You Are What You Eat

Have you seen the new T.V. commercial for Gatorade?
The sound bite is “Win From Within”.

When I saw the commercial, it triggered a memory of my grandmother. Her favorite saying was “You are what you eat.”

When I was little, she applied this phrase when she was cooking, tending her garden or on the occasion when she scorned me for over indulging myself with foods she deemed unhealthy.

Of course, as a child, I perceived these constant reminders as harping and, after 60 years, I can still hear her admonitions.

Even today, each time I consider an indiscretion, I hear her voice asking me “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Did you have a Grandmother like mine?  I’m grateful for mine.

She didn’t care for white bread.  She would tell me:  “The whiter the bread, the shorter your life.”

She insisted we moderate eating cheese, butter and drinking milk to keep our lungs clear – even though we milked cows and made cheese and butter to sell with our milk and eggs.

My Grandmother attributed any complexion issues to “too much milk”, when I was a teenager.

She insisted that sugar would “make you crazy and rot your teeth“.

Kids, who were heavy, which was rare, are “eating too many sweets and drinking too much milk”, according to Grandmother. Usually, she would finish this observation with “… that mother should know better!”

Grandmother spoke with a voice from the 1920’s.

She was versed in growing, selecting and preparing fresh food.  She was very careful to avoid accidents when working, a real stickler about sanitation and fluent in the ways of self-care, because Physicians were a long way away and expensive.

She practiced and taught me the virtues of healthy life style choices:  healthy diet, physical work and play, rest and sleep; that served her well into old age, and now me, for the past 50 years.

How Times Have Changed

  • Take out, fast food and microwaved manufactured food is today’s bill of fare.
  • Gyms and organized recreation are substituting physical work and play.
  • Energy drinks wake people up in the morning and sleeping pills put them to sleep at night.
  • Physicians are readily accessible with insurance companies paying the bills.
  • Researchers are warning that “the 50 somethings” will suffer longer and die sooner than their parents – their children – more so.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

The question is:

“How much has the needs of our bodies changed in the 3 or 4 generations, since my Grandmother was holding court?”

The answer is:

Likely, not much!  There simply hasn’t been enough time to adjust to the technological explosion in food science.

The “stuff” that has helped preserve, color, enhance flavor and speed preparation is reducing the nutritional value of the food we’re consuming – and we’re paying a price.  The price of a better life is a greater incidence of declining health along with more, expensive “pharmaceutical stuff” to help mask the symptoms of food science.

The question is:  Do the science fiction Novelists, who believed, “If we can send a man to the moon, we can do anything.”  have it right – or not?

Could You Do Better?

Our objective is to encourage you to try, and if you don’t know how, to provide you insights into the ways you can affect the likelihood that you might die healthy.

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PUZZLEConfused?

We know you’re not able to change too many aspects of today’s go-go lifestyle.
But, what you can do is
help fill the nutritional gaps
in your diet.

[button-white url=”/three-steps/” target=”_self” position=”right”] Here’s the place to start » [/button-white] [/alert-white][/three_fifth][one_fifth_last]  [/one_fifth_last]