The last major revolution in this country was of course, the American Revolution.
But with Sunday's passage of the Health Care Reform Bill (finally!) and Michelle Obama's own campaign called "Let's Move" to battle childhood obesity, a brand new revolution is about to start...
...and of course, it's not going to be easy...people are hard up to embrace change. But there is nothing wrong with a change for the better, and that is including myself of course!
So let's be honest here: starting with me...I know I don't eat as healthy as I would like, and it's a good thing that my husband is a healthy food nut, otherwise, I would probably backslide so far behind.
However, now that I am getting older (a lot older, since I will be 31 next month), I am finding that the same old, greasy, heavy, stuff that we're all so used to eating...I can't get away with it anymore. Especially my own native food from the Philippines...not that there is anything wrong with it, but because I grew up eating it, as with any cuisine that kids grow up eating from their parent's native homelands, it is the best there is...comfort.
But too much comfort can lead to a lot of problems, and it may not be right away either...
My family's health history is not exactly the best. In fact, it's not the best at all. It is how I was never able to meet my grandfather, my dad's father. He passed away from a heart attack before my dad came to the United States. Two of my aunts have osteoporosis, one of my uncles passed away from a condition that was brought on by years of alcoholism, one aunt passed away from heart failure; now I have two more uncles with diabetes, and one of them had a stroke which he is still trying to recover from, and now since I'm married? I have a father-in-law also with diabetes.
What is the problem with this scenario? The old adage: you are what you eat. Or consume.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
For weeks now, I finally found a show advertised, that is worth watching: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. An hour long preview of it was shown last night on ABC, and I have to say: quite impressed.
I have always been a Jamie Oliver fan. His food is fantastic! Have two of his books at home, and love his straight-talk shows on the Food Network. He is really passionate about what he does in his cooking, but there is something else that I admire about him even more: his desire to give back to the community, starting with helping to completely overhauling the school lunch system in his native England. Not only that, bringing in troubled youth to be apprentices in his kitchen so they can not only have a brighter future, but better lives for themselves and their families.
If you grew up in the early 80's and 90's in the larger inner cities like I did in Chicago, you remember eating horrific cardboard-tasting-crust pizza, meatloaf made out of goodness knows what, french toast coming from a freezer, not a fresh loaf of bread, vegetables that tasted like they have been dipped in rosewater before they threw it in the sealed packaging...the only thing I can give them credit for is the occasional fresh fruit that they offered, but don't get your hopes up: they came in a processed package swimming in very sweet syrup.
How I wished back then that they had a microwave so I can take dinner leftovers from home to eat instead of all of that mess that they would serve in schools. I am sure my parents would not have minded not having to pay for the horrific school lunches. Seriously. There is something wrong if as a kid, you want to bring food from home instead of eating school lunches.
That is just the beginning: if kids are eating junk at school, they will want to eat junk at home too.
I don't want to give too much away about the show for those who have not watched it, or you may actually have if you watched ABC World News Tonight or Nightline: one woman has tons of pizza, corn dogs, eggs, bacon, biscuits, chips, sodas, and need I say more? All of them are overweight, but you can see why they are. She mentioned the fact that healthier food are more expensive to buy.
Ah, more expensive you say?
For the 10 for $10 pizza specials that you see in some grocery stores, you can easily direct those $10 to buy some fruits and veggies and it even depends on when they have it on sale.
Sure you see coupons to save a few cents on certain items...but I have a problem with using coupons that only advertise the unhealthiest foods that you can eat...
Does it honestly cost more choosing something from the cookie aisle, versus making your own at home? At home, you can control what exactly goes into the cookie or any baked good: whole wheat flour for one thing, and canola oil (if it calls for it) instead of the unhealthier vegetable oil or corn oil? And I hesitate to find out the pronunciations of all of the "preservatives" that they add to these "convenience" foods.
When my parents were growing up, they did not have to go far to get their food: they only went to their backyards! Huge acres of it: if their families weren't selling the food, they were certainly eating it: as fresh as it comes: vegetables, fruits, free range meat (they knew about those way before the idea of "free range" became all the rage for healthy eating), but now? It seems like convenience reigns again when we can go to a concrete building and buy our groceries without considering or even questioning where the food came from.
So the idea is pretty cut and dry...show the kids early on that healthy eating is the way to go. Sure, you can still give them occasional pizza...but eating stuff like pizza on an every day basis is just overkill.
Of course, this includes me. I can always use an overhaul on my own eating habits...like, I always find ways to bring fresh vegetables into everything that we eat. My husband demands it actually. And I never bring just a sandwich for lunch: my lunches at work are often leftovers from dinner: pancit one day, cashew chicken with vegetables the next day, home made chili the following day...and that's just one week. Since I'm trying to keep up on my goal for at least one new recipe a week, it's been pretty good.
But if healthy eating is still not convincing you, consider these facts:
According to the World Health Organization, the leading factors causing illnesses are based mostly on what we take in: excessive alcohol, smoking, and of course, what we are eating.
If you are eating too little, you are depriving yourself of the essential nutrients. But, if you eat a lot of junk food like pizza, corn dogs, a lot of fried & battered stuff, there is a term that they used in Nutrition class called "Empty Calories", and those empty calories are one of the factors that are causing so much weight gain. The average person who is exercising regularly should have a daily caloric intake of 1500 calories. The exception would be for athletes who are constantly training for the next Olympic sport or tennis match or the like: they need about 2,000 calories. Or the person who has a very active job like a Nursing Assistant, working in the forest preserve, landscaping, or even playing a roughhouse sport with your kids, any job that requires you to use an output of energy more than you realize...should be taking a bit more calories than the average.
But for the person who has an office job or likes to be the couch potato in the house, should be taking in LESS calories than called for. I hate to say it but it's true. You're not using so much energy, you shouldn't be taking in more calories than you need, unless you want to see yourself growing sideways.
I also work for a hospital, in an ICU where a lot of the patients are in for complications from obesity: diabetes, cardiac problems, or joint problems. If not obesity, it's certainly the latter two. If you count what I see in the hospital on a daily basis, and given my own horrible family medical history, if this is not a motivator to keep myself in check, I don't know what is.
So last night, I'm watching the series premiere of "Jamie's Food Revolution" and I'm already thinking of the food I'm going to make the next day: I found this great Risotto Primavera recipe...it has fresh vegetables!
I also found a ridiculously simple recipe on how to make ricotta cheese.
I'm thinking about what I should get at Costco this Wednesday since both myself and my hubby are getting paid: the spring season is in full swing, which means, a lot more variety of vegetables are in. Starting with peas and fingerling potatoes. There is a market running every Wednesday through Saturday that features local farms putting out their freshly grown veggies.
We even joined a community garden where the sunshine is just perfect...I'm going to start my own herb pot at home, while we're going to pick up starter plants for cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and potatoes.
Ah, Food Revolution. As much as I am a fan of a lot of the chefs out there making fresh food for us from scratch, I'm surprised no one else is joining in the revolution of making school lunches better. From grade school all the way to college.
Oh yes...the college food can use an overhaul too. Otherwise, you can always choose to cook your own fresh food.
Jamie Oliver rocks. This is a revolution that I certainly don't mind in joining. Because, if you don't start changing your outlook on what you are consuming, you may be looking at a road that you may not be able to get off. The cycle of healthy eating begins with you...otherwise, how are you going to be able to teach someone else to do the same if you do not do this for yourself?
I leave you with these yummy photographs...
I don't know about you...with the exception of hanging out with friends and family, and photography...I can't think of a cooler activity than cooking. And for that, I have my heritage and family to thank.
