137 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
137 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: Deciding who you are by what you eat.
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tags:
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- food
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- garden
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- opinion
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---
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Living in Northern California has taught me many valuable lessons, but perhaps
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the most fundamental has been to appreciate high quality food. This
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appreciation was further enhanced when I started a garden, and began to savor
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freshly grown, vine-ripened, fruits and vegetables. Providing a strong
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counter-example, my travels to areas without great access to either fresh
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ingredients or strong culinary culture (strip malls, strip malls everywhere),
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usually results in a change in my own well-being. An upset stomach really
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hammers home the importance of high-quality food.
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On some trips I find myself feeling lethargic, queasy, bloated, or otherwise
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unpleasant, and on a number of occasions I was able to trace the symptoms back
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to some sub-par meal or series of meals. I find myself most affected by heavily
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processed foods, those high in salt, sugars, oils or all three.
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To borrow a simple phrase, often used in the software industry::
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"_garbage in, garbage out_."
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Another truism, much more broadly recognizable, would be: "you are what you eat."
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---
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Last November I began an experiment, partly driven by the importance of food to
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my energy level and mental health, and partly by curiosity: I started to eat
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**vegetarian**.
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I should make an note here, this was not a moral choice and I
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honestly don't give a hoot what you eat or why, so long as you're eating the
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best food available to you.
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In the first month or two of my experiment, a number of things became apparent to me:
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* Thanksgiving involves far more potatoes when you eat vegetarian.
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* I felt much more limber. It's hard to describe it exactly, I didn't
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immediately become that much more flexible, but I did feel like my body moved
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more smoothly. My theory is that the inflammation which is often
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accompanied by heavy red meat diets went down.
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* I had to re-learn much of what I knew about cooking and organizing meals.
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Prior to the experiment my meals typically revolved around the filet or some
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other piece of meat, and everything else was secondary. With vegetables as
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the center piece, I needed to learn how to handle potatoes, broccoli,
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peppers, and grains in a much more interesting manner than I had previously
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prepared them.
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Some months after I started eating vegetarian, I also stopped drinking caffeine
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as well. With these two habits combined I started to sleep better than I can
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remember in my adult life, and have found that I'm able to sustain a strong
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energy level throughout the day provided I'm keeping myself fed properly.
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It turns out, unsurprisingly, that "garbage in, garbage out" has an inverse
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property. Imagining my own body as the vehicle which propels my mind, I have
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been making changes with the intent of allowing the vehicle to run as smoothly
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and durably as possible.
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---
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Of course, good food is **expensive** and not everybody has the means, or access,
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that I have to the ingredients which are readily available in Northern
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California.
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The rationale for my food purchases is still applicable regardless of where you
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are, and I believe it will still result in a healthier lifestyle, regardless of
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whether you're vegetarian or not.
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### Raw Ingredients
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First and foremost I believe that purchasing ingredients rather than finished
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processed foods, which in the US tend to be very high in salt or sugar. The
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preservative content of processed foods aside, I simply think that they're not
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that flavorful. They seem to be primarily optimized for shelf life and end up
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using "taste hacks" like over-salting, sugaring, or including significant oil
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or butter content to dupe our monkey-brains into believing that it's a "good"
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meal.
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I'm not severely dogmatic on the subject however; I still enjoy milk and oreos
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with some frequency. My monkey-brain likes some junk too, but generally try to
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avoid eating processed meals-in-a-box.
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### Local First
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Everywhere humans exist, there is some form of local agriculture. Whether it's
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animal husbandry or cultivation of crops. The benefits of prioritizing local
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ingredients first, in my opinion, is that you're much more likely to get
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something _fresh_ and of high quality.
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If you consider a tomato shipped to the United States from Chile, for example.
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It is picked before it is ripe, cold packed, and then trucked or flown to the
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supermarket where it's ripening process is kick-started once again before you
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purchase the product. Contrasted to a locally grown tomato, which is picked
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_much_ closer to the natural ripeness date, allowing the plant to develop a much
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sweeter flavor.
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In the case of meats, freshly butchered meat, especially from a smaller producer,
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has in my experience resulted in much more flavorful cuts than large-scale
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industrialized meat packing. Additionally, I have found the cuts tend to be
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more generous and well-marbled when they come from smaller local producers. This of course
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could be an artifact of the types of small producers in Northern California, but I would
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hazard a guess that the proud family ranchers across the country take much more
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pride in their work than a multi-national MeatCo.
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### Organic
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Perhaps surprisingly I prioritize organic foods last. Organic producers, in my
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experience, seem to worry less about the shelf-life or look of a piece of
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produce, and instead prioritize taste or ethos above all else. That's not to
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say organic produce is ugly, usually quite to the contrary, but it doesn't seem
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to be as uniformally "perfect looking" as conventional industrialized produce
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which has a different value system to their products.
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While I tend to prefer to purchase organic foods, mostly because I find them to
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taste better, I will take a conventionally-but-locally-grown product over an
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organic product grown overseas.
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---
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Barring those who live in food deserts, I believe that most Americans should
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have access to reasonably priced raw ingredients, whether local, organic, or
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conventional. What most Americans do _not_ seem to have is the appreciation
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that food can have such a fundamental impact on our physical and mental health.
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This, to me, is especially frustrating. Providing oneself with quality food is
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a simple, yet often overlooked, aspect of self-care.
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We are all worthy a good meal.
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