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I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
-Jean Kerr
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From "If the Buddha Came to Dinner: How to Nourish Your Body and Awaken Your Spirit" by Halé Sofia Schatz with Shira Shaiman:
Most of us let our eyes decide what our bodies need. Our ideas about what we eat are more important than the food itself, what our stomachs can hold, or what we need in this moment for good, strong energy. Our families, social situations, society, and marketing campaigns dictate the choices most people make about how they feed themselves. Sometimes we're provided with very useful guidelines and models. But you need to stop and ask: Are you feeding yourself in ways that personally make sense to your body's unique and ever-changing needs and rhythms?
In this country, food is available all the time. Unlike our ancestors who ate in harmony with seasonal cycles of abundance and scarcity, harvest and hunting, we east as though we're constantly feasting. Really, we eat nonstop. We fill our stomachs until we're uncomfortable, and we put more food in the shopping cart than we need. This abundance of food and our own fast-paced convenience culture keep us from recognizing our own personal rhythms. We eat for many reasons, not necessarily because we're physically hungry or need certain nutrients to keep healthy.
With more and more processed foods in the marketplace, obesity in adults and children dramatically on the rise, and digestive problems increasingly more common, it's clear that we're facing a serious health crisis. The answer, however, isn't to just put Americans on a diet. Reducing the intake of refined and processed foods and increasing fresh produce and whole grains certainly can improve one's health. But we need more. We need to feed ourselves with a sense of purpose, focus, self-love, and passion for our lives.
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