We all know
we need food to survive, but what food exactly? Back in the Stone Age, people
didn’t worry about what they ate, they just knew what to avoid. Now in days, we
have everything from vitamins to amino acids that are put into our bodies.
There are so many things that we are told to eat now that what to eat is still
the question. About a thousand new diets telling each and every one of us what
to eat come out every day for us to wander around, not knowing which to follow.
It is about time that we break away from the tradition of not knowing our own
food values and create our own way to eat and live. That is why I will try to
combat this with my own ideas about what to eat. I aim to eat more local and
organic food, as well as eat a healthy three meals a day without snacking very
much or only eating a healthy snack when I do.
One of the
things I aim to do is eat more local and organic food in my diet. In an article
by Walter Crinnion, he compares multiple studies done about organic foods
versus non-organic foods and has a couple of noted findings between them. One
of the things found was that when the studies compared an organic tomato to a
conventional one, “only one [study] showed no significant differences between
organic and conventional farms” (Crinnion). This means that there were more
nutrients to be found in the organic tomato than in the conventional farming
one. Also, another insight that was found by Crinnion is that the nutritional
value in organic tomatoes is better than conventionally grown tomatoes because
they have more “vitamin C, iron, phosphorus, and magnesium” in them (Crinnion).
These nutrients are essential for your body in order for it to stay healthy and
well. The organic option for foods is definitely more healthy for you than that
of a tomato that is lacking in things like vitamin C, calcium, iron,
phosphorus, and riboflavin, which conventional farming offers (Crinnion). When
choosing food, I think that choosing something that will be good for your body
is something that should be chosen before the bag of potato chips on the shelf.
One of the
biggest ways that I will combat choosing the conventional food options is by
attending more farmers markets. I went to a farmers market the is found along
Pearl Street in Denver, Colorado and I found a lot of interesting things there
that you normally do not find in a supermarket. What you find in a supermarket
are usually tomatoes that can “[strike] the floor with [a] solid thud” with “no
damage done” and are virtually indestructible, according to Barry Estabrook in
his book Tomatoland (Estabrook 11). Nothing about an indestructible tomato
sounds appealing to cook or to eat. It also is “perfectly tasteless” and picked
before it is ripe, only to be ripened in a factor (Estabrook 10). All of these
things sound completely different than what I found at the Pearl Street Farmers
Market. There were more types of vegetables than I knew existed. Free samples
were being handed out at every stand. Each and every farmer was willing to talk
about how they grew their produce and the methods that they used to make it.
The smells that were hanging around the market were amazing and made my mouth
water like nothing else. The atmosphere is something that is very lacking at
any supermarket that you go to. It is like Michael Pollan, a famous food
journalist, says in his article “Unhappy Meals” which is that at a farmers
market you will find “fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional
quality” (Pollan 16). I think that going to farmers markets may be out of the
way, but it is definitely worth the time and effort.
The second
way to combat the conventional food choices is by making a garden full of food.
Barry Estabrook said that the best way to have a flavorful tomato is to “grow
your own” (Estabrook 11). A garden is something that can connect you to the
food that you are about to eat. Also, what better way is there to know where
your food comes from unless you grow it? Pollan, in his developed manifesto,
also thinks that it is important to “plant a garden” since it “contributes to
[our] health long before [we] sit down to eat” (Pollan 17). There are many ways
that a garden helps to contribute to our wellbeing as well as our social
health. In a study done by Kimberly Libman, she explores how children who
participate in the growing of a vegetable garden will view food and change
their eating habits. In this study, the children had to do multiple tasks like “planting,
weeding, watering, mulching, harvesting, composting, and designing plots”
so that they could appreciate the food making process (Libman 89). The results
from this study found that there were more children that would “work with other
kids” more often and didn’t have any trouble with it (Libman 92). Gardening is
a good way to socially interact with others, on top of having it be nutritious
when following a more organic farming style.
Gardening
with social groups even has links back to the time during World War II when the
ideas of victory gardens became common places to get food. Because during the
war there were many restrictions on what was sold to the public, many people
that had the ability to garden would do just that. We can see how victory
gardens are a part of a social life when we look at an experiment that a
biology teacher, C. Clair Culver, did during the war. She tried to find the
best way to grow different plants like “cauliflower, tomato, [and] pepper” in a
home garden (Culver 217). By doing things like this, Culver was able to let the
biology knowledge “function in the lives of the students as well as their
parents” (Culver 219). This shows how things like a garden are a way to unite
people and make you healthier, not only in a nutritious way, but also in a
social way.
There are
ways that I have already begun to work towards this idea in my manifesto. I
already have a garden with things like basil and tomatoes in it. The garden is
seen as the family project where if we want to eat food from the garden then we
need to work for it. It is nice because I work along side of my parents and we
all sweat for the food that we are making. I feel healthier by simply working
for my food. On top of that, the fresh tomatoes that come out of our garden are
delicious and never disappoint. They might not be the most perfectly round tomatoes,
but the amount of flavor that fits into even the smallest tomato is better than
a pack of supermarket tomatoes. The benefits from a home garden are things that
I have already seen. With this manifesto, I hope that I can expand the family
garden to have tings like cucumbers and perhaps new vegetables that we have
never had before.
Now we know
that there are plenty of good things that come from organic and locally grown
vegetables, but eating copious amounts of food is still not a good thing for us
to do. Moderation and a limitation of snacking is still something that I need
to address in this manifesto. I am someone that eats four or five meals in a
day, doesn’t eat breakfast, and snacks through out the day. It is a common
perception that snacking is something that is not good for people to do, but in
a study done by Drummond, Kirk, and de Looy, they found that there is no
“significant difference in body weight between the frequent snackers and the
infrequent snackers” (Drummond et. al.). They also found that people who snack
often have “higher energy intakes” than people who have only three meals a day,
which could help in things like physical activities to keep their body weight
low (Drummond et. al.). For someone such as myself, snacking may not be such a
bad thing when I keep active, but instead of the potato chips, I should have
“healthy snacking options” instead (Drummond et. al.). Snacking should be seen
as something that doesn’t have to be done when there is no physical exercise,
but when there is, it doesn’t hurt to be healthy about it.
Another
thing that I have decided is that it is important to have breakfast and focus
on getting three meals a day, instead of the irregular mealtimes that I have
currently. In a study about whether or not having breakfast is a benefit, it
was found that breakfast is a key ingredient in anyone’s day. When people skip
breakfast in the morning, they often have “lower-than-normal energy intakes”
during the day (Gibson 85). This is something that can lower performance and makes
you not as fit as you could be. Of course, in the same study, it was found that
“higher energy intakes” were found when “consuming cereal breakfasts” (Gibson
85). Because I tend to be athletic and outdoors all the time, it is good to
remember that things like breakfast are still important meals during the day.
Keeping this information from the study in mind, taking a step towards
breakfast in the day will help me to lead the healthy life that I want to lead.
Choosing to
eat things like organic/ local food, or eating three times a day with healthy
snacking is something that I came up with in order to strive towards. I have
experience with local foods, which makes it important to me that I would
include that in my diet. I know that my eating habits are sporadic and that by
eating three meals a day, I can keep structure, eat healthier, and keep my
schedule around my meals. This paper is something that I have created in order
to show that eating smart is something that is completely possible. It holds a
meaning to me because I know it is attainable without changing the fundamentals
of who I am. This is by no means a paper telling people what to do, but instead
a way that people can think about food and food culture. What I laid out is a
simple guideline that we can all follow while enjoying the food that we eat.
Works
Cited
Culver, C. Clair.
"Growing Plants for Victory Gardens." The American Biology Teacher
4.7 (Apr., 1942): 217-19. Print.
Crinnion,
Walter J. "Organic foods contain higher levels of certain nutrients, lower
levels of pesticides, and may provide health benefits for the consumer." Alternative
Medicine Review Apr. 2010: 4+. Academic OneFile. Web. 31 May 2012. http://0-go.galegroup.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA225739685&v=2.1&u=udenver&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w
Drummond, Sandra, Terry Kirk,
and Anne De Looy. "Snacking: Implications in Body Composition and Energy
Balance." British Food Journal 97.5 (1995): 12-15. Print.
Estabrook, Barry. Tomatoland.
Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2011. Print.
Gibson, S. A., and P. Gunn.
"What's For Breakfast? Nutritional Implications of Breakfast Habits:
Insights From the NDNS Dietary Records." Nutrition Bulletin 36.1
(2011): 78-86. Wiley. 16 Feb. 2011. Web. 31 May 2011.
Libman, Kimberly.
"Growing Youth Growing Food: How Vegetable Gardening Influences Young
People's Food Consciousness and Eating Habits." Applied Environmental
Education & Communication 6.1 (2007): 87-95. Print.
Pollan, Michael.
"Unhappy Meals." The New York Times Magazine 28 Jan. 2007.
Print.
