Food for Thought
To nourish. To sustain. To connect us to the earth, to one another, to ourselves.
A Life Spent Thinking About Food
Maybe it’s because I’ve always had to think about food - really think about it - for most of my life. Not just the everyday stuff like flavors, likes, or dislikes. But how food fits into the rhythm of living. The comings and goings. The conditions of my body. The bigger picture.
Some truths have stuck with me through the years:
We eat to nourish.
We eat to sustain.
We eat to connect.
Somewhere along the way, though, that connection splintered.
Food stopped being a simple pleasure and became something else - something to manage, to be careful around. Health became the center. And I knew I didn’t want to outsource that responsibility to someone else.
From Field to Fork: When Food Had a Season
I grew up in a time when food was available with the seasons. I have vivid memories of a small local farm next door. The farmer would ready his fields with a horse-drawn plow - the same horse that later pulled a cart filled with just-picked produce to the corner market.
And those three brothers - dressed in brown suits and derby hats - who’d ride through the neighborhood shouting:
“Strawberries! Hey, strawberries!”
My grandmother would send me out with two quarters. Two small wooden baskets for twenty-five cents each. That was the deal.
“The shared meal is the shared life.”
Michael Pollan
I remember the galvanized cooler with the tan cover, filled with ice cubes, a tray of cucumbers, and tomatoes waiting for lunch. The old-fashioned can opener was tied to the side for soda, long before flip tops ever existed—the spigot at the bottom to drain the water when we got home.
A few summers ago, I grew my own carrots. They were the ugliest carrots I’d ever seen. But the flavor-sharp, pungent, real brought me right back. That’s what carrots are supposed to taste like—no plastic bag. No barcode. Just earth and memory.
What Happened to the Food We Trusted?
How did we go from seasonal strawberries and imperfect carrots to fluorescent-lit aisles stocked with “safe” food, year-round, no questions asked?
I’m not here to advocate for a specific diet. I think the word diet is overused. At its simplest, it just means what you choose to eat. So…choose.
But own it.
“The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.”
Ann Wigmore
The responsibility for what we eat can and should belong to us. That’s the only way it will ever make sense for each of us individually.
Letting others - food corporations, chemists, marketers - decide what’s “good” for me? That’s the easy way out. But it’s not the path I want.
“All-natural Pop-Tarts,” the label once read.
Really?
Your Body is the Expert. Are You Listening?
Why did we stop listening to our bodies?
Why would we pass that role to a profit-driven industry whose idea of nourishment is engineered flavor and shelf life?
Why are we eating cherries in January that were picked from a Chilean farm ten days earlier and flown halfway across the world?
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
Hippocrates
We each carry a unique rhythm, history, and body chemistry. What if we leaned into that? What if we became the experts on ourselves?
Be curious. Not guilty. Empowered, not perfect. Ask questions. And when you think you’ve asked them all, ask more.
You’re not just a patient or a shopper. You’re a steward—a partner in your care.
The Food - Health - Healthcare Triangle
Let me be clear - we will always need doctors. Always need medicine. Life happens. Plans get derailed.
But what if, when something felt off, I already had a sense of what my body was trying to say?
What if my doctor saw me not just as a name on a screen, but as a partner who’s done the work, someone who listens, who notices, who asks?
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
Thomas Edison
Food isn’t just fuel. It’s a preventive practice. A connective ritual. A sacred rhythm.
What is a Good Choice?
It’s not about kale smoothies or quinoa bowls. It’s about a relationship.
Does this food love me back?
Does it support my body and spirit?
Does it respect the earth it came from?
And yes, sometimes it’s ice cream with a smile.
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Let go of perfection. It causes more harm than good. Learn to say no when you need to. But also say yes to joy, flavor, and meaning.
Because I love to eat, I really do.
Soft Landing: From Fast to Full
Maybe the most radical thing we can do in a world of instant everything is to slow down. Learn about ourselves. And eat with care.
Not for perfection.
But for wholeness.
Food for thought, indeed.
Talk soon…
G