Our Life Long Bread: Eating Around the Table of Nutrition

Who says what we eat is healthy? For me, I believe, health is based on an all around diet, not ingredients. Maybe I was raised with this notion of everything is ok in moderation just because my mother loved desert and often times we would have mint chocolate chip ice cream BEFORE dinner, so as to know we had room for it in our small stomachs. But still, the labelling on the back of a bag of chips shouldn’t determine how and what we eat. In the United States, it is said that a daily allotment of calories is 2,000. But who decides this? Our bodies are all different. A farmer will eat differently than a lawyer, a pregnant woman different from a 90 year old man. It is a question of nature versus nurture. Are we our parents’ genetic strains or are we the values they placed in us from the moment they spoon fed us mush also known as baby food? Also- how do we relate to health in each step of our lives?
I believe the way we eat is explained by nurture, not nature. Our genes don’t eat, after all, our mouths do. And at the hand of our parents. The other day in class we sat around the table and polled how many of us present in the classroom were influenced by the way our parents raised us, especially in regards to food and the choices we now make. The majority of us raised our hands. We drifted into memories of family dinners and their importance in instilling respect towards the food we eat, and being thankful for it. Our families each gave us an understanding of where our food comes from, how to prepare it, and what is good for us. Woven into these sometimes unspoken teachings at mealtime was daily conversation and the general appreciation for each others company after busy days of school or work. In some way, those meals now only shared over holidays or occasional visits home, brought us here- studying human ecology in a small German town for our last summer month. Our childhood propels us into future relationships with food. That is, in so far as we will allow it.
When we finally escaped (as it is seen in modern day culture) from our parents grip, into the world of academia, us new ‘adults’ were left to our own devices when it comes to food. We all know the infamous story of the ‘freshman 15’ or the image of eating microwavable macaroni and cheese day in and day out, because hey- powdered cheese in packets doesn’t go moldy. Our new social surroundings tend to guide our food choices and most of these times these surroundings are dictated by convenience, time efficiency, and a price factor. Those of us conscious of food choices look at the labels. This is where we must pause and ask ourselves- what do the labels tell us? How, really, can we trust them if they are based on false nutritional information supported by multimillion dollar companies. Without parents or role models in sight- who will teach us? The answer: our bodies. We shouldn’t have to be dependent on a label if under all this skin is a whole organ system equipped to tell us weather or not we should eat that bread, drink that milk, or indulge in flesh of another beast. If my intestine starts kicking itself, that is a bad sign, despite what the ‘No trans fat!’ sign might say. Listening to our bodies is the new key to staying healthy. And with a restored knowledge of our own bodies, hopefully there will be a reintegration of family values, an understanding why mom always made me take ‘just one more bite!’ of my broccoli.
So in the human pattern, the next step in our lives after getting a job and all that jazz is to procreate. And procreation, leads to children. Children with incredibly impressionable minds. We see brightly colored food advertisement with cute cartoon characters aimed at children every day. We see them so often we are almost numb to their conniving objectives behind the smile of Tony the Tiger or the bound of the Trix rabbit. Children’s’ minds however don’t perceive the lack of nutritional value if they have never been exposed to other ways of thinking. As the current generation studying the value of food, it is our responsibility to educate the next generation, changing the social surroundings for them. Farm to school programs are essential in connecting children with their food, and, keeping in the chain, to the soil. Also, through educating children in school, the children have a huge potential to bring new values back home, teaching the parents who perhaps are part of the ‘lost generation’ we have referenced in class discussions. The stream of knowledge flows both ways. Through the impressionable comes potential, children are a tool of positive change in our food system.
The changes we make in our food system regarding human health and nutrition must expand all generations and all steps of life. We all need to eat, and judging by human population estimates for the next 20 years, there will be plenty more mouths to feed. Lets do so with the values our parents, and their parents parents, stored in us, trusting our bodies to decipher commercialist schemes as we unearth once more the importance of real food.