Food in our culture has started to take a backseat. We've replaced time and effort with chemical flavoring and microwaves. We've given away our duty of cooking our own food in favor of convenience. We've stopped growing our own food, raising our own meat, and foraging so that we could sit and stare at a screen and grab it off shelves.
I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with our lifestyles these days, but we have grown out of touch with our food. What once was sacred because it gave life, now is thought of almost entirely based on taste. It's pleasure seeking at this point. We shouldn't be eating for flavor first, we should be eating for fuel. And just like at the pump, good fuel costs more money. Here's why I think we should spend extra for quality:
Food is Life
It makes and remakes your body daily, creating the building blocks for every single cell in your body. Food fuels nearly every process the body performs, and without sufficient nutrition, it's operation will be less efficient. You can always build a house, buy a car, or get new clothes, but you only have one body.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
-Hippocrates
Quality food will keep you mentally and physically healthy
Being healthy is a lot more fun than being unhealthy, and good food is one of the biggest factors. It makes movement easier, breathing easier, thinking easier, and keeps your immune system in fighting shape.
Healthy = Ease
Unhealthy = Dis-Ease
“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear”
-Buddha
Quality food tastes better.
And in more ways than one. Quality food to me means quality raised food. That might look like an organic farm using as few pesticides as possible, or a free range ranch where the animals are free to roam and actually live. The quality of life of your food translates to quality of life for you, and you can feel better about how it was grown/raised.
“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Raising Quality Food and Doing Your Own Home Cooking is a Celebration of Life
There is love in treating the land, animals, and people in our lives with respect, they give us the reasons to be thankful in life. When we can celebrate with each other over a delicious meal, prepared by friends and family, eaten by friends and family, and raised by people who love the earth and all it's creatures, those are some of the times we are most alive.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
In my opinion, our society has it's priorities backwards. We're lining up at any fast food chain and buying soda and junk food to fuel ourselves all because it's convenient or cheap or "delicious." We sacrifice food expenses so we can buy more things and eat unhealthy because we can't control our own cravings. But food is a gift, everytime, and we owe it to ourselves to do our best to raise, purchase, and eat only the best. If good food is something that you believe every person should have available to them, then support it with your money. DO what you can to support good farmers and ranchers.
One show I recommend for a clearer view about food and it's relation to us and nature is Cooked, check it out!
"Your body is precious, it is the vehicle for awakening, treat it with care"
-Buddha
Hope you enjoyed!
