Time to be healthy again...

Thanks to axtell.com for photo. Worth a look at all these great puppets.

When I was young I hated to listen to old people (i.e. any adult) tell me how much better things were when they were young. To this day I do not believe everything was better way back when. But I expect that some things really were. From where I sit now, there are things from my childhood that were better than what they have morphed into today.

Most adults when I grew up were closer to their food, whether or not they knew or valued it. Maybe this was because they gardened themselves, grew up on a farm, knew a farmer, ate mostly in season, cooked from scratch..., you get it. I benefited from this and it seems to me, my youth was just the time when agriculture was becoming enamored of technology and chemistry to alter traditional growing methods. It was being done as a way to improve the farmers' production, make them more efficient and drive down the cost of food. In fact according to NPR, "...our spending on food — proportional to our income — has actually declined dramatically since 1960, according to a chart recently published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As the chart shows, the average share of per capita income spent on food fell from 17.5 percent in 1960 to 9.6 percent in 2007. (It has since risen slightly, reaching 9.9 percent in 2013.)"

But as food became cheaper, it also became more processed, more corporately created, more carbohydrate-driven and more focused on convenience. In short, as convenience (much of it targeted to the increased number of working women) became a priority and how people ate started to change. Think pre-packaged meals rather than cooking from scratch. But who has time to cook these days, you ask? I believe it's a choice for most people, most of the time. Perhaps not an easy one, but who said cheap and easy eating beats healthy eating as something to shoot for for everyone?

The impact of the laser focus on convenience had an unintended consequence of changing not only how, but how well people ate. According to Harvard's T. H. Chan School of Public Health, "..it’s more important to eat carbohydrates from healthy foods than to follow a strict diet limiting or counting the number of grams of carbohydrates consumed." In other words, put down the processed, packaged dinner and pick up some "unprocessed or minimally processed whole grains, vegetables, fruits and beans." What are unhealthy carbohydrates you ask? Harvard says they include: "...white bread, pastries, sodas, and other highly processed or refined foods."

It's not too late to learn from the past, claim the good and move on.