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I got a little fired up the other day at the local grocery store in Maryland. I saw a mother teaching her preteen girl how to follow a chart guiding her to buy fat free cookies so she would loose weight. I took the short cut through the chemically processed aisle of packaged goods, or not so good actually, and was forced to pretend to scour the shelves as I listened to the dilemma of her choosing sugar free, fat free or added fiber. I do give her credit for trying and realizing that food matters, but where did human instinct take a U-turn and head toward eating charts and fake foods? If I would have passed her in the produce section teaching her real food I would get it and would not be inspired to write. The problem of her telling her kid about loosing weight and being skinny, when she was not near fat, is a good intro into a life time of body image issues, on top of just being food confused.
The crazy thing is we have to mush together charts, points, fat grams and calories in a secret equation that will catapult us into a lifetime of blissful skinniness or at least that is the grand scheme. I barely made it through math in school let alone keeping tabs on a numeric value of every morsel that goes into my body. Whats wrong with the idea of fresh, unprocessed, not made in a laboratory, from the Earth food? There is no reinventing the diet wheel with nature. The reason mother nature provided us with fruits, veggies, nuts etc, is because every different one has its own built in scientific equation designed to stave off illness, obesity and a grocery list of prescription pills. These are the real designer foods that do not require calculations, test tubes or constant frustration. Companies capitalize on you by choosing what they think you should eat while sitting around the board room table. Every time you shop you vote for that particular product, which in turn becomes more popular. Reconsider what you are voting for. No company is sitting around suggesting carrots and broccoli simply because they are not subsidized or massed produced such as corn and soy. Don't be fooled by fancy advertising and glamorous diet claims. Mother nature does not need all this sugar coating as instead of causing cancer and disease it fights it without us making one calculation.
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Bravo Louisa!
ReplyDeleteSo well put that we can't improve upon Mother Nature.
Interesting that the isles around the permieter of the super market are usually the natural foods ie, fruits, vegetables, dairy, etc. While the isles inbetween are mostly packaged, processed foods. Also the more expensive. Good comparison that natural, whole foods don't require ingredient labeling.
Absolutely! We are always trying to make things more complicated! Simple is best. I think some people think it is boring but if you have fresh fruits and veggies in their prime it's a real treat.Unfortunately there are no shortcuts. We can't trick our bodies by putting foreign substances in and calling it natural. Our bodies are smarter than we think.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points, Louisa and everyone. I had almost exactly the same experience not long ago -- saw and overheard a mom "counseling" her pre-teen daughter to go with the low-cal something or other. The girl was already plenty thin, and I, too, thought "What a way to start this girl on the road to life-long Body Issues." I'm surprised at how many of my 11-year-old daughter's friends are already concerned about calories and being "skinny." I've been lucky that my daughter is very active and knows when she's hungry and when she's not and just eats accordingly. I need to be better, though, at encouraging her tastes for fresh fruits and veggies as opposed to packaged foods. I don't always set the best example (still some very old habits I've yet to break).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks, Louisa, for serving as a role model (pun only marginally intended ;-) ) and for the website, blog, and reminders.