Life is an incredible gift, one I fear that not enough of us appreciate. I certainly don't think I do.
We wake up, blindly struggle through the morning routine of shower, coffee, news, drive to work, and then slave away at at a job we hate before coming home to friends, family, pet, or the aloneness that we've created for ourselves.
We make dinner and zone out in front of TV or the Internet, or a game, and don't really think about the world around us, or the stunning gift of our own bodies that allow us to follow this mindless routine day after day.
Without you even thinking about it your body sustains your existence. It takes in air, oxygen, just by itself, it takes the nutrients out of food and turns them into the energy you need to function. it helps you learn that touching hot things is bad, and the freezing salt water is not fun to play in.
It is capable of so much, and so many of us do nothing with it.
We don't test it, or train it, or help sustain it by treating it with kindness and respect.
We feed it salt laden, sugar laden, fat laden, chemical laden, genetically modified foods that really couldn't be considered food by any sane person.
I'm so guilty of this.
Every meal I ate, for a whole week two weeks ago, was in some way processed. Refined white flour, processed fat reduced salami, cured prosciutto which is heavy with tasty tasty salt, processed cheese, meat from cows that were most certainly not raised ethically.
And I guess the worst bit is that while we do it, poison our bodies, we don't really think about it. We enjoy food, as we should, because it's wonderful and sustains us, but we maybe shouldn't consume so much, and so many things that our poor bodies aren't designed to deal with.
I very much doubt that I'll stop eating pizza, or cake, and you'll have to pry my flat white from my cold dead hands, but I am going to try to be more aware of what I'm putting into my body.
I'm going to buy more regional fresh produce grown by people that don't cover things in chemicals. I'm going to buy free range meats so at least my steak had a good life before it became steak. I'm going to try eating fruits a d vegetables. And eating at a table concentrating on this wonderful fuel that is going to sustain me from day to day.
We, society, have become sinfully indulgent in our constant search for happiness and gratification, and I'm terrible ashamed of how much I contribute to that description.
Time to be more better at this thing called life.
Onwards and upwards my friends, let us embrace being better people to prove humanity is not a lost cause.
Ps. Just read this over, sorry about the typos and pretentious twaddle, it's been a very tiring confronting week.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. My wife was (more or less) a vegetarian when she first moved up here. However, she almost fainted when she saw the price of vegetables let alone "locally grown/organic" ones. I think a lot of people would like to eat better/healthier but when "processed" foods cost so much less, it's kind of hard to get their head around spending more for less, especially when they're on a tight budget.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same here. Organic produce is twice that of mainstream produce, free range or organic meat cost more than that of animals stuck in a cage their whole life.
ReplyDeleteI've always been aware of how bad the treatment was, and how bad all the chemicals are, but I've never really been that motivated to make the change. I have a level of motivation now. Still pisses me off having to pay not to have chemicals forced on me against my choice.
Much like corn in America, I suppose.