If You Know Your Roots…

...“Then you would know where you’re coming from. Then you wouldn’t have to ask me who the heck do I think I am.” Ah…the words of Bob Marley! In another song…”Remember that I and I are the roots, Some are wolf Inna sheep’s clothing.”

...Wise words indeed!

We have to know our roots in this world. We have to reconnect with them if we don’t know them...if we have lost them, if we are confused. We have to know who we are in order to grow into who we can and will become. Searching your genealogy, the meaning of your name, your birth signs, etc. can help tremendously. But getting to the roots of your food is what I want to talk about here.

There is so much value in knowing where your food comes from, and being connected to that major source of nourishment. When we are connected to our food we are automatically more healthy, vibrant, and limitless. There are so many different dimensions to every action that we do that most of us are completely unaware of. When we go into the grocery store and load up on cheerios, toaster strudels, sodas, bagels, etc. we are consuming a lot of calories at the same time that we are starving our body of what it really needs – Nutrition! And when we feed these things to our children, we are robbing them of their ability to access a greater potential in life.

When we let go of these convenience foods and actually spend a little time on the preparation, consumption and digestion of our food we give ourselves a great gift. Greater than I think many of us realize. As we all know, we are creatures of habit. But most habits need to be broken. The term habit infers a subconscious action, but when we know what we are doing and the consequences it is called other things such as addiction and laziness. Of course a lot of the times we buy these “foods” because we are stuck in a poverty mentality to.

This is a huge condition in our country and our times. The poverty mentality invades most people’s minds, giving the assumption that organic food is too expensive. I also see a lot of this in my practice when I am told that alternative medicine is too expensive because insurance doesn’t usually cover it. My reply to this is simple. I believe and have seen proof of this many times, that when we spend time and money (two of the most valuable things really) on our food, our mental health and our physical well being, we don’t get sick, don’t stay sick or don’t need to seek drugs and surgery. As someone who has not had health insurance in eleven years, I can say proudly that I haven’t needed it. Yes, of course there is always the argument that insurance is important to pay for accidents, etc. but hey, that is what savings, Aflac and car insurance are for.

There is a huge movement going on right now. People are buying local, organic, and sustainable more than ever, well since the agricultural revolution anyway. This is so exciting. Maybe because food is becoming more expensive we will actually start eating more nutritious foods by necessity. And maybe when we start eating these foods we will see our bloated medical industry shrink to a more appropriate size due to lack of its importance in daily life. Maybe we will fall a few points closer to the healthier countries like Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Columbia, etc. Yes, you heard that right, our health as a nation is poorer than a total of 11 NON-industrialized countries. How does that make you feel? I’ll talk more about this in another post.

So grow a vegetable or two this year, and add one each season. Go to the farmers market, it is an amazing place to celebrate local culture and local food. There is such a feel-good aspect to a farmers market. There is a vibrancy there that even just going and being there brightens your spirits. We have to get back to our roots, meaning we have to get back to REAL FOOD if we want to make it!

50% of men get cancer and 33% of women. This is ridiculous and there are many things that we can do to PREVENT IT. So many organizations are working to cure cancer and so few in comparison are helping to prevent it. We’ve got to take back our health and our power. So get to the farmers market this weekend, call up your local CSA if you’ve been debating it, “splurge” on your produce at Central Market, or trade your basil for your neighbors tomatoes! Pick a peach off of a neighbors tree and give them some okra. It’s now fall in Austin and an amazing place to grow and forage food. So get to it!