Gratitude: Food (1/3)
What I’m Grateful For: Food (Part 1 of 3)
Part 1: Fasting As I write this, I’m simmering a batch of bone broth (made from bones from my sister’s grass fed lambs and my dad’s turnip-fed pigs). I’m taking a day off of eating (fasting) but am sipping bone broth throughout the day. I have been thinking a lot of about food the last year – what we eat, why we eat it, how it affects our bodies and minds, as so on. There’s so much controversy about what we are putting in our bodies, when we are eating, how often, how much, of what sort. I’ve been doing some experiments (on myself of course) and I have some ideas around better and worse ways of eating. But I think that if you were to remember one thing, it’s to “follow the money.” Who wins if people can’t stop eating highly processed, addictive junk foods and beverages? The companies that make those foods of course! And also those that gain from more continued consumption (shareholders, lobbyists, politicians, and most alarmingly, the doctors and studies that are funded by them.)
Think about fasting, for example. (Not a juice cleanse, not a bunch of pills, just the honest, time-honored tradition of taking a day off from food.) Who benefits? Who makes more money? Where’s the corporate incentive to study fasting? The only person who stands to benefit is the fastee – the person giving their body a break from a constant state of being fed and shuttling insulin around. So today I’m fasting (yes, with some bone broth which may not delight you purists out there.) I’ll let you know more about it next week.
What I’m Reading: 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson!
Rule #7 Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
This chapter was a doozy! Long and wandering, it delved deeply into the rituals and social contracts that make up society and explored ancient history, Biblical stories and the Holocaust in its journey. I can’t do it justice in this short space, but I think it was the most interesting chapter yet. The takeaway is clear and succinct – and for many of you, I think you have already adopted this for your own lives.
Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient). By choosing to pursue what has meaning, to work to alleviate the unnecessary pain and suffering in the world around us, to strive for humility and to fix what we can fix, to aim for the betterment of Being, as Jordan says, “… the meaning revealed will be life-sustaining. It will provide the antidote for chaos and suffering. It will make everything matter. It will make everything better.”
What do you think about this? I would love to hear back.
What I’m Pondering:
The weakness of an art is its dogma. And when I’m competing against an individual from a different discipline, I try to find the dogma of that discipline. When I’m competing with someone within a discipline, I try to find their personal dogma. — Josh Waitzkin, Chess Grandmaster & World Tai Chi Champion
