My interview with Healing Wheel, the online magazine for spiritual seekers, was posted today. Read the full interview here. An excerpt is below…
Tell us about the concept of primary and secondary foods. It is an intriguing idea that we feed ourselves in ways other than through our mouths, like say, by way of how we choose to interact with others on an emotional or spiritual level.
The concept of Primary Food is not new, it is intuitive that a life that is fulfilling and close to our true nature will more truly nourish our soul. Joshua Rosenthal, founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC, coined the term “Primary Food”. I think it is a critical part to maintaining a sustainable lifestyle. So maybe when we eat “secondary food” (the stuff we put in our mouth) we are trying to satisfy a need for Primary Food.
What is your own personal experience with living via holistic food versus living via more prepared processed food?
I have lived both sides of the fence, and have hopped back and forth a few times. I grew up chubby, eating a nutritionally-ignorant diet. Not many vegetables, lots of beef, chicken and pork, potatoes of various kinds, frozen pizza, mac and cheese. When I was in my early twenties I discovered macrobiotics and spent much of my twenties living and promoting that way of life. When I was 32 I moved, changed careers and lost a bit of that youthful idealism as I dealt with the “realities” of making a living. While never being totally in the grip of the “Standard American Diet” (SAD) I was certainly having illicit affairs with it, as well as eating unconsciously.
I’ve made attempts over the years to rekindle my passion for a more holistic approach to food. What has really helped me recently is the work done by people such as Michael Pollan who have been exposing the connection of global sustainability to food. This clicked with me and gave me some new toeholds with which to reignite my interest. I have replaced the idealism of youth with a more experiential, comprehensive philosophy of connectedness.
And I found I needed to teach. So I am spending more time writing, consulting and demonstrating the concepts of sustainable holistic food practices.
Read the full interview…
Talk to most people about why they want to change their diet habits and they’ll tell you, “I want to lose weight.”
“Lost” and “losing” generally imply something negative. I lost my keys. I lost the game. I’m losing my mind. It refers to something we used to have, no longer have, and either want back or wish we could get back. So why do we use this same language to describe a desired change in body weight? Do you want to lose weight, but then find it again? Do you wish it would come back? Probably not.
But isn’t that what happens to many of us? We have been on various diet regimens and “lost” countless pounds. If you are like me, you have probably “found” most of them again.
Language is powerful. If we want to create a sustainable, healthy lifestyle for ourselves, we need to change the paradigm of what we have done in the past that has not been successful. It’s easy to chalk it up to some character flaws (I’m weak, I don’t love myself, I have no willpower, etc.). But to quote Einstein, “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” We need to change our minds. Change our minds about how we view body weight.
These days, when people comment that I have “lost weight”, I tell them, “No, I sent it away. I don’t want it back.” Usually good for a laugh. But it is deeper, it is a change to the paradigm and the frame of language around weight management. A friend of mine speaks of “weight release”, to let go of something no longer needed. Kind of like a yard sale for body fat.
Changing body weight, reducing it for most people, is seen as the end result of a change in diet. Our society has a great deal of image and self worth wrapped up in body weight. But body weight is simply a barometer and consequence of our state of wellness. As such, changing body weight should be the barometer and consequence of living a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle. It is no doubt fun to watch numbers go down on the scale. But it is even more satisfying to have a body, mind and spirit that is well-nourished, feels great and is in harmony with its environment.
How does your language around body weight impact your success in maintaining a sustainable, healthy lifestyle?
This is a fun idea from TriplePundit…
Marilee Crocker of the Cape Cod Times interviewed me last week about my whole food consulting work. It appeared in this past Sunday’s Cape Cod Times. You can read the article online here…
The comment about “well-paid speaking gigs” was somewhat tongue-in-cheek on my part, though if you are looking for a speaker…
Here is a quick read from Darya Pino at the Huffington Post…
This week’s haul from the Orleans Farmers Market – strawberries, mixed salad greens, red leaf lettuce, asparagus, radishes, shiitake mushrooms, garlic scapes and rhubarb!
I also had a head of lettuce my sister-in-law brought from her Boston CSA basket. With all these different salad greens, I decided to make my own mix. So I broke up the two heads of lettuce in a large bowl, then mixed in the bag of mixed greens. Everything went (in two batches) into the Oxo salad spinner (see below). Filled the spinner with water, gently massaged the leaves, drained (did this three times, the two heads were obviously fresh picked and not washed), then spun (the fun part!). The spinner gets most of the water out of the leaves.
Then bagged up the mix into reusable produce bags, ready for the week!
