You Are What You Eat

And I am leftover booze and munchies from my New Years Eve party. I'm forcing myself to write this one so bear with me. Now that the holidays are over(Yes, I go with "Happy Holidays" because there are more than one. There are several. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Yule type holidays, and New Years.) all that stocks my fridge is a sad drawer of weepy veggies and all the wonderful, bad for you foods that we save stockpiled in the kitchen. If we didn't, we would be living off of water after all the veggies we bought on payday are gone and the bank account is dry. So this evening I'm eating a wonderful dinner of instant mashed potatoes, cashews, and(Mmm!) organic dark chocolate covered raisins.

It'll be another 8 days before payday comes. We have several root veggies that should last a while in the fridge so I can spread out my veggie consumption throughout the week. I just need to take it day by day. Christi said something to me the other day that really stuck with me, "I'm going to eat only the things that are either really good for me, or taste really good. French fries don't taste good enough to justify eating them." This really rings true, but for me, it can feel like those french fries ARE worth the health risk most days. I fight with myself constantly about this. I will go entire days not eating until 8 or 9 o'clock because I feel so guilty about what is in my cupboards. Then, because I am so hungry and have given in to eating the only food we have in the house, I binge until I can't eat anymore. The problem is, this is all food bank food. So we get white bread, donuts, sugary cereal, eggs, canned soups and veggies, and half of the food has meat in it so I have to give that away. Then on top of all that junk food, they give you a bag of potatoes or onions and maybe a seasonal fruit like a melon or pumpkin. The ratio of fresh, organic fruits an veggies to processed poison in our culture's diet is completely destructive. Trying to get out of the rut every other poor person is in is the most difficult thing to overcome. Of course we are going to eat at the drive thru and have hot fresh pizza delivered to our doors for only $12. It's cheap and is exactly what our taste buds want. That's the sick part of this whole thing. Processed foods are made to taste like they are the most nutritionally sound thing your body is eating. The only conscious part about digestion is actually eating the food, and when our tongue tells us to keep eating what we are eating, we just do. This is how we run into trouble, high volumes of high calorie, nutrient deficient food.

I am trying to solve this problem by growing an indoor organic vegetable garden. This doesn't seem too promising right now. None of my plants have sprouted yet, even though I am using seeds that are "guaranteed to grow!"  I will keep my fingers crossed. I planted two blackberry seeds today and I ran out of soil. When the next bag of soil comes in the mail, I am going to use my leftover disposable cups as make-shift pea pots to start my plants and hope that by the time they are too big for the cups, I will have big enough containers to re-pot them.

I think what frustrates me the most is that I have all this knowledge, but no funds whatsoever to try to fix the problems in my diet. If more and more people start eating fresh, organic food, then industry will turn to it as a  money source and it will ultimately become cheaper. We just need to change our habits and beliefs about food as a society and culture.