Random Thoughts Thursday part 14

Each week, I think about what inspires me, and I try to write about something relevant to a larger audience. This week, I bought myself a present. The picture at the top of this post is my arrangement of adorable clay miniatures made by my friend. She crafted these 112 lifelike fruits and vegetables, and I simply could not resist having a set of my own. When I say miniature, I do mean small... Take a look at the picture below for scale.
Tiny Treasures

I work with children and adults who are learning English, and I have already used her creations with seven students who were AMAZED at the details in her work. It made learning the various nouns and adjectives to describe these foods a breeze. And trust me, I am just getting started with the numerous games I can play with them to make language learning fun. Here are a couple examples below.
Spin to find the starting or ending letter or color item.

Match and describe the inside versus the outside of the food.

To me, the possibilities are endless for new vocabulary. I've made riddles for my intermediate learners and idioms for my advanced learners. I am quite happy with my investment, and these tiny figures will be loved for years to come.

So while I was playing, I mean teaching (well, actually, playing and teaching are closely connected in my opinion), I started thinking about health and nutrition again. As I began to sort all the fruits and vegetables by the colors of the rainbow, I could not help but notice the variety of foods we can eat, and yet, I think most people are in the habit of eating the same foods on a regular basis. Think about it. Have you ever counted how many DIFFERENT foods you consume in a given week? I know I haven't, but my math brain is curious. I get bored with the same old, same old, so I can tell you that when I go shopping, I am always on the lookout for fresh foods of different colors and just things that I have never tried before if possible.

Recently, I needed a quick post-workout snack, and I made a picture about this for a friend just because the colors made me so happy! (Just to clarify, that's hummus in the round dish and a hearty potato, bean and veggie soup on the side, but I just wanted to focus your attention on the colors on the plate.) I don't know about your grocery store experience, but when I start seeing different colors of cauliflower, I am not looking at prices; I am grabbing the opportunity for some different nutrients. It's just not something I see every day, so I'll seize the moment. I know, I know, some people give me a hard time about splurging on food. When my kids were young, I was a "super-saver." It seemed that I had a coupon for everything, but the one thing I would never skimp on was food. What I saved on toilet paper, laundry soap, and shampoo, I would happily spend on organic produce and the cleanest meats I could find for my family. I figured if I bought high-quality foods and grew high-quality plants in my garden, I would save quite a bit on medical care in the future. At almost 46 years old, so far I've had no major health issues, and I am able to maintain the energy I need to do anything I want... which tends to be a lot of Latin dance classes at the moment.

Now I KNOW being a vegetarian is NOT a popular thing to say among a mostly male audience, but hear me out... I am not saying anyone needs to be vegetarian to be healthy, but what I am interested in is the impact of eating a variety of colorful, natural foods. I look at all the different plant items we can consume and think about all the nutrients in each food, and it only makes sense to eat every color of the rainbow for good health. Oooo, Google says, "Fruits and vegetables get their colors from natural pigments. There are almost 2,000 known plant pigments, including more than 800 flavonoids, 450 carotenoids, and 150 anthocyanins." Oh yeah, I won't tell you how long I just spent down the rabbit hole looking up all the health benefits of these plant pigments.
Healthy Benefits of Natural Pigments
Here is a link if you are a food nerd like me... If not, keep it movin'

To summarize all the information I found:

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“Let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food.”

~Hippocrates, father of medicine

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The Greek physician said this in 400 B.C., and yet we still look for shortcuts in pills for everything that ails. Don't get me wrong. If you have a chronic disease that needs medication, you have to take care of business. I get it. My concern is with some of my much younger acquaintances who eat mostly fast food and then take pills to relieve symptoms of poor diet choices. My thought is that it is possible to achieve a balance in which we, as a society, don't destroy our health at a young age. I know processed food is convenient and very popular, and sometimes you just need a, well, "convenient" option when there is no time to cook, but shouldn't this be the exception rather than the norm? I am thinking that if people ate a mostly healthy diet, these occasional fast food runs wouldn't do much damage to the person's overall health condition. But as I see it, many people do quite the opposite. They eat mostly unhealthy food and then throw an occasional lettuce leaf at a health crisis. Am I wrong about it? I think it depends on your country of origin. I can only speak for what I have seen during my time in the U.S. Convenience and fast food are king, and people creating home-cooked, nutritious meals are few and far between. You might be thinking, "Why is it any of my business what people eat?" For the most part, what people eat and how they age is entirely that person's personal story. BUT, when working with a TEAM of professionals as I do in my teaching job, when others get sick, it is the healthy part of the team who needs to pick up the slack. We are about to enter cold and flu season for the long months of winter, and if the same patterns hold true, many of my colleagues will take turns being sick for several work days over the next 6 months. My schedule will get insanely busy as I will need to continue teaching my classes and sub for sick teachers as well. I can't remember the last time I have missed work because I was sick, and I do believe food choices are directly related to time off because of illness. These are short-term inconveniences, but if we are really honest about it, the long-term implications are much more scary. If the majority of the population doesn't age well, there will not be enough healthy people to care for them in their old age. This is a most unpleasant thought...

So now what? It's up to you. I'm just a lady behind a laptop writing my observations. But if anything in this post registered with you, might I make a suggestion? Have fun with food! Good food! Nutritious foods! Go to the store and look at something new in the produce aisle. Take advantage of the Internet and look up how to prepare it. Then.....try it! Your body will thank you!

In playing with these little fruit and vegetable figures that my friend sculpted, my students have already discovered that there are MANY fruits and vegetables that they have never tried before. With the exception of the half of a durian fruit pictured above, I have tried the other 111 fruits and vegetables in the picture many times over. I would try durian too, but it is not available in any of the countries that I have visited.... yet. So when I am teaching, I can describe the different tastes and textures of the foods that I know about and my students don't... hahaha... some curious kids have a new shopping list for their mothers because they really want to taste what I described. Heehee... good thing I am friends with all the mamas. ;-)

I am hoping that this blog does not come across as too "preachy." My intention was to make you curious enough to try something new. Why? I think that is a subject for a whole other blog post, but to be brief, I am not a fan of the for-profit health care industry as it is in the U.S. Yes, I go to the doctor, and yes, I check all the things that need to be checked at my age. But I leave with absolute delight and a skip in my step when they can't find anything wrong in my lab work and have no opportunity to prescribe their "prescriptions for life" that seem to be more and more common where I am from. Unless and until a doctor can tell me more about nutrition than I know from my own amateur research, I don't really trust his/her medical opinion. It puts me, the patient, in a rather precarious situation if and when I do need medical advice. Trusting people who stand to profit off of me staying sick and needing multiple appointments, makes it hard to navigate the right health path. I believe that there are far too many "Pill Pusher M.D.s" and not enough physicians actually focused on helping their patients HEAL. When you find a doctor knowledgeable in nutrition as well as prescriptions, hang on to them! It is a rare find indeed! If you are a doctor with nutritional knowledge who helps your patients obtain health with lifestyle changes and only prescribe medications when truly necessary, thank you for making a difference! (Again, this is my opinion based on my experience in the States. I often felt like I needed to educate myself and not blindly trust medical professionals. It was difficult to trust that they had my best interests in mind because I felt that their knowledge was clouded by dollar signs. I would love to see comments with a more positive experience. My apologies if my comments here come across a bit harsh. By no means do I intend to bash all medical professionals. We definitely need their knowledge and training.) For this reason, I feed my body as many healthy things as I can so that I can try to stay ahead of that health curve for as long as possible. I wish you the very best health for many years, too! Now go eat an apple!

Bonus points: Look up how apples can help with brain function and concentration. See, reading this post in its entirety might have just helped your chess game after all. ;-P

Much love and peace!
Cheers!