Are you Upstream or Downstream?
I am pretty committed to my way of life and how I eat and feed my family. Yet when I look around at the disconnect people have with food and health I sometimes feel so crazy and frustrated that maybe I should be literally committed.
People just trust that the items on the shelves in the grocery store are food when in fact most of the products are food-like substances. Then I need to step back and let go and yet I still wonder “why am I so different?” Well the first thing that comes to mind is a story my mother told me many years ago. I think the story was originally written by Ronald Rolheiser, or he used it in his book. Either way, this is the story I am going to use so that you can understand how I see things when it comes to the food we put into our bodies and how we see healthcare.
“Once upon time there was a town that was built just beyond the bend of large river. One day some of the town folks were sitting beside the river when they noticed three children floating in the water. They ran for help and the townsfolk quickly pulled the bodies out of the river.
One body was dead so they buried it. One was barely alive and quite ill, so they put that person into the hospital. The third child they were able to bring it back to life and was let go to return from where it came.
From that day on, every day a number of bodies came floating down the river and, every day, the good people of the town would pull them out and tend to them—taking the sick to hospitals, and burying those who were dead.
This went on for years; each day brought its quota of bodies, and the townsfolk not only came to expect a number of bodies each day but also worked at developing more elaborate systems for picking them out of the river and tending to them. Some of the townsfolk became quite generous in tending to these bodies and a few extraordinary ones even gave up their jobs so that they could tend to this concern full-time. And the town itself felt a certain healthy pride in its generosity.
However, during all these years and despite all that generosity and effort, nobody thought to go up the river, beyond the bend that hid from their sight what was above them, and find out why, daily, those bodies came floating down the river.”
My mother was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma a few years back and while sitting in the waiting room for her chemo-bed, nice ladies would walk around serving the cancer patients cookies and apple juice. I realize the intent is a good one, but I couldn’t help but ask them “Do you know this food you are serving is feeding their cancer?” I was mostly met with blank stares or a fast smile as they moved along.
I AM UPSTREAM MAKING SURE THE PEOPLE I LOVE ARE NOT GETTING PUT IN THE RIVER.
Shannon Stark