda. It's soo tasty, yet, so unhealthy. But as the human tendency is to indulge oneself, I drank entirely too much pop. The moment I decided to drop some pounds was after seeing a picture of myself at my 8th grade graduation party. My brother had just graduated from high school and I was on my way IN to high school. We had a double celebration in the month of June and invited all of our friends and family. My mom baked cupcake-cakes for both of us, and I helped decorate the two cakes with various icings and sprinkles. The moment came when my mom wanted to take a picture of us holding our pretty cakes, so we sat on the couch and gave our best shit-eating grin that we could; I was gonna EAT that cake! The result: mom had the pictures developed and my thighs/arms were the only things I could see beyond the colorful cake the sat in my lap. I. WAS. A. FATTY. I vowed to lose weight, and I began exercising and cutting things out of my diet- most importantly, soda. I lost 30lbs in a couple months, and I've since then grown into my body and slimmed down to an acceptable size. I am by no means "skinny" but I am thin, squishy, flixible, and happy. I figure, as long as I'm flexible and squishy, my body is more able to adapt to the ever-changing environmental conditions.

Two years into college I dated this guy who had been around the block a couple dozen times and was also very knowledgable of vegetarian/vegan diets. He taught me about the dangers of hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup, and the benefits of eating foods with the fewest ingredients. I became an avid label reader and tried to avoid all foods with the bad oils and corn syrups, and tried to eat more foods with very basic ingredients. We lived together for about 8 months and I have to say that they were the most influential 8 months of my life. It transformed my entire mentality about the food industry, and I was able to draw linkages between the food market and societal issues, especially those related to human health. I swore off fast-food, soda, companies with monopolistic tendencies, giant restaurant chains, and commercial food.

I also learned the value of a dollar and what it means beyond having the ability to spend it. He said in a very profound statement, "you vote with your dollar." Well, he had to explain exactly what he meant and he was absolutely right. My dollar has the ability to tell one company that I support what they do, what they sell, where they're located, how they treat their customers/employees, and their over-all business in that particular economy. By giving one company my dollar, I am telling them that I agree with their moral practices and that they should continue to do what they do.

In learning the value of my hard-earned dollar, I began buying/eating organic and all-natural foods ONLY. I read up on organic agriculture and how its practices are largely monitored and kept in-check. The labels are even different, in that they try to sell the benefits of the product and not just the product itself. A misconception about organic food is that it lacks good flavor. There are SOME all-natural foods that I won't eat because they are very lax in the flavor department, but I would argue that the majority organic/all-natural foods taste better than commercial foods. It does take some time to get used to and a time of transition is to be expected. Like any diet, you can't just dive in and expect results the next day. You have to give yourself time to get used to the diet and knowing someone who has already gone through the transition helps a lot, too. Someone who has no idea about organic food will have a hard time finding things that taste really good. Of course, you have to do it by trial and error to see what real flavors you DO enjoy.

There is another group of foods that I avoid, and that's the reduced fat/low-cal/low-sodium/fat free foods. Just because the labels says it's "fat-free" doesn't mean they didn't put other chemicals in there to make it "fat-free." Here's a great article about these foods and the reasons they are actually very bad for your over-all health.

I could go on and on about proper health because it's a very important aspect of my life. And I think a lot of people avoid peoper health tips because they believe they have to make a major life-change. From my own experience, it has changed my life and has given me a more optimistic approach to my future. I'm 22 years old, and I eat healthier than 70% of Americans. Now, this is not to say I don't eat a LOT, because I do. That's just because organic food tastes SOO good.