Reading cookbooks part II - Healthy eating

Andrea of Quietfish has written a blurb in her blog called Promoting a healthy body image in young girls. It is an important message even for those of us who are raising boys. After all, Mommy is a girl. And the boys will most likely have a girlfriend at some point, no?

Coming originally from a European background where healthy eating is (was?) the norm and not labeled "healthy" per say, I found it fascinating and to some degree irritating as a teenager and young adult that people my age were drinking diet coke for breakfast and visiting fast-food joints on a regular basis and calling it their favorite food.

In University during the late 80s and early 90s, I drank diet coke because all the girls drank diet coke. I didn't even like it! But back then, it was the in-thing to do. (I'm not like that anymore).

Today, we grow our own veggies in a little plot at the back of the house.

Offer someone who claims that Wendy's or KFC is their favorite food a sun-drenched tomato harvested seconds prior to eating it and see if you can convert them. (If you live in Canada you may have to wait till next September to do that).

Is it me or is counting calories, or points, unnatural? I have heard from many people that Weight Watchers works, but that in itself is a lifestyle choice too. If you have to weigh food and consult a chart, and make that as part of your lifestyle, why not just pick fresh food, and on that topic, ask questions about how the food was raised or grown, and make that your lifestyle?

There is someone I know casually who has successfully (not!) tried Weight Watches over many years, AND KEEPS GOING BACK THERE WHEN SHE GAINS THE WEIGHT BACK. Maybe this system works for some people, and if so, all the power to them, but I still think it's unnatural to weigh food.

Eating healthy seems so simple to me.

But I know it's not for some people.

If you grew up with packaged convenience foods, whose shelf life would survive a nuclear war, well, a whole new approach to food must be considered in order to make healthier choices.

You could start by reading Fast Food Nation, French Women don't get fat, or any number of Whole Food type cookbooks out there (go to the library and borrow a book if you participate in the contest of not spending frivolously, or visit some of my recommendations and spend a half hour at a bookstore), and see if you can take one step in the direction of eating right and making healthy choices.

You will feel better.

You will learn to enjoy cooking if you don't already.

And you will be amazed how disgusting a Big Mac really tastes after you've had an opportunity to eat an organically grown hamburger, topped with home grown (or farmer's market) veggies and few, if any, prepared condiments.

And on that note, I must have lunch right now.