Photo by Jan Sedivy on Unsplash
Recently I have been feeding a wounded pigeon on my balcony. As one of her legs is wounded, the bird can land and walk on only one leg. When she grows tired of her one-legged endeavor, she props up against the ball of a feathered body — on her injured side — and avidly continues to eat what I serve her.
Other fat and fluffy pigeons compound her situation further. When they notice food on my balcony, they immediately arrive and peck the poor girl away (yes, birds have a chilling cruelty to them).
The way my pigeon lives daily has been beyond fascinating for me. She devours all the seeds and bread crumbs I give her. Her neck enlarges as she gobbles so much she can hardly swallow. She is full of the desire to live, which is invariably present in her bright orange eyes. The fact that she is disabled does not change that.
That leads me to think about us humans.
We always eat. Instinctively — sometimes even compulsively. Food sustains our lives. Food is also a motivation for life and makes our national cultures. Hunger is a powerful driving force behind our actions, passions, and progress.
We give little conscious thought to this primal aspect of life. While we depend on it for survival, we don’t pay much attention to it … until we end up hungry for prolonged periods or we get sick.
I was one of the latter. Due to digestive issues, I had to rethink my eating habits. Many years ago I cut processed sugar and fast foods. Then, several years ago I felt I needed to eliminate gluten from my diet, which coincided with the advice of specialists I received. White bread, pasta, pizzas, wheat pies, and the like are no longer а part of my menu. I would occasionally have a pick of some wholegrain bread, but this is a cherished rarity in my life.
This choice has gone contrary to my national food culture, where bread has been a staple for centuries. My country’s lands yield abundant, beautiful wheat crops. Some of my fellowmen eat bread three times daily.
My abstinence from bread has affected my overall health beneficially — my digestion, energy levels and mental clarity have improved.
Despite all this, family and friends sometimes ridicule me for my dietary choices. They can’t grasp why I would eliminate such a yummy and nutritious staple from my menu.
They can’t understand why I work so hard for my gluten-free meals either.
True, I need to cook for the day ahead in the morning before beginning my work. I also need to consider alternative sources of fibre, vitamins, and calcium to compensate for the loss of bread. In my case, I do loads of green veggies, tons of fruit, and meat that is of high quality, daily.
Interestingly, according to some latest statistics, nearly a third of all Americans try to avoid gluten for health reasons, with 24% of people having been without gluten for 10 years. People swear their health improves dramatically esp. those diagnosed with autoimmune conditions.
Gluten-free eating is only one type of diet that is gaining popularity in industrial societies.
There are myriads of other diets that presumably entail more natural eating habits and rectify medical conditions — Keto, paleo, vegetarian, or vegan to name a few.
The common thing is that it is a challenge to deviate from the mainstream processed food culture.
One needs to invest more time in cooking meals themselves and often invests more money, too. Unhabituating one’s palate from tons of sugar and additives is also a challenge — understandably, natural whole foods taste bland in comparison to sugary processed foods.
One needs to adjust perception and taste habits thoroughly.
Breaking free from the influences of cultural and societal pressures is no easier either.
As I’ve shared earlier, when one deviates from food commonalities, they often face mockery from family, friends and industry marketers.
Food is intrinsically connected with socializing and with culture in general. It is intertwined with our upbringing as children; there is no other way around that.
Over the last century, food industries have brought nothing short of a revolution in this respect.
While our ancestors ate whole plants, seeds, fruits, honey, and meats, today we consume chemically processed foods.
Our supposed healthy salads are drenched in industrial oils. Our life-giving glucose reserves — previously charged for us by fruits - are now substantiated by modified corn syrup and refined sugar.
What would have been preposterous for our gatherer and hunter predecessors to eat, are our staples today. We have conditioned our brains, guts, and overall bodies to accept that as “normal” and “natural” over time.
It has nonetheless contributed to the rise of most modern diseases, early tooth loss, and loss of physical mobility.
Our relationship with food may be one of our most complicated experiences on this planet today.
From a physiological perspective, our digestive tract’s mucosa, like our skin, marks our border with the outside world. What our intestinal lining admits inside our bloodstream becomes part of our Selves. The rest we directly throw out or defend against (intestinal mucosa represents one of our most strategic immune defenses). In a nutshell, our gut is a story of Self vs. Non-Self.
The fascinating thing about the processes above is that this choice of what becomes us and what we throw away is made by our gut, not by our brain.
Identity-making starts at the mouth and continues down the GI tract. As we grow up, food not only provides the physical building blocks for our tissues, organs, and bodies but also shapes our psychological makeup. It makes us who we are.
Think about that for a minute! Our eating habits are a matter of our physiological identity. For us, this is a type of identity that gets formed subconsciously over time.
Ironically, this is exactly where the gigantic marketing and food industries jumped onto over the last century.
They exploited the fact that our guts and brains can be conditioned — gradually — to eat anything as long as our palates are exposed to those foods for a long enough time.
Marketing and advertising professionals (plus even dieting gurus!) all work predominantly with our brains, (re)wiring them. They prime our brains with cognitive messages.
The food industry exploits the addictive biochemical influence of processed sugar on our brains to their selling advantage. This is why today we get sugar even in foods such as tomato sauces for instance (despite tomatoes being sweet enough kinds of fruit).
Sugar has also turned into comfort food, providing us with much-needed support at stressful moments throughout our day.
This is why restoring nutritional equilibrium and lasting overall health is challenging.
Ideally, we should return to ourselves and reconnect with our inner selves. The more connected we are to our guts, the more in tune with our innermost essence. The more we listen to our gut’s signals as to what we need nutritionally at any given moment in time, the healthier we are.
Interestingly, our gut mucosa is dynamic and changes in real time. What was harmful for us to eat yesterday may not be harmful today. That is why following someone’s nutritional protocol strictly and at all times may not be the panacea one needs.
Health gurus claim to offer one-size-fits-all solutions, but following them blindly has its risks. Every person’s health situation is individual and changes dynamically over time.
One needs to go through individualized solutions that one paves by himself/herself while treading the long and winding road toward understanding one’s nutritional needs; to distinguish these from cravings of addiction or from eating foods for emotional comfort.
Nutritious advice is part of the journey but not foundational at all times.
What is key is that you get to know your needs in time, i.e. get to know your ever-changing gut as I call it.
Another risk associated with resetting eating habits is overdoing it.
We must be careful not to slip into unhealthy “healthy-eating” attitudes (pun intended). We shouldn’t develop an obsessive need for “perfect” health.
Тransitioning into better health is a process. While food is a major ingredient, the process is synergistic with many other compounds in life such as current stress levels, overall life satisfaction, and one’s familial and other relationships.
We may need to ask ourselves if we are slipping into orthorexia too — an obsession with eating foods that one considers healthy. That is a good question to ask ourselves if we find that our engagement with food consumes excessive time, effort, or energy, leaving little time for other endeavors in life. Of course, serious medical conditions and severe allergies that require strict food elimination are exceptions here.
Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are also pathological phenomena related to eating. They are also exclusive to humans and are extreme examples of our tendency to get obsessed with food. We need to be wary if we feel eating something will bring catastrophic effects on our well-being or turn us into unattractive and unwanted human beings. That is a red flag.
Our healthy eating shouldn’t lead to a sense of moral superiority over others with different dietary choices, either.
That is a phenomenon seen in many subcultures seeking personal betterment and growth.
In time we forget that we are humans like everyone else. We are not а better class of humans for eating more “healthily” than others (for further information on this, read here).
Conversely, those with mainstream eating habits should not ridicule people who have chosen alternative paths as they never know what someone’s health situation is.
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In conclusion, everyone is into this eating jamboree.
Whether junk or healthy eaters; whether we’re constantly cooking or never step into the kitchen; from gourmet lovers to those who prefer simple meals; vegans and animal-protein eaters alike.
We are all prone to falling into eating extremes at one point or another, searching for nutritional harmony. We are either addicted to health-destroying foods or depend on healthy foods. If a modern man said they were free, they would be grossly mistaken.
Today, I occasionally include wholegrain bread in my meals. For instance, when my family gathers for a warm celebration, I may taste some of their yummy (plainly yummy!) bread and pies. I try to make such decisions in every real moment, not based on pre-set (mental) protocols. Sometimes my body tolerates those breads okay; other times it doesn’t. What I do on such occasions is eat my bread with gratitude and sincere respect for my larger cultural (tribal) identity.
A typical deviation from my healthy diet is when my loved ones cook me one of the tastiest pastries in my country — a traditional “banitza” — and offer it to me. How could I decline their gesture? Love is a higher priority than dieting.
I have also made it a habit to sit and watch my pigeon eat every day. Truth be told, she prefers whole foods to processed ones, like me — whole seeds to processed bread, abandoning the latter completely if she notices seeds around.
It is beyond doubt that things are much easier for her than for me as she is unexposed to marketing and societal pressures. All she has is her gut feeling, with more meanings of “gut” here than one. No science, industry, culture, or health gurus have conditioned her brain into eating something (or not eating it).
All she has is her deep-seated resilience in the face of adversity. She embodies returning to life — as visceral and primal as life can be. Hopefully, we can all return to living like that.
P.S. What dietary steps have you taken to improve your overall health? I would be happy to read about them in the comments below. Thank you for reading.
It does affect us. A healthy soil grows healthy food.
Diversity of plants and animals is key and chemical usage also has a significant impact on nutrient levels.
Same goes for the animals and what they eat.
Eggs from hens that are pasture raised have a higher nutrient density than those from caged or barn raised hens.
I also follow a similar diet to you. I’ve eliminated sugar, processed foods, most gluten.
Always feel better.
Another interesting note, the microbiome in our gut is the same as that in a healthy soil!