Food, Plastics
A lesson in humility
An unruly steer that doesn't want to go into the auction house - Stockyard City, Oklahoma -
#1 cattle auction in the world, 1 million+ cattle sold every year.
I used to think I was smart about eating. After all, I often read food labels and ingredient lists. I avoided
specific items that I knew would cause an allergic reaction in me. There was also my keen interest in homeopathic
medicines that I inherited from my mother. Echinacea, Milk Thistle, St.John's Wort, Glucosamine Sulfate, and other
supplements, made me feel like I knew something. I took a nutrition class while at the University of Washington, and
also had subscriptions to nutrition newsletters. I tried to eat and shop healthy by learning about organic food.
[ My mother died (relatively) early and she was into health - what had she done wrong? The simple answer some
might say -- it's just genetics, but that has never "rubbed me the right way." That answer is far too
simplistic for me.]
Later, during my initial travels I visited places related to the supply chain for things we eat, such
as-- Stockyard City in Oklahoma City, USA- largest cattle auction in the world, and the Tsukiji Fish Market
in Tokyo, Japan - the largest fish market in the world. There were numerous others, some are found in the PLACES
section. Well, pride goes before the fall. My pride in thinking I was smart about eating.
As part of my journey of exploration into who we are, I started learning everything I could about what affects our
health - far beyond my prior knowledge base. Part of this journey involved watching dozens of food related documentaries
and reading through hundreds of food / nutrition related articles / webpages. As I learned more about how what we eat and
expose ourselves everyday to affects not only our physical health, but our mental state of mind and mental
performance - I realized I knew (relatively) very little before.
With that in mind, below are some of the most helpful documentaries I watched during my research. If you don't have
time to watch all of these and sort through all this information, feel free to contact me.
Recommended Documentaries
-
Forks Over Knives
-
Food, Inc.
-
Killer At Large
-
Our Daily Bread
-
We Feed the World
-
Genetic Roulette
Psychology of Addiction
Playing along with the TV show Family Feud is a good way to understand how our brain works.
One of my original motivations for traveling was to learn about where things come from. You can see this reflected
in the INDUSTRY topic under the PLACES section. As I thought about where things come from, eventually I combined this with
my increasing health knowledge, and I started to wonder why I couldn't stop myself from eating things, I didn't want to eat.
Sure, I could stop with momentary willpower, but not for long periods of time. Where did my desire to eat things I didn't
want to eat come from? Instead of asking an 'external' question, I asked an 'internal' question.
The answer to this question eluded me, that is, until I got further along in my process to knowing myself.
Eventually, I found the secret to uncoupling
feelings (of desire) from any food and drink. It is more complicated than this (and really must be experienced to be appreciated),
but if you understand databases or spreadsheets, the easiest way to think about this is that there are 2 tables.
Table ONE contains a list of all the food items you have ever ate, and table TWO is a list of all the
feelings that are connected to that. A single type of feeling may be connected to a single specific food item, or many
different ones (usually the latter, but not always). ONE to ONE and ONE to MANY relationships.
Connected to table ONE are related tables such as - "Is this food safe for me?" - "Where is this food available?"
- "Related brand names" - "Related restaurants" - "How much energy will this food provide me?" - "How much do I like
this?" - "How much does it cost" - and of course a database of images, related sounds, and smells among other
"multimedia elements," which are derived from our human senses - touch, smell, hearing, taste. Our brain/body is
a giant relational database table / connected spreadsheets. Table TWO is also in reality a multitude of tables,
but they store our feelings. This is far beyond the scope of this webpage or this website to explain.
Did you know that feelings / emotions are stored separate from memories? This is how we can
"emotionally heal" ourselves over time whether by the passage of time or by confronting our undesirable feelings
/ fears. So perhaps there is a traumatic event from your past that at the time, was very painful, but now barely
elicits a shrug. You may still remember the event clearly, but there is little to no associated pain / unpleasantness.
Our body is always cycling through the removal of these unpleasant feelings, which is why on some days we may prefer
to eat item X and other days item Y, and also explains why we might change our mind due to some other subconscious cue.
Some people might be more aware of these cues for some things and say something like "Everytime I think of person X or
event Y, I want to eat item Z." But, not everyone is capable of doing this.
I figured out how to specifically target things I don't want to eat, and eventually accelerate the removal / deletion
of all repressed undesirable feelings. Part of my self-education was learning that so many things that we take for
granted as "normal" were in fact, not very normal a short time ago. Many of us, of a certain age, can identify this phrase
with technology, but it also applies to everyday food. How many items do you think were in the grocery store in the 1950s?
With this in mind, the videos below, all show us how products we take for granted everyday at the supermarket,
simply did not exist for the majority of people, until (relatively) recent times. Not just modern food creations,
but the ingredients themselves - like potatoes, tomatoes, sugar, vanilla, saffron, nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, cinnamon,
and coffee. In this knowledge is a lesson in how we think, and of how we become addicted. Those who do not study
the(ir) past, are doomed to repeat it.
Recommended Documentaries
|
|
|
|
|
NG: America Before
Columbus
|
BBC series Addicted to Pleasure
|
BBC series The Spice Trail
|
King Corn
|
We Are What We Eat and A Way Out
BBC Explorations - Food & Mood. Chocolate as it relates to emotional suppression (Related to Health & Stress
section too), protein vs carbohydrates and mental performance and depression as it relates to diet.
It may seem obvious to some that "we are what we eat." It may seem obvious that if we eat certain foods
we may perform better PHYSICALLY, but how often do we think about what we eat, and don't eat, relates to
our MENTAL performance? Our thought patterns? Our emotional health? Isn't our brain a physical part of our body?
What probably isn't obvious unless we think about it, is just how much what we "eat" affects us.
Many things that we eat are so "intoxicating" and/or so part of our regular routine
that they blind us to their true nature.
The quick summary is that the more complicated and diverse our diets become, the harder it is to see
how our short & long term health, physical & mental performance, and mental moods are affected. There
are so many studies and so many assumptions that it becomes stressful just to figure out what to do
or not to do. We end up becoming either a "deer frozen in headlights," unable to make a decision and just
falling back on what we are used to doing, or we just give up in the sea of confusion and make only
half-hearted changes. And even when we do learn about a change and accept that we want to make this change
a part of our lives, we have to fight our emotional attachment to our past behaviors.
Herein lies the beauty of the approach I have taken. The change happens so gradually, that it seldom
feels like "we are fighting ourselves."
The approach I have taken focuses on our internal emotional attachments to various foods / ingredients, not
just a blanket logical rule we might create in our mind such as "I won't eat any more unhealthy food."
For I have learned, the more logic rules we rely on rather than experience, the more stressful it is for
us to follow. It's like focusing on the WHY, not the WHAT. "Following a diet" most frequently is just looking
at the WHAT, not the WHY, and that is why so many diet changes fail once past the initial excitement.
Learn more about how our daily food choices affect our physical & mental performance, in ways that you might
not have thought about, by watching the BBC video clips on Food & Mood.
Eating Isn't Just Through the Mouth
Canadian documentary explores how little we know about all the chemicals we have introduced into our
environment, and into our bodies.
We eat through what we breathe, what we put on our skin, and what we listen to, and what
energy sources we expose ourselves to. It may seem obvious, but until we expand
our idea of what 'powers' us, it isn't obvious.
In parallel with learning about where the things I ate came from and their gradual effects on us,
I also explored these other "types of eating." On this page is more information on plastics.
I realized there was an aspect of eating that I had never considered before - the role of
plastics in food packaging and the environment. Of note, are how plastics can mimic certain
chemicals and affect our hormonal balance / sexuality, and that is just a well publicized finding.
Since learning about this, I got rid of my Camelbak that I used to drink water out of and switched
to using high quality glass and stainless steel water bottles. My taste buds gradually adjusted
where I rejected the plasticy taste anyway. I've also largely avoided canned
food, as almost all cans have a plastic liner. Most all canned food is very high in sodium
as well. (Did you know too much sodium at a given meal can distort your vision within minutes?)
Do I have a hard and fast rule to never drink out of a plastic bottle or eat
out of a can? No, that would be too stressful and counterproductive. However, I can make
sure to the best of my ability that if I do drink out of a plastic bottle for example, I don't
let it sit in the sun. It is an overall reduction in chemical exposure and a gradual change
of my past eating and lifestyle habits, nothing drastic. The original habits were often made
in the name of short-term convenience, ignorance, or bad planning.
Plastics
Recommended Documentaries
-
Plastic Planet
-
Addicted to Plastic
-
Tapped