One final post (although I wish I could do many more!) on the book we’ve been talking about, In Praise of Slowness. This book is so rich in wisdom, in inspiration, and is just so darn well-written (and currently still $6 on Amazon) I seriously can’t recommend it enough. It has done for me what Seth Godin’s work did for me five or six years ago – it adds a “lens” through which I view how I live part of my life out.
In a chapter on food, we learn that the true meaning of the word “companion” is “sharing bread with someone”…and if you go back and look through the responses of our survey on food, you’ll notice a few people wish to slow down and simply share a meal with family or friends.
That makes total sense. How often do you hear, “Gosh, I wish that dinner was so much shorter. I hated every minute of the food, the company, the conversation…” Instead, when you have these slower-paced dinners, or even a meal out with friends, the time flies, and you’ve suddenly found yourself at that table for three hours.
And you want more of that.
Another large theme was simply eating healthier. Going more local/natural, etc. A common excuse for this is money, and at first glance, sometimes it seems like you pay a lot more going to Whole Foods for a lot less food, than if you went to Wal-Mart (who yes, may carry organic food — but I avoid for other reasons) or Kroger.
We all know, for the most part, the quality of the Whole Foods-ish products is better, is fair-trade, not made by an eight year old in a sugar field, and more than likely is organic. If you’ve been to a Farmer’s Market, you know some things (meats, pastas, sauces, cheeses) can be a bit pricey.
So why pay $16/lb for some steak at your Farmer’s Market when you can get it for half that at Wal-Mart?
The obvious answer is quality. I could literally drive to the farm I get my meat from at the Farmer’s Market and see how it’s made from start to finish. I actually plan on doing this later this summer. If you’ve ever seen Fast Food Nation or Supersize Me (free on Hulu) or The Future of Food (free on Hulu) or any of the other food-advocate type movies, you see the terrible way most food in most supermarkets or chain stores is grown, what pesticides and preservatives are on them, what hidden salts, sugars, syrups, and chemicals they’re laced with, how the animals are given steroids and treated, where your fast food really comes from and what it does, and the way that all of this is disguised to the public.
I am NOT a conspiracy theorist. But since I have been paying a little more for quality food, it’s amazing how I feel. And I also realize with the amount of eating out I was doing: a $6 bag of Farmer’s Market pasta that will make eight servings is still less than one value meal at Chick-fil-A.
We don’t mind paying for convenience. That’s the way our culture of busyness has been tricked into thinking healthy things are expensive while we are actually paying so much more for so much less every time we eat out.
Totally perspective.
Organic produce, or any produce you can trace back to its origins (and not have to worry if the same chemical they use to make Agent Orange is the pesticide they sprayed on your lettuce) is fairly inexpensive. Buy a few tomatoes, add some herbs, simmer them up, and all of the sudden you have fresh, organic tomato sauce for $2-3 instead of paying $6-12 for the organic kind in a jar. That’s just one example of something you can make that’s less expensive, and better for you, than getting something in a bright colored jar.
I have decided to stick to the following rules when it comes to food. Exceptions are always made. Nobody can pull this off perfectly, but the exceptions to the rules are few and far between.
- Know where the food came from
- Read the ingredients
- Craving XYZ restaurant? How can we make this at home for less?
- PLAN AHEAD and shop according to that plan
- Just stay away from the processed stuff.
- Buy local when possible (especially produce and meat!)
- If at all possible, use the oven or stove and not the microwave, even though it takes longer.
Cooking takes time. And energy. And some days you don’t have that energy. But what can be adjusted in your schedule so you have an hour set aside to cook? Or can you spend a couple hours one night, or on a weekend cooking ahead of time so you have something healthy already to go on the days when life is crazy.
The affordability issue — for most people — ourselves included — is a priority thing. A family will typically spend more money on entertainment or things like cell phone bills than they do on food. Buying cheap food now may seem like the answer, but with all those strange chemicals racing around in our bodies, it won’t be the answer in the long run when someone has to get treated for obesity related diseases, or because of all the chemicals we’ve slowly been ingesting.
It’s important to think about the long-term effects this will have on us, our children (who have a shorter life-expectancy than we do…!) instead of the short-term fix of a quick meal in front of the TV before we rush off to doing something that in reality, may not be as important that sharing healthy food, and celebrating that element of creation and nature, with the people we’ve been given in life.