Let thy food be thy medicine

Many people who know me know that I'm a bit of a foodie. I absolutely adore cooking anything and everything (especially when it involves chocolate), eating whatever is set in front of me, and,most importantly, eating the things I cook. There's just something about filling the air with savory spices and pungent odors that represent the wonderful meal you're about to consume.

 Lately, my passion for food and cooking has led me to watch a lot of food documentaries on Netflix. One of them, Forks Over Knives, made a huge impression on me and totally changed how I see food. In essence, this documentary is about the concept of a whole foods, non-meat diet. Using a combination of science and statistics, the film seeks to prove that eating less processed food and animal products would not only cut down on the obesity epidemic in this country, but also help to retard or eliminate many other diseases, including liver cancer. Furthermore, even those people who do not have a particular devastating disease are so jacked up on caffeinated beverages, sugar, and various medications that they are masking their chronic fatigue and general lack of health.

I know it sounds crazy, but a person's diet can radically influence their health, in more ways than just controlling their weight. Think about it: the food you consume is the fuel your body runs on. If you put diesel in a non-diesel car, it more than likely will kill the engine. If you put crap food into your body, then it probably won't perform well. This concept has been known and understood for a while. Hippocrates, the founder of modern medicine, even said "Let thy food be thy medicine."

 What concerns me is the fact that people don't take this seriously, even with the abysmal health statistics we have in this country today. A quarter of all four year-olds in this country are obese. Doesn't that raise a red flag for you?

Take my co-op for example. I work on a team of nine software developers. Other than me, there are only two other people that I can think of that actually like to eat vegetables. One of my coworkers even makes fun of my daily snacks of fresh veggies when I bring them into meetings. Apparently, they all taste like grass. All of us are overweight, and the people who are older have more than their fair share of health problems; one person even misses more work than not for various doctor's appointments. All of them are also addicted to caffeine to get through the day, many needing multiple cups of coffee or cans of soda to wake up and be productive.

I don't understand this mentality. Yes, food that's crappy for you tastes delicious, like cookies and chocolate and chocolate cookies. But, at the same time, food is your body's fuel. It's what makes it possible for you to live, move, and exist. The better you fuel your body, the better you feel and the less you'll have issues. I know this from experience.

When I was at school in the winter, I was basically eating crappy food most of the time. It was easier to get, cheaper, and just there. I was kind of sluggish, stressed, and not in the best mental state, if you know what I mean. Then, when I got on work term, I was able to buy my own groceries and cook all the time. I started eating a lot more fruits and vegetables, cut way down on the junk, and started exercising. And, it was like a miracle: I felt so, so much better. I had energy up the wazoo, I was losing weight, and I finally didn't want to sleep the day away. In fact, I started getting up early! I felt so mentally and physically wonderful that I couldn't believe it.

I admit, I started getting a little fanatical about eating healthy. I wouldn't buy or eat junk food, and I even decided to not eat processed foods for a week. Yeah. That didn't end too well. I broke down on day 3 and made myself a tuna fish sandwich. It was fantastic.

It was that moment that I came to a conclusion: food is all about moderation. It's okay to have junk food every now and then, as long as healthy, fresh foods are the staple of your diet. I'm not obese or severely ill, so I don't need to restrict myself to only eating healthily. I still can enjoy my favorite junk foods, like the oatmeal raisin whoopee pies I got today at the farmer's market (gosh... oatmeal raisin is AMAZING!!!). But I also mostly eat healthy things, like spinach, sunflower seeds, lots of fruits and vegetables and healthy proteins (read: no red meat). And it's worked for me. There's so much deliciousness that I don't feel deprived, but I still feel wicked healthy and happy. That's amazing to me.

So why can't the majority of our country see this? We spend more money of health insurance and medical bills than any other country in the world, and yet we don't take the time to take care of ourselves properly. If people ate healthier and just took better care of themselves, we as a society would not have the current obesity epidemic. But no. Our society is full of McDonald's and Burger King, fast food havens that give you a day's worth of calories with basically no nutritional value. Our society has break rooms like ours, where caffeine and junk food snacks are the norm and only option. And until our society wakes up, realizes that they can live healthily and still be happy, and demands something else, nothing is going to change.

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Note: You all should watch Forks Over Knives. It's on Netflix, and totally worth the hour and a half of your time to watch it.

Another Note: Anyone interesting in making a cooking club back on campus? Once a week, we'd make healthy food in the dorm kitchens, showing people how to make healthy, delicious food and better life choices while they are back at school.

One Last Note: Thanks for reading!