I’ll give you two seconds to wrap your mind around the fact that I intentionally did a twist on an old saying. For you young heads who may not know the saying at all, it went a little something like this: out with the old, in with the new. If you’re in a bad relationship, this saying applies. If you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck, this applies. If you have too much junk in your house or your trunk (physical or mechanical), this applies. BUT, this does not always apply, and I’ll quickly share with you why.
Anybody who knows enough about me, knows I’m a country girl. From the tip of my toenails that sorely need clipping to the curly-q ends of my graying hair. Yeah, I’m a country girl and damn proud of it. It is because of this country upbringing that I’ve been able to compare apples to oranges and decide that I most prefer apples. Reason being, you see, I was brought up a certain way—and I’m allergic to oranges. Anywho, growing up country, we conducted ourselves a certain way, dressed a certain way, talked a certain way, ate a certain way. The latter way is what I want to discuss as quickly as a country girl can type—and I can type pretty quickly (over 100 words per minute).
Growing up, our diet consisted of foods that would make some city folks wanna puke at the thought: chicken gizzards and livers, beef tongue (cow tongue), beef liver, tripe, oxtails, pig feet, ham hocks, bone broth (made using what some folks call soup bones), crawfish, shrimp, fish (especially gar, catfish and goo), oysters, crabs (them damned gumbo crabs aka blue crabs is the bizness). Outside of the normal rice (we ate rice with everythang), potatoes, green vegetables, beans and fruits, we were a venturesome people, some would say. We were also headed in the right direction . . . but I didn’t know that. Until now.
I realize I spent half my life running from those “old” foods. The ones that gave me the fat-soluble vitamins and minerals I needed. I was so busy being anti-this and -that, that I erased from my diet those items needed to do a body good. Now, some are gonna argue this and that’s fine. We’re all entitled to our opinions. But the truth is, I was at my healthiest when I ate gizzards, liver, beef tongue and all that. We were eating clean. Our meats weren’t tainted with all the hormones, steroids and unmentionables in today’s meat supply.
Why you think people used to call country folk cornbread fed? These folks were solidly built, taller and healthier than city folks because they ate a cleaner diet of foods that contained the nutrients their bodies needed, spent a lot of time outside IN THE SUN and labored. Country folks couldn’t afford to be lazy. There wasn’t a restaurant on every corner where they could stop to eat, and where there was one, it didn’t mean they could afford it or it was safe enough to venture into, so most meals were ate at home AND most food came out of our yard or someone else’s yard we personally knew or a farmer our people personally knew. *that, my friends, was a long-assed sentence*
Besides, we liked sitting down to eat together. Laughing and joking about the happenings of the day. Yeah, stuff happens in the country worth talking about, too. Like the time I was playing football with my male cousins, and I briefly wondered why they were going to let me run a pass in for a touchdown and not try to stop me. They didn’t have to. The clothesline did a great job, as I found myself laying on my back staring up at the clear, blue sky. That right there should serve as all the proof in the world stuff happens in the country worth talking about over dinner; although, I don’t quite remember me laughing about it. I know for sure my mother didn’t find it amusing. And my ear. Ouch. Yeah, that wasn’t funny at all.
But back to my point. Everywhere I look, I see articles, FB statuses, etc., that shoot down the old way of eating, and I think to myself, Self, why is it that you ate that diet and thrived, why is it that your grandparents ate that diet and thrived? Why is it now you’re being told to walk away from that diet, to not be complete in your food choices? To forsake some foods for others, when those foods cannot supply the same nutrients? Why would you let somebody convince you to replace pastured eggs with a box of potato starches? And then I told Self, Self, you’re being told this because many people don’t look at food from a WHOListic perspective; they’re only seeing it in parts.
I realize now why strictly vegetarian or vegan diets can lead to weak bones and tooth decay. Not always, but all-too often, bone density problems affect them to the same degree as it affects those eating other ways, if not more. Sure, we see some who we’re told are thriving, and maybe for the time being they are because maybe their body needed a cleanse from the unclean foods they were ingesting, but what is the overall cost for the majority? Not solely for a few. I realize now why I know more sick vegetarians and vegans than I ever did. They’re forsaking WHOLEness in their food choices. And, again, that’s their choice but, please, don’t go preaching this as the way for everyone. If anything, share with people that there are benefits to eating cleaner foods, period, whether those foods be of animal or plant origin. Or, if you can’t do that, you could take the high road and choose to just shut the heck up about what other people eat. That’ll learn ’em, as we say back home. It’ll learn you, too.
My choice, I have decided, after having this talk with Self, is to go back to my old ways of eating. What I need, I simply cannot get from a half diet. I need a whole diet. I need fat-soluble vitamins and minerals in my body. I need calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium—all those good things, naturally, not synthetically, in ways my body recognizes them. So do you. What I do not have is time to eat (or snack as some call it) ALL day trying to get these essential vitamins and minerals from foods which are low in it. I also refuse to pay $50 for a bottle of fermented cod liver oil and butter oil that I’m told is supposed to supply all I need in the way of fat-soluble vitamins and minerals. Man, they’ve created a profitable industry off of us. *sigh*
I keep mentioning fat-soluble vitamins and minerals, because I KNOW that the majority of us in America—vegetarians and vegans included—are fat-soluble-vitamin-and-mineral deficient. MOST of us do not get enough of the vitamins A, D, E or K in our diets. And many more of us get too much of one, without the complementarity of the other. For instance, vitamin A needs vitamin D to be properly absorbed; otherwise, we’re subject to develop toxicity due to too much vitamin A, while still not reaping the full benefit of the vitamin.
Okay, that’s enough of the scientific. I’m not saying anything that can’t be found online, and I want y’all to do the online legwork. That thing called research. It’s almost like mental exercise that can translate into literal exercise. Look at it as your fingers bench-pressing the keys, and your brain doing arm curls. If we can spend time checking statuses on FB, posting statuses about us going to the toilet and all that jive, we can conduct some research into better, more WHOListic eating practices. Can’t we?
While you’re doing that, I’m about to prepare me a meal of chicken gizzards and rice. Yum. Self, get at yo’ girl.
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