Movie: Food, INC & 10 Things you can do to CHANGE our Food System

After much encouragement from my Vegetarian friends I finally got around to watching the movie:
Food, INC.         (check your local library - I was able to rent it for free)

(Disclaimer - you dont have to be a Veg to get something out of this movie, but it may sway the way you look at the meat on your plate)

My Husband and I both found this movie to be eye opening, moving and incredibly important.

First- It bolstered my reasons for being a Vegetarian ( as I had suspected before watching)

Second- It reminded me that we make a very important choice 3x a day in selecting what we eat.  We have great control over the food industry through the concept of supply & demand. If we make a choice not to eat a product because of the way it is made or the company that makes it there will no longer be a demand for it. If we choose to consume food made by ethical companies and farms we are creating a demand for products made in a manner that we agree with.

Third- It painted the clear picture that food is BIG BUSINESS. We think of big tobacco or pharmaceutical companies or Oil companies being the "problem" but these food conglomerates have immense political, legal and financial power over our society. 

I highly Recommend that EVERYONE watch this movie - as the cover states "You'll never look at dinner the same way again"

10 Things You Can Do to Change our Food System
1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages. You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water). 2. Eat at home instead of eating out. Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home. 3. Purchase fewer processed foods. Visit the outer aisles of the grocery store where healthier items are placed. Processed foods tend to live in the inner aisles. 4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years. 5. Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week. An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals. 6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S. 7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer's market. Farmer's markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer. 8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS. The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate. 9. Grow your own food. Start a garden in your back yard or plant some tomatoes in a pot. You’ll be surprised how much you can grow in a small space! 10. Join the Healthy Hometown Food in Neighborhoods Committee.  spread the word - educate others & end the "Ostrich in the sand" feeling that most people have about where their food comes from

  http://www.takepart.com/foodinc/action
http://www.takepart.com/

Yoga Quotes: The Dalai Lama

I read this quote several months ago and It really stuck with me.  I find this to be so true in western society and I know that I get cought up in this same "need to work as much as I can" mentality because it is what I "should" do as a productive member of society.  When in reality I know that this leaves me exhausted and barely able to participate in the rest of my life- in the things that are truely meaningful to me.   I am working on adjusting this Idea that has been so ingrained in me since birth.

When asked what surprised him most the dalai Lama responded with this:

"Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present: the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

In my daily work I am "fortunate" to spend a lot of time talking with older people and people nearing the end of their life.  As a person in my 20's I have found this to be extremely difficult, but also a great learning opportunity.  I have come across far too many people nearing the end of their life that are full of regret. People that spent their life working and working, putting off their dreams and the real pursuit of happiness until a later date, only to find that they had put these things off for too long.  The result is a person that is deeply depressed when they come to the realization that their life is nearly over and they did not really live.  The comments I hear several times a day include "these are the golden years??" and "I never thought my retirement would be like this".  This is usually followed by the advice that I hear several times a day from my patients: "Dont get old!".  To which I reply with a smile "I dont really have a choice". 

Now when I hear this advice "dont get old" I add my own subtext: "Dont get old" (without truely living your life).

In my work I have come across a handfull of people that are also in the twilight of their life, but they have a very different outlook on things.  They are filled with a sense of contentment and completion that is palpable.  They can tell you endless stories about the places they have been, the things they have done, the relationships they created and the joy that it brought them over the years.  These are the unusual people that spent their entire life living out their dreams rather than waiting until retirement to do so.  Unfortunately, in my encounters with older people in western society I can say that these individuals are the small minority.  I guess that is a product of the way that our society pushes us.  These individuals made a choice to live differently...and I hope to learn from that choice.

It has been an interesting process as a young person to see what it is like to be at the end of your life.  This is something that other people my age never really think about.  It reminds me of the psychology exercise where a person imagines their own funeral and thinks about what they want their Eulogy to sound like.  Then they work backwards to live a life that will reflect what they want their story to be in the end.  Death is a very uncomfortable topic to think about or discuss, but the truth of the matter is that we are all heading to the same finish line and knowing that can help us to live a life that is truely aligned with our dreams and passions. 

To quote one of my favorite songs..."Dont let your Dreams be Dreams"

For me this means exploring ways to make more time for what brings me true happiness (practicing more yoga, reading, being outdoors, being with my family, volunteer work, spending time with my dogs, learning, traveling, and growing as a human being) rather than working my self into exhaustion on a daily basis to pay for my house and my car and all that Stuff I "need". 

Now It is about taking small steps toward a life that truely lets me embrace my health and my time -  to live in the present moment.  To live my dreams every day - so that when I am ready to cross the finishline I can do so with a smile on my face.