Reflections of…The way life used to be…

The past few weeks have been an adventure of sorts for me.  Bluntly, I didn’t want to take any nutrition classes…at all…no not one….To put this in context I must take you to my not so distant past.  I have several degrees, two of which directly relate to food—Restaurant Management and Culinary Arts.  I enjoyed the theory of working in culinary, not the fact.  When I started in the kitchens of some of the top restaurants in the country I was the only, and I do mean only FEMALE in kitchens with 48 men at times.  In a word…it was AWFUL!!  I hated going to work, I hated the fact that sexual harassment was like breathing for some of those guys—gifted but wrapped in mentality in my opinion but that’s a blog for another day.

My hate of restaurants and cooking in large amounts transferred to learning anything about food other than reading a recipe to cook something.  So when I enrolled at SWIHA and found out that I had to take nutrition, I was a little less than happy shall we say.  But I can honestly say now looking back over the past 12 weeks that my view has changed, and in truth in my book that is the biggest change of all.

I have always eating healthy per se, ok, I clearly have a sugar addition but did you read the part where I was a chef…uh baking and pastry—classically trained….The addiction aside, my diet has been healthy—by a skewed standard I have come to learn.  I was one of those people who trusted that when it said USDA certified organic that it really was before I took this class.  I now know to read labels not on the fly in the store but to really read a label, to think through my dinners before I cook them and to budget to purchase the best available organic when I can.

I’d like to profess some magical over night transformation but alas that would be a lie and you are truth filled people so I must be truthful—“I’m not a role model” is how Charles Barkley put it. I am a real person, a wife, a mom, a business owner, a student, a friend and all that and then some.  In the end my children will have more varieties of foods in their diets and healthier snacking options than the children at their schools.  They will know to choose fruit over candy and whole oats over instant oats and when they say “Thank you Mommy” when I hand them sugar free organic pop tarts then I know I learned something and that in the end is truly the most important thing of all.   Thanks Dr. H.

The Highway to Mineralville...Deserted and littered with Junkfood

 Changes in transportation methods have impacted our lives on more levels than the obvious.  The advent of the transcontinental highway through the United States has lead to the movement and settlement of the western half of the US, but it has also allowed for the shipping of goods such as meats and vegetables to be transported thousands of miles from their point of actual origination.  As a result the demand for goods has gone up leading to the shortened growing season and the year round confinement of some animals.  In the end, it is the “microwave generations” need for perpetual instant gratification that has forced the artificial speed up in the growing cycle resulting in an un-natural growing and harvesting seasonal dynamic to perpetuate.  When things are not allowed to follow their natural growing cycle then they are “stunted” in the process and therefore do not develop the level of nutritional content they are designed to have. 

One of the main health problems due to a lack of proper mineral content in food is the rise in obesity levels, in particular, among school age children.  While it is good to applaud what the current occupants of the White House want to do with respect to improvements for school lunches, the reality is that unless we have a complete cultural identity change from a nation of consume it now ask questions later,  then a single meal will not have the level of impact that it needs to when the message is not reinforced at home or via the airwaves.

Feeling Less then Inspired?

Feeling less than inspired means that you are working to hard to "make" things happen and nothings happening as a result.  Sometimes as nerve racking and annoying as it sounds, you really do have to let go and let the process work.

Journaling about food....

I've been monitoring my food intake for the past 10 weeks, some weeks more closely than others, but hey who's perfect.... At any rate the portrait of my food habits that has emerged is that I am a stress eater...I didn't have a doctor diagnose me....but I can see the days/weeks where I was very stressed and the effects on my eating habits.  This week at work we experiecned a full system failure--that's a crash for the non-technical but capable....and if you are not either, basically it was a full scale "f"-up beyond all reason and recognition.  So day one it was some low-fat pretzels by day three of this spiral into techno-hell it was a Three Musketeer by day 5 it was a Dr Pepper, a Three Musketeer and some Baked Lays potato chips (had to pretend I was being healthy).

In the end, if I ate a vitamin or mineral last week it was a complete accident....bummer.....

So this could all be bad news but it's really not. Why?  Because I now know conclusively that I am a stress eater and I know that if I do other things to control/deal with my stress I will overcome this "dis-ease" within. And that is a really good thing....oh...the system...it's fixed--lots of tape, band-aides and crazy glue but everyone will log on on Monday and be glad and not thank the techies that worked ridiculous hours and ate horrible food...but they will be happy and that's what's important....right?