Wrapping up reasonable talk on eating
To wrap up this extended series on food, I’ll summarize most of it in the form of advice:
Eat what you feel is right for you. The more you learn and think about food the more you’ll enjoy it. Anyone who tells you what you should or shouldn’t eat is moralizing and meddling. Eating has no right or wrong.
In the time I’ve written this series I’ve eaten more vegetables than ever. Now that I started using the Vitamixer my mom left me, when a friend who is a personal trainer came over and I told him I bought kale for the first time, we decided to buy and blend $50 worth of fruits and vegetables. We bought red kale, green kale, broccoli, apples, cilantro, parsley, pears, carrots, lemons, spinach, beets… I forget the rest, all organic.
We had a blast scrubbing and blending the stuff, mixing them in different proportions. He took some home. I had to freeze a bunch. It lasted maybe ten meals for me. I don’t know how many for him.
Why do I mention this change?
I’ve never made a habit of eating foods I don’t like or avoiding foods I do. I change my habits by finding something I like or learning about things I want to avoid (like partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, or refined sugar). When I find or learn the new thing, my habits follow, so I’m always eating what I like and avoiding what I don’t.
I don’t understand people whose diets require willpower, which I find counterproductive when used alone. Instead of using willpower, I find learning about food motivates the healthiest behavior.
Seeing the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (view for free here, view trailers here) got me into fruit and vegetable smoothies. The movie showed they improved the lives of the people who drank them so I tried them and found I like them. No willpower, no problem.
If you want to eat more healthy and have food reward you and motivate more healthiness, following a temporary diet and abstaining seems counterproductive.
Instead, learn to love healthy things and do what you love.
To close, here are all the posts in this series
- Some reasonable talk on eating
- More reasonable talk on eating
- More reasonable talk on eating, part 2
- More reasonable talk on eating, part 3
- Why I stopped eating meat, part 1
- Why I stopped eating meat, part 2
- McLibel
- Why I stopped eating meat, part 3
- Why I don’t eat meat, part 1
- Why I don’t eat meat, part 2
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issues
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue1: health
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue2: environment
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue3: animal rights
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue4: animal cruelty
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue5: feeling close to nature
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue6: religion
- Why I don’t eat meat: non-issue7: anatomy
- Wrapping up reasonable talk on eating (this post)
Read my weekly newsletter
On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees
Pingback: Some reasonable talk on the China Study | Joshua Spodek