By David Magallanes / Guest contributor
Summer is at last arriving! Here on the coast, the sun manages to finally break through the clouds every day and bestows upon us a tempered warmth that invites us all to head for the back yards, parks and campgrounds to fire up the grills and buy the food and drink that bring families and friends together like nothing else can.
Last week I wrote about the world of pescetarianism — that is, a form of vegetarianism that includes fish. This time, I’d like to focus on our general health as a nation. We, the inhabitants of the richest, most prosperous country in the world, have at our disposal an astounding variety and quantity of food unmatched in most of the world to most of its people. The choices we have are practically infinite, and with that privilege comes a certain responsibility toward our bodies and our physical health — a responsibility to which many of us are oblivious.
But as blessed and as privileged as we might be in this tender land, we have in fact serious issues with that which both nourishes and kills us: food.
The United States, for most of the world, is the unattainable Promised Land. Especially those of us who have lived here all of our lives can’t even see the extreme abundance into which we were born. Much of the world can only fantasize about the profusion of things to eat in our culture, yet we in this hallowed country are blind to the feast that is set in our midst at all hours of the day and night because it is part and parcel of our existence.
Last week as I was walking in a park, I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between a middle-aged man, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, and an obese young man. The older gentleman said, “Oh, I have diabetes and high blood pressure. And I drink.”
For me, this vignette portrayed the struggle we all have to stay healthy in this country. Illness and poor health is so common, it feels “normal.” After all, we expect elderly (and sometimes not so elderly) people to complain about their aches, pains, tales of woe and gnashing of teeth.
OK, maybe I’m getting a little carried away here, but I think you see my point.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the obesity rate in Mississippi in 2009 was 34.4 percent. It would feel quite “normal” to be obese in Mississippi, whereas in fact this statistic reveals a nation crying for help.
We are killing ourselves by the very substance that is supposed to give us health and lead us toward a graceful and vibrant old age. I’m a child of the 60’s, and now IN my 60s, as I contemplate how we’ve lost our bearings, suddenly lyrics by Eric Clapton, when he sang with the band Blind Faith, come to mind:
But I’m near the end and
I just ain’t got the time
And I’m wasted and
I can’t find my way home.
Though “wasted” may well be referring to the result of consuming other substances that we don’t normally ingest on a daily basis, the words are eerily true now, forty years later. We, as a nation, are getting “wasted,” and indeed we’re not able to find our way back home — back to “Eden,” where the food was plentiful but wholesome.
There is hope for us — in the form of awareness. We have to become conscious of all that we place in our mouths. So many of us are unconsciously putting things into our bodies that harm us greatly and cause disease. We don’t even think about it because the effects are slow, but insidious. We don’t experience the results of our habits until years or even decades down the road, after it’s become too late to “find our way back home,” after we’ve wandered and become lost in the Land of Supersize, the Country of Caloric Enchantment.
Knowledge will also bring us hope. In her book, “Prescription for Nutritional Healing,” Phyllis A. Balch, CNC, writes, “With the help of the proper nutrients, exercise, and a balanced diet, we can slow the aging process and greatly improve our chances for a healthier, pain-free — and possibly longer — life” (p. 3).
Certainly, nothing is guaranteed. The diabetic, smoking, drinking man I overheard might live a longer life than I do, despite all my attention regarding my health. But we are likely to vastly improve the quality of our lives and enjoy our later years if only we take it upon ourselves to nourish our bodies as it was meant to be nourished: with as many raw organic foods as possible. After all, as Ms. Balch tells us, “One problem most of us have is that we do not get the nutrients we need from our diets because most of the foods we consume are cooked and/or processed” (p. 3).
So then why do we cook and process our food? Because it’s “normal” and “everyone does it” — not because it’s technically good for us.
We live in the most prosperous country in the world. Let’s take our eating seriously, but at the same time let every day be Thanksgiving Day as we savor and enjoy the food that is laid out before us in this great land that we call America:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Obesity Trends, http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html, retrieved June 20, 2011.
Balch, Phyllis A., CNC. Prescription for Nutritional Healing. New York: Penguin Group, 2006.
— David Magallanes is the creator of his own enterprise, Real World Projects, a business primarily dedicated to building distribution outlets for highly reputable products that offer a healthier life and a more vibrant lifestyle. An emerging branch of Real World Projects is Edifiquemos, a Spanish language enterprise dedicated to teaching the Spanish-speaking how to create a profitable international (U.S./Mexico) enterprise with low investment and high earning potential. David may be available for speaking opportunities. To contact him and for more information, you are invited to visit and explore his web sites at www.realworldprojects.info and at www.edifiquemos.com