Food for Thought: Turtle Soup or Rabbit Stew???

(Dietary changes should be discussed with a health care provider.)

While my thoughts are often about food – all varieties of yummy food: healthy; savory; spicy; seasonal; local; ethnic food; even adventurous food -- they rarely venture toward turtle soup or rabbit stew, but we will return to that story in a moment.  Being new to “Local Voices”, please allow me to introduce the background & theme of “Food for Thought”.  As you may have already guessed, I love food; I love eating food, cooking food, studying food and reading about food.  I also love reading about and studying ways to restore health and to sustain current health.  Most interesting to me is where these topics overlap – and they overlap in a big way!

What you eat can prevent and in most cases also reverse: type II diabetes; gout; most obesity; non-genetic high cholesterol; high blood pressure & heart disease.  In some cases it can even prevent and help battle cancer.  If that is not reward enough, as mere side effects of healthy eating you may experience more energy, clearer skin, disappearance of digestive issues and decreased pain, and you may inadvertently help the environment.  It’s amazing that all of this can be achieved simply through eating – something I sometimes do half a dozen times in a day.

Does this sound too good to be true, or sound like too much work?  Is the whole process of eating healthfully just too daunting or too complicated because there are so many studies and so much information that indeed seem to contradict each other?  Then let “Food for Thought” be your food coach and cheering section, providing compiled information, occasional links to more detailed resources, very regular encouragement and manageable weekly tasks or mini challenges to help you develop or fine tune healthy eating habits.  It’s time to learn that you can be healthy food’s biggest fan.

Today’s title is a comment on the age-old story of The Tortoise & The Hare.  Are speedy shortcuts really the more effective path to our goal than slow and steady progress?  Through the weeks you will neither hear about a few super foods that will cure all your ills; nor will you hear about the evil thing that you need to give up which causes all your problems.  What you will hear a lot about is balance, moderation & variety.  It will become a sort of mantra.  Eating carbs, fats & sugars is against NO rules – indeed they are all necessary, but we will discuss the good carbs, good fats and good sugars in our food and discuss how to balance them with vegetables and protein and how to eat them in moderation and from a wide variety of sources.  (See there’s that balance, moderation & variety already poking its head out.)

Is there a little effort involved?  Yes, but it is easy when broken down into small regular steps week by week.  Is there un-measureable reward to be had?  Definitely! I hope that you will join me for the year in running your own nutritional study, peer reviewed by your doctor, with the one human test subject that matters – you.  What have you got to lose…  …a few pounds, a digit off your blood pressure, the chance to learn what a heart attack feels like first hand?

Even if you already are a healthy eater, I challenge you to take on the weekly tasks as a review, as a way to reinvigorate your excitement or as a way to help others by offering support or information in the comments.  Eating healthily can become a town-wide team effort.  Let’s band together and eat well -- in all senses of the word. 

CHALLENGE #1 of 50:

Ready… set… go… slowly.  We are not going to try a new food or tinker with a familiar recipe or give up junk food this week.  We are going to start by simply OBSERVING the starting line.

The first challenge is to read every ingredient of every food that you purchase or eat for one week.  Read every parenthetical whether it indicates an ingredient’s ingredients or an ingredient’s common name.  Please read every syllable of the long unfamiliar names as well.

We will actually repeat this challenge three times during the year.  Once when we are looking for the prevalence of some particular ingredients in many foods, once when we are looking for multiple versions of an ingredient hiding in one item and finally, near the end to again observe, but with a more trained eye.  Until then, enjoy your reading & your eating.

FYI: Ingredients are listed in order of quantity from greatest to least amount present.

PS Find yourself a healthy eating buddy because…

…who wants to eat alone.

…it will give you someone to talk to about what you are doing.

…it will give you more personalized support.

…you are much more likely to succeed together.