How it all Started

If you are reading this, it's probably because you have some level of interest in leading a healthy lifestyle. And if that's a correct assumption, then its probably safe to assume that this isn't the first blog, book, or article you've ever found yourself looking at that is based on health. If this second assumption is also correct, then I'm going to go for a third by guessing that you, like myself, have at one time or another felt completely and totally overwhelmed by all the information on this topic, and so much so that it almost makes you want to give up altogether. Did I do it? Did I get a three out of three?

I've been in those shoes, and some days still come across things that really make me wonder why I am so passionate about sticking to it. And then I have days where I reflect back to when I first started to be my own advocate; when I watched my first documentary, read my first book, or made an active change in a habit I had been accustomed to before. That's when I realize how far I have come, and when I see how many positive things have come from continuing on this path. And for the record, my "first documentary" and "first book" simply refer to ones geared toward our food system and healthy lifestyles, I have watched/read other materials long before this :)

The first documentary I watched regarding this whole process was Super Size Me when I was in high school. It was played during one of my Foods and Nutrition classes, and believe me there is some startling information disclosed in this documentary about how a certain fast-food chain, when consumed excessively, is a poor health decision. But, at the time, even as grossed out as I was by some of the effects the person in this documentary went through, I somehow continued on with my life without many changes. I told myself, "well, yeah, if I were eating fast food every day, I would have those types of issues, but I don't eat fast food that much." On average, I would guess that I had a fast food meal maybe two times per week during high school. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but generally speaking, fast food wasn't making up the bulk of my diet.

During my first year of pastry school, the documentary Food Inc. was part of our curriculum. This one opened my eyes a little more to the types of marketing, regulation, and quality standards that are in place for foods sold in the United States. Prior to this film, I would have considered myself a pretty "normal" consumer when it came to grocery purchases. I preferred lean cuts of meat and seasonal veggies, but didn't pay any attention to where these animals were raised or where my crops were grown. If they appeared fresh and were at a good price, I happily tossed them in my cart and went along my merry way. After exposure to this film though, I began to have a slightly more cautious approach toward certain brands, certain types of products, and certain marketing terms, but all-in-all, I didn't make a day-and-night transformation of the foods we were eating.

Moving along to my second year of pastry school, when Michael Pollan's Food Rules was a book I had to report on. This book, while incredible easy to read, short, simple and straightforward, was the beginning of a turning point. A turning point that happened gradually, but a turning point nonetheless. Pollan's explanation of very blunt yet obvious recommendations on how to eat served as a gentle shove. Suddenly I felt that, "why am I not doing these things? I can easily do these things", feeling. And so I slowly but surely started making changes. I stopped buying white bread and started to search for whole wheat, I stopped buying low-fat yogurt in place of whole milk yogurt, and I realized that colorful, sugar-coated cereals should probably be a thing of the past. The more small changes I implemented, the more I wanted to learn, and the more changes that followed. I sourced more reading materials and more documentaries about this topic that was quickly becoming more and more important to me. And over time, Jason started to gain interest as well. Being that I do the majority of grocery shopping and cooking, he was already engulfed in most of these changes whether he liked it or not, but hey, I'll take it. We found ourselves watching more and more late night Netflix, but about food and health! And we grew more and more driven and excited about the changes we were making, but also more angered about how our food system is lacking and how many people don't know better -- and how we didn't for a long while either.

I guess what I am getting at here is that for us, this journey has been a bit of a snowball effect. We've picked up steam as we go, and by no means was this an overnight success. We've had triumphs and we've had times were we fall off course. But we started, and we keep going, and that is what's important here. We continue to want to be better, to be healthier, and as long as you start somewhere, you can too. My Resources page has links to the sources I mentioned here, plus many more to get your gears turning. I encourage you to read or watch a few of them, and if you are like us, you'll find it hard to stop.