Fear of food

[sarahmichigan]

I refuse to fear my food.

I will not panic about conventionally grown fruits and vegetables and worry that I'm poisoning myself.

I will not believe that potatoes, carrots, or bananas are "bad" for me because they have too much sugar or simple carbs.

I will not live in fear that the fluoride in my green tea or the soy sausage and broccoli that I eat are going to depress my thyroid fuction.

I refuse to beat myself up for eating french fries or other treats because the trans fat is going to make me die young.

I refuse to live in fear that a couple servings of fish a week are going to make my brain turn to mush from mercury poisoning.

I will not assume that I eat too much wheat and gluten and that I'm making myself sick by eating a whole wheat tortilla or a piece of 12-grain bread.

I understand that some people do have life-threatening food allergies or sensitivities that make them ill when they eat certain foods. I understand people wanting to limit their intake of pesticides and herbicides from their produce. I understand that a lot of whole foods are very unlike the aboriginal seed stock they originally came from and they might be very different nutritionally than their ancient ancestors.

Caution and keeping up-to-date on nutrition and food science is a virtue, but I refuse to obsess about these issues to the point that it makes me live in fear. Food is to be used as fuel and is there to be enjoyed.

I will not fear my food.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_earthshine_/]

As a friend used to tell me, "Everything in moderation... including moderation."

I try to eat healthy. I think buying local and organic is generally good for me in a variety of ways. I try to watch things like artificial ingredients, sugar levels, hormones, pesticides and mercury levels (esp with my kids).

...and then every now and then, i exercise my right to gleefully wolf down two Sausage Egg McMuffins or a sack of White Castles.


Life's for livin'. :)

[airsucker.livejournal.com]

I do concur. I also hope nobody is taking my food-link posts as anything but a look at stuff that is interesting.

I think the only thing I haven't managed to try eating was sea urchin. It just doesn't look right to me. ;)

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I put the slashfood feed on my friends list for a while because the stuff you posted was interesting. I dropped it after a week or two becaues there's just SO MUCH stuff every day, but it is a fun blog.

[airsucker.livejournal.com]

I have it feed into MyYahoo. I seem to be the one in my friends group that picks out the interesting bits and feeds it to them.