I recently watched a documentary called “Food Matters”. The film argues for more vitamins, less drugs, better food. The “pill for every ill” mantra is one I’m guilty of ignorantly adopting. Not that a pop a ton of pills, I just trust that whatever the doctor gives me will be good stuff. One doctor in this film is not arguing that pills are wrong, but that the benefits of wholly natural vitamins should not go unnoticed.
Onto food…one illustration a commentator makes in Food Matters is society’s willingness to spend absurd amounts of money on cars, houses, clothes, home decor, but we tend to skimp on nutrition. Matt and I eat a ton of fruit and vegetables. Produce is expensive…and then you hear that some of it is irreversibly doomed by pesticides, or that fruit has no nutritional benefit when consumed at the end of a meal…have you heard that? So if I am planning on having an apple for dessert I may as well have ice cream? I do not buy it (the idea, I do buy apples AND ice cream)! But yes, we do buy a lot of things that are the more expensive alternative in the grocery store. Eggs…this one’s tough for me. But after reading this WSJ article: Recipe for the Perfect Egg I realized I do care about the chickens who lay the eggs I eat for breakfast! Not that I am passionate about them having a thriving social life as they frolic around the open range, but I do care what they eat. Their diet inevitably makes it’s way into what I eat! So I do buy eggs from happy birds. I no longer buy meat with any percentage of “solution.” Companies are going to need to stop using that word on their labels…it just makes the consumable sound like a lab experiment. Let’s see how long this can preserve the caramel color of this pack of deli meet sliced in 1994….
Another disconcerting part of the documentary pointed out how most doctors know very little about nutrition. Doesn’t this seem backwards? If there are certain diets that could be helping someone live more fully with a terminal illness or if doctors knew some medicinal foods to try prior to becoming dependent on a drug, wouldn’t that make sense? I know hospitals have dieticians, but the doctor is the one who prescribes and if he or she doesn’t know something may help, why would they prescribe that before drugs?
All of this has motivated me to deepen my nutritional knowledge. I think I know more than the average Joe, because of my swimming background, but there’s so much I do not know. I registered for a nutrition for health class on coursera.com (free online classed brought to you by respected universities). It starts next week. Will let you know more as I become nutritionally enlightened!
