"Lay Off Me, I'm Starving! (Remember Food)

Introduction: In the event that quote is unfamiliar, it is from a Saturday Night Live skit with Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and David Spade. They are sitting around as women out to lunch and Chris Farley starts stuffing his face with french fries. David Spade asks if he is still on his diet and the above quote is Chris Farley's response. I found the quote appropriate for this section as we will be talking about where food comes from, The Food Satisfaction Triangle, and diets.

Where Does Your Food Come From

I think we know where our food comes from, but we choose not to acknowledge such a thing. Granted we don't know from where, geographically wise, but we have a general idea. Most of the foods consumed today are coming from factory farms and genetically modified fields. The bigger the better...right?From http://www.cowsarecool.com, here is a picture of pigs in a factory farm. Remember, they never see the sun or eat grass. What is even worse, they eat genetically modified food as well, which ultimately ends up in us. How true is this cartoon from http://www.cartoonstock.com? "Fresh Farm Product." Nothing from the vegetable and fruit isle in any grocery store is organic or "Fresh." In fact, more stuff is put into those items to help it last longer...but actual fresh food naturally lasts longer.

Lastly, I found this picture from http://www.inthesetimes.com. Sometimes I feel like this when the news is smeared with a new gigantic potato or this fruit is better than others because we managed to pump it full of something your body is eventually going to build a resistance to later in life.

I could go on and on as to how horrible the food is for us now. Growing up in Iowa, I had the chance to grow all of my own foods, or drive down the road to get a needed food that a neighbor grows. Here in Arizona, I don't even know if Natural Frontiers really is all organic food because they could be spraying pesticides on it, they could have gotten the seeds from a non-organic plant. All things to take into consideration.

Satisfaction

Since we have all of this horrible food out there, how can we be satisfied? The book says to eat the right servings, exercise, and take in minimal amounts of the bad stuff.

That is one way to look at it...OR one could take The Food Satisfaction Triangle into mind.

There is an image in the Nutrition Power Point, slide number 27. This shows, in order for one to be satisfied and have a healthy diet, these three things should be taken into consideration. They are:

Locally and Sustainably Grown Foods (this comes from small farmers)

Healthy, Satisfied, Longer Lives (minimal lifestyle disease)

Spiritual and Cultural Base for Diet (home-cooked)

A great database for finding small farmers would be at http://www.localharvet.org/organic-farmer.

Another, would be to go to surrounding small towns and their local food marts. Most of those are locally owned and operated. Sometimes that means they do not have the funds for fancy genetically modified fruits and vegetables, so they support their local economy and get those items from local farmers.

As for having a healthy, satisfied, longer life, I think that works, but one also has to take in portion control to an extent.

Lastly, the spiritual and cultural base. These are things where I think about my home-cooked meal. It was, literally, steak and potatoes. We would throw in a salad, or some fruit or vegetable, but every night, a type of steak with a type of potato. Never red steak, it always had to be cooked through. I also think of going outside to our garden and picking what I wanted for a snack, taking the time to wash and prepare it. I also think of going to the farmer's market in Des Moines and buying items we did not grow ourselves, but others had that was not processed.

The triangle works well, but sometimes the cultural based meals are not always the most healthy.

Diets

Here is the frowny face from http://www.amihungry.com.
I really like the "frowny face" because it is true. Foreign foods sometimes can be added into smelly foods. Many associate bad smells with bad tastes, so it is hard to eat those foods. What I do not understand is there are people who hate the smell of alcohol...yet drink it just fine...

Most of the fad diets, or books about diets tend to not be healthy. They usually take out something that is important that YES the body does need...like carbohydrates, for an example. Sure, it makes you lose weight, because your body has to use other energy and nutrient sources to do its job. Meanwhile, your body is probably giving you the frowning of a lifetime.

Some tips to remember for a healthy diet:

The Food Satisfaction Triangle

Avoid processed, packaged foods

Find local farmers that sell their goods

Stay out of the drive through!

Conclusion: This section was so easy to get off topic on and go on rants. We managed to make our way through where food comes from, which most don't want to know anyway, The Food Satisfaction Triangle, and a little blurb about diets. That concludes the second part of Unit Two. I hope you enjoyed!