I was teaching a cooking class at a local food pantry this week. The audience was great and we chatted as I worked through three recipes. Topics ranged from seasonality to food quality, and I talked about the lure of convenience that has stolen our health. I often say that we sold our health at the altar of convenience.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot today. Convenience isn’t a bad thing, right?
We all want it. I do.
I am a busy working woman and sometimes the what’s for dinner question is the last straw for me after a day of decision fatigue and frantic rushing. Heck, sometimes the what can I feed myself for lunch question is more than I want to deal with. I want it to be easy, tasty, and cheap.
The appeal of the fast food meal, restaurant trip, frozen meal, pizza delivery, and the like is real…very real.
More and more people are recognizing that our society’s no-questions-asked embrace of convenience-first food is taking a toll on us. As a nutrition professional, I know how big a toll. It’s likely a lot bigger than you think. There are still plenty of people in denial that better food makes a huge difference, but I believe that on some level we all instinctively know this essential truth:
Our health, the quality of our food, and the state of our planet are all interconnected.
We know this. You know this. Deep down this is just understood. The best choice when it comes to food honors those three things–our body, the food itself, and the planet. We know the fast food burger fails on all three levels. We know that the Lunchable is not the best choice for our kid’s lunch. We know.
We know.
Sure, I teach clients all the facts about just how bad our convenience food culture is and how profound a difference real food makes. I share my own story of healing with food. As I work with them, they experience it themselves. I see the jaws drop and the light bulbs go on. That’s important. Really understanding the problem gives you motivation and the resilience needed to keep getting and doing better.
But as soon as we really sit with this truth about food quality MATTERING, we get overwhelmed. Why? Because that’s when the rubber hits the road. It’s the ok, I get it but what the heck am I going to do about it moment and we get easily scared off here. Why? Because:
- We don’t know what to do. Truly, we don’t have the skills needed.
- We don’t want this eating better stuff to be a full-time job and be horribly inconvenient.
This is the clash between traditional wisdom and modern convenience.
Why don’t we know how to care for our bodies with food? Because we ran gleefully toward convenience without looking back. Skills that were handed down in families are now long forgotten. What we are surrounded with becomes our normal. Next time you are in the grocery store, look around, the norm is pretty scary.
Traditional food wisdom is the knowing how to cook from scratch, grow your own, preserve a harvest, make a healing broth, etc. It’s what our great-great-grandparents knew about food before processed food took over our lives. It’s about eating a diverse amount of whole, real foods. Individually and societally, I see people taking that knowledge and power back. It’s a beautiful thing. I urge you to dip your toes in this old but new again knowledge base.
Traditional food ways are also hands-on, knowledge dependent, require organization, and can demand significant amounts of time.
You may or may not be interested in them or feel like you can even take them on.
I’m here to tell you there’s a middle ground. I live in it and I’ve been perfecting and tweaking it for 11 years.
When I work with a client, my number one job is helping them find a way to make a real food lifestyle work. I help them straddle the traditional wisdom and modern convenience fence. I’ve got tools, resources, tips, and tricks to make it work. I’ve got their back.
It’s not about perfection. You can relax and take the path of least resistance sometimes. There are easy ways. I promise.
I run a farm, restaurant, consulting business, and take care of a family. I even have hobbies and rescue dogs! I do this and I feed myself and family healthy “traditional wisdom” foods. My point is not that I am a superwoman–far from it. The point is you can make a real food lifestyle that focuses on nourishing yourself and others a reality AND live your life.
In fact, living a real food lifestyle MAKES IT POSSIBLE to do the other stuff. Fueling yourself, brain and body, gives you the focus, energy, and productivity you are looking for in the first place.
I happen to like learning new traditional food skills, but It doesn’t have to be your thing.
My thing is helping you build a food life for you and your family that WORKS for you. It’s integral to know the problem and you need to find the solution. However, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to make it work…for you and in your situation.
There are plenty of ways to bring modern convenience and traditional wisdom together. There are plenty of ways to have a huge impact on your and your family’s health without spending your entire day preparing food.
If you are feeling how I was —If you aren’t feeling good. …If your brain isn’t working the way it did. …If you don’t have the energy you need to be the best in your career and with your family, you need to make a change and you need to make it work for you. That’s the difference between a failed resolution and a breakthrough.
If you are ready for that first step, apply for a FREE 60-Minute Breakthrough Session with me so we can talk about this and see if I can help you turn this around.