Really enjoyed this. You’ve captured the rat-race of “wellness” so well. And the contrast with real food, with its nearly mystical way of binding us together. “We both smile at each other, enjoying the smell and the way it holds back, waiting for us to celebrate it.” I’m sure your daughter will have fond memories of those precious moments together. Thank you.
Thank you Julie. I certainly hope so. Food is magical, and yet we call it a commodity and take it for granted. I have so much to say but only so many words before I bore people.
Never boring!! Food is such a universal topic. In the world of sustainability, it's one of the easiest places to get people's attention and buy-in. Yes, as you mention, the messaging is all over the place! haha. We have to think for ourselves, I guess. I've heard Native people say food is medicine, and it's also how we enact our reciprocity with nature on the daily. Food is about relationship on so many levels—including the beautiful story of baking with your daughter.
I started getting really interested in the climate angle for food when I was working as a VC. But it seems like the messaging and the scientifically studied answers didn't match up. I personally am a big fan of approaches like the Savory Institute which integrates animals into land management practices, but that can be a lonely stance when most of the consensus seems to be that animals are causing so many problems. I do love the native stances to food, I just wish I had the imagination to figure out how to bring native practices back after the green revolution.
Thanks for the encouragement to keep writing about it.
It’s so important! I agree that animals are an integral part of holistic land practices. It’s the massive factory farms that have emissions (and many other) problems. My MFA mentor writes about our relationship with animals brilliantly. I can send you an essay if you’re interested. As with all things, scale and balance are critical.
I'm no expert here, but I've generally found satisfaction with my health by always keeping an elective physical challenge in the distance (say, a marathon in the Spring). This helps me to calibrate my diet and physical activity toward preparation for that event. Usually, this means I stop drinking alcohol within a certain window, and then too much fried food, then too much food at all, and so on.
The physical event used to be a competition with others, but about 15 years ago (I'm 49), I started increasing the distances and therefore being unable to compete with others in any noteworthy way. Then, my competition became my own mind - my will to keep going. Once I stopped competing with others (perhaps akin to giving up the "naked standard"), life became much more peaceful and richly experienced.
John, your comment made me remember when I was a younger man. I used to take pride in how much pain I could push through, and most of it was brought on by food. Big test in the morning: I was even more proud of myself if I could beat everyone else while hungover. Big physical test the next day: let's eat as much food as possible, and maybe even smoke cigars the night before, just to show I was tough.
I love that you've focused more on your mind and your will. It's really the only competition worth winning anyways. But 21 year old me would never have acknowledged that.
So deliciously vivid!! Can I come over for bread?? I can practically taste it! While reading this, I imagined similar family rituals around the world, over hundreds of years... making tortillas, pasta, naan, paratha... And just like you’ve painted here, this isn’t an unhealthy diet, no, it’s nourishment, gratitude, togetherness. I’m just as guilty for treating food, at best like an inconvenience, at worst like the enemy. Coincidently, I got my cholesterol numbers back this week and they’re pretty terrible. Yet I’m a vegetarian, practice yoga, lots of walking, avoid excess sugar (unless it’s a good IPA, guilty!). Apparently the occasional omega-rich salmon I cheat with isn’t powerful enough to combat the over-easy organic eggs I simply MUST have. Those families all over the world for hundreds of years didn’t worry about cholesterol. Would it be so woo to stop stressing and enjoy a good meal? To treat food as nourishment, gratitude, togetherness?
You can come over for bread any time. I always make 2 loaves at a time. One for us (usually lasts about 3 days) and one to give away. I've recently gotten into making pasta, and I do love making a good tortilla. A is actually the queen at making tortillas. At this point her little 5 year old hands can work a tortilla press better than my 40 year old ones can.
I have a family history of VERY high cholesterol. Thankfully I had good doctors who refused to put me on statins when I was young, exercised a lot, and looked really good. And then, the more I learned about cholesterol and heart disease, the less I believe the advice to worry about it. And all that before I started really focusing on relationships and knowing the food from the land.
I'm with you on stopping stressing and enjoying food as gratitude, togetherness, and connection with nature. Come over and join us for a long weekend dinner with friends any time you're out this way.
SWEET!! Thank you so much for the outstanding invite! You two also make tortillas?? I love it!! Well, if you've also experienced the fear of genetic high cholesterol, then you definitely feel my anxiety. But it's a relief to hear you've received good advice from doctors and it's just not something to overly worry about if you've got a pretty decent relationship with diet and exercise. Seriously, this essay couldn't have come at a better time for me, thank you!!
As you probably know already from reading my stuff, my wife is a dietitian. She has learned a TON about cholesterol recently and the test doctors typically use is super flawed. There's so much more nuance to cholesterol that they don't dig into. Also, there's no such thing as "good" cholesterol. It's more like it's "not bad", which is a distinct difference. It's not like you'd want to increase your "not bad" cholesterol. So even that basic part is misleading.
Thank you Lyle!! I'm almost positive it's a genetic thing and nothing I need to berate myself for. I appreciate the dietician inside scoop! As Latham touched on, it's tough not to get all wrapped up and obsessed with numbers, but this essay knocked some sense into me ;)
Bread was once the root of all evil in my life. Butter was a sin. Sugar was refined trash. From pre-pubescence to just shy of a year ago. Celery in between meals was my only indulgence. I ate celery in volume till my body felt stalky and brittle. I worked out three times a day, seven days a week. I sent my body into upheaval. My gut rejected me, my hormones became devilish. My best friend use to bring home a muffin for me after my marathon training days. I would throw it away when she wasn't looking. It took years acknowledging my toxic relationship to my own body to even start working on it. And when I started working on it, that lasted years too. I am still working on it. But recently I've been enjoying the foods I feared. Last week I rubbed a homemade sage butter over a spatchcocked chicken. This morning I am savoring the most scrumptious muffin I could ever dream of. I don't count calories and I only exercise once a day. I ask myself every day, multiple times a day, "how can I honor my body right now?".
Our relationships to our bodies are precious and delicate. Thank you for sharing your story Latham - your words pulled me into the kitchen with you and your daughter. Thank you for making bread with her and teaching her too to honor herself.
Haley, your response brought tears to me eyes. I'm petrified that my own daughter will have the same experience with food and her body. I'm just as scared that my son will do the same.
I can't imagine saying celery was an indulgence! Nor can I imagine the pain when your body went into upheaval. I'm so so so glad that you're working on it and starting on the road to recovery.
Your chicken sounds delicious. And enjoy the hell out of that muffin. I think our bodies know so much more than we give them credit for, and the best way to honor them is to ground them in place and encourage them to wonder.
I loved this Latham. I’ve also struggled with body image as a man. Wanting to be more muscular, less skinny, lanky. I succumbed to some pretty unhealthy eating habits (extreme cycles of bulking and cutting).
One thing I’m in search of now is food that makes me feel good. This tends to be whole foods & often healthy (but may also include a piece of chocolate cake from time to time).
Thanks Tommy. It's something not a lot of us really want to talk about. I have bulked and cut with the best of us. I've gotten my body fat down to ridiculously low numbers. And the truth is, I still didn't love the way I looked in the mirror.
But also, I occasionally look at myself in the mirror and dislike what I see today too. Even though I eat foods which are as close to nature as I can. I actively seek out farmers practicing regen ag and I talk to ones that aren't about it. I'm growing a permaculture food forest in my yard to get even closer to the land and to try and give back to all of us.
Oh man Latham. I think you speak the feelings of so many people who want to be healthy inside and out. Compassionate towards others and towards the earth, but unsure about how to be that to our own selves. Thanks for sharing this part of your journey. I’ve found the conflict in recovery as well. Sober “old timers” who know and preach the sayings by heart but are angry and sick in the body and head.
Carry on with creating the wonderful family memories and lessons. 🙏❤️
You're spot on there Dee. I never thought about the parallels to recovery, but it makes total sense. It's too easy to be bitter and cynical. It takes real bravery to let go and be humble and vulnerable in community with others and with the earth. My wish is for more of us to find the space to do that.
I swear I've imbibed actual nutrition from the bread you made through the ethers just based on your description of it. In the "too woo for science" category, writing like yours is an actual form of food, and the food for the spirit idea is cliche, but more true than we acknowledge. There is food food, and then there is impression food, the ingredients we feed our minds, imaginations, and psyche. I'm more focused there in terms of nutrition than I am actual food, although I have solidly healthy eating habits but without fear of going astray now and then. Exercise, read good writing, eat stuff that comes out of the ground. That's pretty much my health care plan.
Rick, your words make me blush and smile. Thank you for the complement.
You and I are on the same health care plan. I'd add our shared spiritual practices to your list of habits. May we both live as long as we're meant to and as joyously and nourished as we can for all those years.
I loved reading this!! As the daughter of a man who has been vegan all my life and who is very particular about his diet... what I wish he had modeled for me about health is that everyone’s health journey is so unique.
That it requires deep self knowledge and deep trust of your body. That your body will tell you the foods it likes and the foods it needs and the movement it wants. You just have to listen. That my body is not my enemy on my health journey, it’s not the thing I have to fight... it’s my ally. It’s my friend.
Salem, thank you for sharing. I, probably not dis similarly to your father, went Vegan for a time. It was really when I started a food company and started to really see what was fringe in the food and health world, that I started backing away from those diets.
Have you read Nourishment by Fred Provenza. It opened my eyes to how much our body knows about what it needs and how to love it as an ally and friend. If you haven't read it, you might enjoy it.
I'm grateful you read and you shared your experience. I want to think more about how I can honor and trust my body and teach my children to do the same. Similar to what Haley said above.
I think the way you are eating is the way. We shouldn't be guided by societies norms, but learn to feel what we need. I never used scales, diets or whatsoever, always try to eat the things my body is asking for. And this means different things in different seasons of the year and my life. I like the documentary about the Blue zones on Netflix, which gives an idea on how to eat and live so you can become old in a healthy way...
I regularly forget that we don't just eat seasonally based on what is fresh at the time, but we also eat seasonally when we honor how our body and health is changing (whether we're aging or just experiencing a new challenge). It's a lesson I have to learn again and again and again (maybe the 41st time will be a charm).
I have yet to watch the Blue Zones documentary. I might have to check it out this weekend.
Life is an experiment in my opinion. We try things and feel good and then suddenly we tend to forget because other things seem more important. Have fun watching the documentary, it has some really nice insights.
Thanks for this. I don't have any insights or wisdom to offer, but I will say that this is a topic that's been on my mind a lot as I work on finding some reasonable intersection of health and enjoyment of life, food, and connection with others. I know that who I am isn't defined by what I weigh, but there's still a part of me that wrestles with this on a regular basis.
Thank you for sharing Steve. You and I both are still struggling with that part. At my best, I know what joy and connection and health is. At my worst, I check the scale regularly and wonder why I don't have more "self-control" as if that's the goal of life is to exercise self-control.
I find cooking for others is meditative and heartwarming for me. But that's not for everyone, and it can be an expensive hobby if you don't have a good set of kitchen tools. I'd love to hear what you're thinking at that intersection and if you ever want to chat about it, it's one of my favorite subjects to talk about (and occasionally write about).
"I walked the cream stucco stores, all exactly the same, in search of some forgotten elixir." encapsulates perfectly at least 90% of my Whole Food trips... Beautifully written, Latham.
"Eat like your ancestors" is piece of advice (advice-ish?) I got from an evolutionary biologist that stuck with me. If your grandparents are Inuit, your ideal diet will likely be different from those whose grandparents are Kalahari Bushmen. If your ancestral line traces through the Isles of Japan, you'll likely feel better with food different from those from the plains of Europe.
The interesting and super complicated predicament comes from our grand melting pot of a modern continent full of modernity and worldwide travel. A continent where an Inuit and a Kalahari descendent could move to, fall in love on, and have a baby. What will that kid grow up to eat? What will his or her ideal diet be?
But anyone who claims to have the latest-and-greatest-solve-all-the-problems diet is automatically suspect in my eyes. They are either lying or have no idea what they are talking about.
I have definitely followed the "eat like your ancestors" advice before. However, so many people wanted to tell me what my ancestors did and didn't eat without ever addressing many of your points. I am like 1/64th a lot of things at this point, so how that plays out in my DNA is anyone's guess.
I do know that my ancestors (at least the ones I knew) liked to drink and have long communal meals filled with loud people and lots of generosity. My grandfather used to invite every single sailor on base home to his family's dinner almost weekly. My grandmother used to grow 90% of their food since they were too poor to buy food, even on base. Those are the types of practices around food I want to remember and bring back. Although I do love reading old cookbooks and learning the tips they have for getting the toxins out of rices and other foods.
I hear ya, the 1/64th of a lot of things is the longer-term and real-life version of my theoretical Inuit+Kalahari=AmericanLoveChild example. And, arguably, a much more complex one...
I wonder... Now that we have access to So Many Calories (and nutrition too, although one could argue if the Whole Foods supplements aisle counts as nutrition), will some recessive 'tall gene' make an appearance in our kids after being screwed up by the my-immediate-ancestors-were-poor life? If my kid grows tall, I'm blaming the soviet diets of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents for my lack of height...
(and if you ever feel like writing details on that whole 'grind your own flour' topic, for those of us who have only ever used the store-bought stuff, I'll very much read that!)
I could go on for hours about grinding our own flour. I'm convinced there are health benefits. And the pancakes I make with freshly ground flour are so much fluffier than the ones I make with storebought flour (even stone ground Bob's Red Mill flour). But it takes some getting used to as the freshly ground flour tends to absorb more liquid. It's taken me months to get used to, and I still can't figure out how to use it in pasta.
Reminds me of Nats I Reckon: "My Mac and cheese may not be the healthiest, but sometimes joy is healthy too." If nothing else came from me joining Foster other than getting to read your writing if be happy. I'm also trying to get my daughter to appreciate making stuff in the kitchen and thereby have a healthy relationship to food. The alternatives are scary.
"Sometimes joy is healthy too." I LOVE that. Everyone should read that many times over.
The alternatives are so scary. I'd love to hear what you're doing with your daughter. My son likes to make eggs and use the knives, but that's about it. He likes to eat some of what I cook. My daughter on the other hand...is a baker, tortilla maker, and chef par excellence at 5.
Didn’t realize we were both bread bakers. Very cool! I’ve never had any obsessive eating tendencies, but giving up drinking has made me healthier in every way. Better sleep, better exercise, clearer head. I’ve also dropped 17 lbs based on that alone. I didn’t love learning that I was lactose intolerant, but adjustments there have been good overall (plant based protein powder really sucks tho). My general wellness philosophy: exercise intensely but not harmfully, eat to satisfaction but not for comfort, seek resilience in relationships not just within, plant something every year and harvest it gratefully.
I didn't know we were both bread bakers either. I love that little shared joy. I also gave up alcohol a while back, although I'll occasionally have a half a drink with friends (ignore the recent wedding in Mexico when all those norms went out the window). That's awesome you lost 17 lbs. It's crazy how much drinking changes us, yet we're kind of conditioned to think it's normal.
I agree that plant based protein powder sucks. Have you tried Four Sigmatic's. It's the closest thing to tolerable I've found. We mix it in steel cut oats or in protein shakes.
I love your wellness philosophy. Especially the planting and harvesting. I'm going to borrow that.
Really enjoyed this. You’ve captured the rat-race of “wellness” so well. And the contrast with real food, with its nearly mystical way of binding us together. “We both smile at each other, enjoying the smell and the way it holds back, waiting for us to celebrate it.” I’m sure your daughter will have fond memories of those precious moments together. Thank you.
Thank you Julie. I certainly hope so. Food is magical, and yet we call it a commodity and take it for granted. I have so much to say but only so many words before I bore people.
Never boring!! Food is such a universal topic. In the world of sustainability, it's one of the easiest places to get people's attention and buy-in. Yes, as you mention, the messaging is all over the place! haha. We have to think for ourselves, I guess. I've heard Native people say food is medicine, and it's also how we enact our reciprocity with nature on the daily. Food is about relationship on so many levels—including the beautiful story of baking with your daughter.
I started getting really interested in the climate angle for food when I was working as a VC. But it seems like the messaging and the scientifically studied answers didn't match up. I personally am a big fan of approaches like the Savory Institute which integrates animals into land management practices, but that can be a lonely stance when most of the consensus seems to be that animals are causing so many problems. I do love the native stances to food, I just wish I had the imagination to figure out how to bring native practices back after the green revolution.
Thanks for the encouragement to keep writing about it.
It’s so important! I agree that animals are an integral part of holistic land practices. It’s the massive factory farms that have emissions (and many other) problems. My MFA mentor writes about our relationship with animals brilliantly. I can send you an essay if you’re interested. As with all things, scale and balance are critical.
I would love to see her essay.
Scale and balance. So true
https://orionmagazine.org/article/close-to-the-bone/ Enjoy!
I'm no expert here, but I've generally found satisfaction with my health by always keeping an elective physical challenge in the distance (say, a marathon in the Spring). This helps me to calibrate my diet and physical activity toward preparation for that event. Usually, this means I stop drinking alcohol within a certain window, and then too much fried food, then too much food at all, and so on.
The physical event used to be a competition with others, but about 15 years ago (I'm 49), I started increasing the distances and therefore being unable to compete with others in any noteworthy way. Then, my competition became my own mind - my will to keep going. Once I stopped competing with others (perhaps akin to giving up the "naked standard"), life became much more peaceful and richly experienced.
John, your comment made me remember when I was a younger man. I used to take pride in how much pain I could push through, and most of it was brought on by food. Big test in the morning: I was even more proud of myself if I could beat everyone else while hungover. Big physical test the next day: let's eat as much food as possible, and maybe even smoke cigars the night before, just to show I was tough.
I love that you've focused more on your mind and your will. It's really the only competition worth winning anyways. But 21 year old me would never have acknowledged that.
So deliciously vivid!! Can I come over for bread?? I can practically taste it! While reading this, I imagined similar family rituals around the world, over hundreds of years... making tortillas, pasta, naan, paratha... And just like you’ve painted here, this isn’t an unhealthy diet, no, it’s nourishment, gratitude, togetherness. I’m just as guilty for treating food, at best like an inconvenience, at worst like the enemy. Coincidently, I got my cholesterol numbers back this week and they’re pretty terrible. Yet I’m a vegetarian, practice yoga, lots of walking, avoid excess sugar (unless it’s a good IPA, guilty!). Apparently the occasional omega-rich salmon I cheat with isn’t powerful enough to combat the over-easy organic eggs I simply MUST have. Those families all over the world for hundreds of years didn’t worry about cholesterol. Would it be so woo to stop stressing and enjoy a good meal? To treat food as nourishment, gratitude, togetherness?
You can come over for bread any time. I always make 2 loaves at a time. One for us (usually lasts about 3 days) and one to give away. I've recently gotten into making pasta, and I do love making a good tortilla. A is actually the queen at making tortillas. At this point her little 5 year old hands can work a tortilla press better than my 40 year old ones can.
I have a family history of VERY high cholesterol. Thankfully I had good doctors who refused to put me on statins when I was young, exercised a lot, and looked really good. And then, the more I learned about cholesterol and heart disease, the less I believe the advice to worry about it. And all that before I started really focusing on relationships and knowing the food from the land.
I'm with you on stopping stressing and enjoying food as gratitude, togetherness, and connection with nature. Come over and join us for a long weekend dinner with friends any time you're out this way.
SWEET!! Thank you so much for the outstanding invite! You two also make tortillas?? I love it!! Well, if you've also experienced the fear of genetic high cholesterol, then you definitely feel my anxiety. But it's a relief to hear you've received good advice from doctors and it's just not something to overly worry about if you've got a pretty decent relationship with diet and exercise. Seriously, this essay couldn't have come at a better time for me, thank you!!
As you probably know already from reading my stuff, my wife is a dietitian. She has learned a TON about cholesterol recently and the test doctors typically use is super flawed. There's so much more nuance to cholesterol that they don't dig into. Also, there's no such thing as "good" cholesterol. It's more like it's "not bad", which is a distinct difference. It's not like you'd want to increase your "not bad" cholesterol. So even that basic part is misleading.
Thank you Lyle!! I'm almost positive it's a genetic thing and nothing I need to berate myself for. I appreciate the dietician inside scoop! As Latham touched on, it's tough not to get all wrapped up and obsessed with numbers, but this essay knocked some sense into me ;)
Dietitian here ;) I’m so glad that you highlighted the importance of health encompassing both physical AND emotional factors.
Bread was once the root of all evil in my life. Butter was a sin. Sugar was refined trash. From pre-pubescence to just shy of a year ago. Celery in between meals was my only indulgence. I ate celery in volume till my body felt stalky and brittle. I worked out three times a day, seven days a week. I sent my body into upheaval. My gut rejected me, my hormones became devilish. My best friend use to bring home a muffin for me after my marathon training days. I would throw it away when she wasn't looking. It took years acknowledging my toxic relationship to my own body to even start working on it. And when I started working on it, that lasted years too. I am still working on it. But recently I've been enjoying the foods I feared. Last week I rubbed a homemade sage butter over a spatchcocked chicken. This morning I am savoring the most scrumptious muffin I could ever dream of. I don't count calories and I only exercise once a day. I ask myself every day, multiple times a day, "how can I honor my body right now?".
Our relationships to our bodies are precious and delicate. Thank you for sharing your story Latham - your words pulled me into the kitchen with you and your daughter. Thank you for making bread with her and teaching her too to honor herself.
Haley, your response brought tears to me eyes. I'm petrified that my own daughter will have the same experience with food and her body. I'm just as scared that my son will do the same.
I can't imagine saying celery was an indulgence! Nor can I imagine the pain when your body went into upheaval. I'm so so so glad that you're working on it and starting on the road to recovery.
Your chicken sounds delicious. And enjoy the hell out of that muffin. I think our bodies know so much more than we give them credit for, and the best way to honor them is to ground them in place and encourage them to wonder.
Thank you for sharing. Such powerful words.
I loved this Latham. I’ve also struggled with body image as a man. Wanting to be more muscular, less skinny, lanky. I succumbed to some pretty unhealthy eating habits (extreme cycles of bulking and cutting).
One thing I’m in search of now is food that makes me feel good. This tends to be whole foods & often healthy (but may also include a piece of chocolate cake from time to time).
Appreciate you sharing :)
Thanks Tommy. It's something not a lot of us really want to talk about. I have bulked and cut with the best of us. I've gotten my body fat down to ridiculously low numbers. And the truth is, I still didn't love the way I looked in the mirror.
But also, I occasionally look at myself in the mirror and dislike what I see today too. Even though I eat foods which are as close to nature as I can. I actively seek out farmers practicing regen ag and I talk to ones that aren't about it. I'm growing a permaculture food forest in my yard to get even closer to the land and to try and give back to all of us.
Thanks for reading and being here.
You are an interesting man.
Oh man Latham. I think you speak the feelings of so many people who want to be healthy inside and out. Compassionate towards others and towards the earth, but unsure about how to be that to our own selves. Thanks for sharing this part of your journey. I’ve found the conflict in recovery as well. Sober “old timers” who know and preach the sayings by heart but are angry and sick in the body and head.
Carry on with creating the wonderful family memories and lessons. 🙏❤️
You're spot on there Dee. I never thought about the parallels to recovery, but it makes total sense. It's too easy to be bitter and cynical. It takes real bravery to let go and be humble and vulnerable in community with others and with the earth. My wish is for more of us to find the space to do that.
Thanks for reading
It does and you are. 💪🏻
I swear I've imbibed actual nutrition from the bread you made through the ethers just based on your description of it. In the "too woo for science" category, writing like yours is an actual form of food, and the food for the spirit idea is cliche, but more true than we acknowledge. There is food food, and then there is impression food, the ingredients we feed our minds, imaginations, and psyche. I'm more focused there in terms of nutrition than I am actual food, although I have solidly healthy eating habits but without fear of going astray now and then. Exercise, read good writing, eat stuff that comes out of the ground. That's pretty much my health care plan.
Rick, your words make me blush and smile. Thank you for the complement.
You and I are on the same health care plan. I'd add our shared spiritual practices to your list of habits. May we both live as long as we're meant to and as joyously and nourished as we can for all those years.
I loved reading this!! As the daughter of a man who has been vegan all my life and who is very particular about his diet... what I wish he had modeled for me about health is that everyone’s health journey is so unique.
That it requires deep self knowledge and deep trust of your body. That your body will tell you the foods it likes and the foods it needs and the movement it wants. You just have to listen. That my body is not my enemy on my health journey, it’s not the thing I have to fight... it’s my ally. It’s my friend.
Salem, thank you for sharing. I, probably not dis similarly to your father, went Vegan for a time. It was really when I started a food company and started to really see what was fringe in the food and health world, that I started backing away from those diets.
Have you read Nourishment by Fred Provenza. It opened my eyes to how much our body knows about what it needs and how to love it as an ally and friend. If you haven't read it, you might enjoy it.
I'm grateful you read and you shared your experience. I want to think more about how I can honor and trust my body and teach my children to do the same. Similar to what Haley said above.
I think the way you are eating is the way. We shouldn't be guided by societies norms, but learn to feel what we need. I never used scales, diets or whatsoever, always try to eat the things my body is asking for. And this means different things in different seasons of the year and my life. I like the documentary about the Blue zones on Netflix, which gives an idea on how to eat and live so you can become old in a healthy way...
Oh and, I love your writing!
Thank you so much Irene. I'm incredibly grateful.
I regularly forget that we don't just eat seasonally based on what is fresh at the time, but we also eat seasonally when we honor how our body and health is changing (whether we're aging or just experiencing a new challenge). It's a lesson I have to learn again and again and again (maybe the 41st time will be a charm).
I have yet to watch the Blue Zones documentary. I might have to check it out this weekend.
Life is an experiment in my opinion. We try things and feel good and then suddenly we tend to forget because other things seem more important. Have fun watching the documentary, it has some really nice insights.
Thanks for this. I don't have any insights or wisdom to offer, but I will say that this is a topic that's been on my mind a lot as I work on finding some reasonable intersection of health and enjoyment of life, food, and connection with others. I know that who I am isn't defined by what I weigh, but there's still a part of me that wrestles with this on a regular basis.
Thank you for sharing Steve. You and I both are still struggling with that part. At my best, I know what joy and connection and health is. At my worst, I check the scale regularly and wonder why I don't have more "self-control" as if that's the goal of life is to exercise self-control.
I find cooking for others is meditative and heartwarming for me. But that's not for everyone, and it can be an expensive hobby if you don't have a good set of kitchen tools. I'd love to hear what you're thinking at that intersection and if you ever want to chat about it, it's one of my favorite subjects to talk about (and occasionally write about).
"I walked the cream stucco stores, all exactly the same, in search of some forgotten elixir." encapsulates perfectly at least 90% of my Whole Food trips... Beautifully written, Latham.
"Eat like your ancestors" is piece of advice (advice-ish?) I got from an evolutionary biologist that stuck with me. If your grandparents are Inuit, your ideal diet will likely be different from those whose grandparents are Kalahari Bushmen. If your ancestral line traces through the Isles of Japan, you'll likely feel better with food different from those from the plains of Europe.
The interesting and super complicated predicament comes from our grand melting pot of a modern continent full of modernity and worldwide travel. A continent where an Inuit and a Kalahari descendent could move to, fall in love on, and have a baby. What will that kid grow up to eat? What will his or her ideal diet be?
But anyone who claims to have the latest-and-greatest-solve-all-the-problems diet is automatically suspect in my eyes. They are either lying or have no idea what they are talking about.
I have definitely followed the "eat like your ancestors" advice before. However, so many people wanted to tell me what my ancestors did and didn't eat without ever addressing many of your points. I am like 1/64th a lot of things at this point, so how that plays out in my DNA is anyone's guess.
I do know that my ancestors (at least the ones I knew) liked to drink and have long communal meals filled with loud people and lots of generosity. My grandfather used to invite every single sailor on base home to his family's dinner almost weekly. My grandmother used to grow 90% of their food since they were too poor to buy food, even on base. Those are the types of practices around food I want to remember and bring back. Although I do love reading old cookbooks and learning the tips they have for getting the toxins out of rices and other foods.
Thanks for reading.
I hear ya, the 1/64th of a lot of things is the longer-term and real-life version of my theoretical Inuit+Kalahari=AmericanLoveChild example. And, arguably, a much more complex one...
I wonder... Now that we have access to So Many Calories (and nutrition too, although one could argue if the Whole Foods supplements aisle counts as nutrition), will some recessive 'tall gene' make an appearance in our kids after being screwed up by the my-immediate-ancestors-were-poor life? If my kid grows tall, I'm blaming the soviet diets of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents for my lack of height...
(and if you ever feel like writing details on that whole 'grind your own flour' topic, for those of us who have only ever used the store-bought stuff, I'll very much read that!)
I could go on for hours about grinding our own flour. I'm convinced there are health benefits. And the pancakes I make with freshly ground flour are so much fluffier than the ones I make with storebought flour (even stone ground Bob's Red Mill flour). But it takes some getting used to as the freshly ground flour tends to absorb more liquid. It's taken me months to get used to, and I still can't figure out how to use it in pasta.
“The loaf presses back against the knife, but it eventually succumb.” A fitting end to this beautiful piece.
Thank you Monika. I'm so grateful you liked it.
Food porn. Hedonistic. I can smell that bread coming out of the oven.
What lovely memories to make with your daughter! You know I loved every well thought, well phrased clause in this entire article.
Reminds me of Nats I Reckon: "My Mac and cheese may not be the healthiest, but sometimes joy is healthy too." If nothing else came from me joining Foster other than getting to read your writing if be happy. I'm also trying to get my daughter to appreciate making stuff in the kitchen and thereby have a healthy relationship to food. The alternatives are scary.
"Sometimes joy is healthy too." I LOVE that. Everyone should read that many times over.
The alternatives are so scary. I'd love to hear what you're doing with your daughter. My son likes to make eggs and use the knives, but that's about it. He likes to eat some of what I cook. My daughter on the other hand...is a baker, tortilla maker, and chef par excellence at 5.
Didn’t realize we were both bread bakers. Very cool! I’ve never had any obsessive eating tendencies, but giving up drinking has made me healthier in every way. Better sleep, better exercise, clearer head. I’ve also dropped 17 lbs based on that alone. I didn’t love learning that I was lactose intolerant, but adjustments there have been good overall (plant based protein powder really sucks tho). My general wellness philosophy: exercise intensely but not harmfully, eat to satisfaction but not for comfort, seek resilience in relationships not just within, plant something every year and harvest it gratefully.
I didn't know we were both bread bakers either. I love that little shared joy. I also gave up alcohol a while back, although I'll occasionally have a half a drink with friends (ignore the recent wedding in Mexico when all those norms went out the window). That's awesome you lost 17 lbs. It's crazy how much drinking changes us, yet we're kind of conditioned to think it's normal.
I agree that plant based protein powder sucks. Have you tried Four Sigmatic's. It's the closest thing to tolerable I've found. We mix it in steel cut oats or in protein shakes.
I love your wellness philosophy. Especially the planting and harvesting. I'm going to borrow that.