Garbage in, Garbage out
I am interested in health food, and eating healthy. There are a few contributors to this interest, and I have written on this subject before. The SPECIFIC spark to this blog entry comes from a young woman discussing a media-diagnosed disease; orthorexia, and her reaction to it.
I may never be as healthy as this woman (and people like her may hang their heads and say "that's a shame" but read the whole entry first!), but I am interested in that kind of diet, and I am behind not only her health-conscious eating decisions, but also her reaction to society's diagnosis.
If I may contribute to one of her comments, convenience food has been a huge contributor to the malnutrition of our society. One factor I know about is our magnesium deficiency. Far be it for me to not at least look something up before I blog it, I found a book "The Magnesium Factor" by Mildred S. Seelig and Andrea Rosanoff which talks about magnesium being refined out of our foods, and not being added back in in the remixing (yet another reason why processed foods are not good for you!) Magnesium deficiency means that you are more stressed, your muscles are not relaxed, you are at a higher risk for things like heart disease, and potentially even obesity.
When you eat foods out you can almost guarantee that they were made using refined flours and sugars; even the "healthy, whole wheat stuff". If it's not a specific organic/vegetarian/health food venue, their health food is mostly just advertising.
Now to the media, tell me that all your health food advertising isn't a "trend". Tell me that this explosion of awareness of health isn't purely a product of your marketing departments; the same departments that will advertise whole wheat on Tuesday, will advertise a cereal on Wednesday that, with 2-3% more sugar, could not be legally called cereal, but would instead need to be called candy.
Is it any wonder then that there are intelligent, health conscious people out there, who, even if they do not conduct the research themselves, and re invested in the research that takes place, and are interested in making more actively healthy decisions in the ways that they eat.
This week, I ate out a few times, actually more than I normally do. So let's go through that, so I a)don't pretend to be perfect, and b)prove that I am aware of myself and my eating habits. On Monday night I went for the first time to Live - at Spadina and Dupont. The food there was so good that it WILL be a repeat. And was that alcohol on the menu? Wow, if I wasn't going to class afterwards, I would have probably indulged, as the company was as good as the food!
On Thursday night, I went out to the Bombay Bhel, which has a fairly healthy menu, but it's not vegan, and no doubt they use white flour to make their naan.
On Friday for lunch and dinner I went out. On Friday, I was cornered into a meal, but I did not say no to it. I can't even write it down here, but needless to say, it was one of the corporate pimps of the food industry.
Ahem. On Friday night, I had broccoli and chicken, with some sort of sauce, and sticky rice at Spring Rolls, and a glass of wine.
So, I ranged from Live vegan valhalla, to food prostitution in a week. What a range!
Well before we met my stepdad, my Mother had cut beef and pork out of our diet. That was a health decision; not a religious one, but one day I had a hamburger, and shortly after threw up. It wasn't even worth it. It wasn't good. So, I do not eat beef ever, and I only ever eat pig on my pizza. But I do enjoy seafood and poultry, alcohol and coffee, chocolate and ice cream, but all in moderation. It's good to monitor what you eat. But then again, it would also be good if I had more walnuts and water! Oh well, nobody's perfect!
