ILF= I Love Food

Now that the weather is warming up it's becoming my favorite time of the year not only because I can spend more time outdoors, but because many of my favorite fruits and veggies are coming into season! My mom and I usually plant a vegetable garden with peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini and various herbs. I love being able to bring home fresh veggies because not only is it better for me because we don't use and chemical pesticides, but also because I think eating real, fresh vegetables is really important. I've been trying to make my diet more of a plant based way of eating since vegetables, fruits and legumes are just bursting with good stuff. On a sort-of related note, I like to people-watch pretty much wherever I go. Maybe that's what drew me to poetry is the observational aspect of poems. I really like watching people at the grocery store. There have been more than a few times where I have seen a mom with kids-in-tow walking past the produce section. One of the kids will point to something like an eggplant or a sweet potato and ask their mother "what's that?". Usually these kids are between the ages of 5-10 and the mother can't recognize the vegetable either. It usually leaves me wide-eyed with my jaw halfway to the floor. The sad thing is that, like I said before, these aren't isolated incidents, I see it A LOT more than is necessary. Luckily, I grew up with parents who really valued fresh vegetables, especially my dad who grew up with a mother who kept her victory garden looong after the war was over. Unfortunately, when I got into middle school, most of what my parents had tried to do with fresh, healthy food got flushed down the toilet because bringing your lunch was no longer "cool" anymore. I was talking to my friend Kimmy about the stuff we used to eat at lunch in high school and how terrible it was. When I was in 8th grade, I had a bag of Sun Chips and an ice cream sandwich EVERY DAY for lunch. I look back on that and I'm embarrassed by it, but because of my struggles with processed foods I have gained such an appreciation of the fresh foods I eat today.

There's a show on ABC that has implanted Jamie Oliver, the famous British TV chef, into a West Virginia town named the unhealthiest town in America. His mission is to change the way people in that town look at food and has so far been focusing on school lunches, which from my experience, are anything but good for you. I really like this idea, though I tend to find Oliver a bit cocky for my taste. I think it's important to show a real place with real people and the effect that poor nutritional guidance has made on people's lives and health. We hear the statistics on news programs and the only visuals we really get are clips of overweight people being followed on busy sidewalks or people having their blood pressure checked. I think having a show with characters people can relate to will help people realize that they're not alone and there needs to be a change. I think The Biggest Loser has made a big impact in the realm of weight loss, but normal people don't have the time and resources to lose huge amounts of weight like that in a short amount of time, it's just not realistic and it doesn't really address peoples problems with overeating.

I hate to ramble on, but food and nutrition is something I'm really passionate about. In fact, for my Post-modern literature class I wrote about the commercialization of processed foods in post modern literature and had NO trouble writing 25 pages about it. I have a few friends who ask me how I can afford to buy healthier foods and voice their complaints about how healthy food is expensive. I make under $10,000 per year and I have no trouble buying fresh foods. The farmers market is my best friend. I can get fresh and organic foods way cheaper than at the grocery store. I also make my diet my number one priority. I don't buy a lot of clothes, I don't go on a lot of trips, I don't buy things I don't need. Most of my money goes towards food that is high in quality and good for me. I'm spending money on food now so I won't have to pay for health problems in the future.