Non-Food

I look out at the file cabinets in the center of my office, and see the landscape of junk food that the ladies bring in: pretzels, brownies, Oreos, a bowl of Hershey kisses, Kit-Kat bars, and other prepackaged individual sugar treats. There’s also a box of triscuits and a plastic resealable bag of those vanilla finger cookies.

There’s six of us in the office.

This is an everyday thing. They’re always resupplying the junk food center. Actually, today is surprising; normally Fridays involve some sort of donuts or those munchkin-thingies from Dunkin Donuts, along with that box of coffee. Probably the rain kept the designated driver from making her morning stop at the junk factory.

Bitter? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah, I love me my chocolate. But I’ve been so run-down lately, so fatigued and depressed and negative that my intuition’s telling me it’s time. Time to eat better, time to step up and walk the walk. I’m was going strong on the fifteen glasses of lemon-tinged water until the baby was born, then I had to supplement with one or two Diet Cokes a day for the caffeine. I’ve been gluttonously sampling the junk food center here, and the result is I’m headachy, dead-tired by 3 pm, and I feel gross and dirty. When I get home I wash it all away with a Foster’s or two. Too much backsliding, too much justifying.

So, it’s time for a change.

I’ve been reading this book, and it’s very good. Perhaps I’ll blog about it later. Right now, over the past two days, I’ve been eating fruit up until lunch. Fruit is easily digestible. It passes through the body without the accumulated waste of processed foods. It gives you energy. It helps your body to help itself become healthier. So, right now, I’m concentrating solely on fruit until lunch and back to those fifteen glasses of lemon water.

I’ll report back whether it’s actually helpful.

But for now, there’s one very profound observation I want to pass on to anyone reading this. I want you to think about this, think about it deeply.

Any “food” that’s man-made is not food.

That’s your assignment. That’s what’s been bouncing about my mind for the past couple of weeks. Look at those donuts and realize: “That’s not food.” Listen to someone tell you about the cake she had last night, and realize: “That is not food.” It’s not. It’s not grown out of the ground; it’s made in a lab. That “food” is a laboratory-concocted chemical cocktail.

Keep that in the back of your mind when you eat today.