Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
I’m cleaning out my old art studio in the basement to give to my grandson for his bedroom and I’ve moved my art studio up to my son’s old room. I went through my vegan phase which started September 5, 2015, when I took the three-week vegan challenge my son issued. That challenge which lasted a few years led me to scour book stores for books on plant-based eating. I believe I am healthier and lighter from taking that challenge and eating more plant-based than we did before the challenge, but meat, eggs, and cheese are back on the menu.
My latest food challenge is removing fructose from my diet for two weeks. The idea is to keep the fructose eaten daily between 25 and 35 grams after the fructose fast is completed. Ironically the best book I’ve found on fructose is called The Sugar Fix by Richard J. Johnson, MD with Timothy Gower and I had it in the basement with the books I am sending to Value Village.
I bought book after book after book on plant-based eating, but how we ate daily was by tweaking our normal meals and replacing meat with beans and starch. Meat replacements are not something I’ve embraced. Whole food, mostly plants is a good way to eat. I have six bags of books that are going back to Value Village which is where I bought most, but not all of them. I am still keeping many books on nutrition, healing, and cookbooks I’ve collected over the years I don’t want to part with. The books I am parting with were stored in the basement at the back of my art room. I’ve brought some books back upstairs over time but the ones that remained hidden in the recesses of the art room didn’t call out to me to keep when I looked through them. I only picked five books I couldn’t part with.
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. Mahatma Gandhi
One of the things I’ve realized about myself is I buy books perhaps thinking that by osmosis everything in those books can be soaked up without actually reading and studying them. My art room is filled with books and if I were proficient at every technique in those books I would be a great artist. If I read all the books of wisdom I own I would be wise.
There are so many books on nutrition telling us to do this and do that. I am finding the way of eating I learned from Mom and Dad on the farm is probably the healthiest way of eating for me. Meat, eggs, potatoes, beans, rice, good bread, home-baked cakes, pies, cookies, lots of vegetables, butter and cheese, not much fruit, no sugar in tea or coffee, and packaged convenience foods kept to a minimum.
We may tweak our diet over our lifetime to keep ourselves as healthy as we can. Food is the best medicine we have to keep ourselves strong, and nothing can take the place of good nutrition. When we pass on healthy eating habits to our children we give them the best start we can.
Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness. Edward Stanley
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have. Winston Churchill
Don’t allow a love problem or work problem to become an eating problem. Stop trying to stuff your feelings down with food. Karen Salmansohn
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
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