How to Eat Better

Eating better isn’t simpy a matter of selecting the least processed food you can find and afford as often as possible. It’s also about not feeling guilty or bad when you can’t or choose not to eat the most nutritious stuff.  While it might be a stretch to say that eating fast food or chemically treated fruits and vegetables all the time won’t kill you (it very well might), adding self-inflicted bad energy like guilt, fear, or anxiety on top of the physical toxins that these foods introduce into your body isn’t helping matters.

Coming up in January I’ll be running a program called 30 Days of Three Dollar Dinner, which will take us through January as Mindful Eating Month. I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration over the years from the Slow Food Movement, and our friend Leo Babauta over at his always inspiring blog Zen Habits wrote a great article this weekend, drawing on his own experience with Slow Food.

He offers his interpretation of a life built on respect for food and the power it has to effect our lives. I quote:

“This is the Anti-Fast Food Diet — a way to not only lose weight and get healthier, but to change your life to one of simplicity, moderation, and joy.

Abandon fast food, and all the values it brings: mass consumption, mass production, the exploitation of workers, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of small local businesses, the corporatization of our culture.

Instead, embrace Slow Food.”

The fact that he bookends his article with short quotes from two of my favorite Buddhist writers just makes me love Leo even more.  Check out his whole article The Anti-Fast Food Diet. It’s a quick read and implementing even one of the ideas he suggests will take you that much closer to a Three Dollar Dinner lifestyle in which you begin to enjoy the process of mindfully purchasing, preparing, and eating your food.

I’ll add one more thought to what Leo proposes -

“Recognize that eating mindfully, and eating non-processed foods, is not a luxury or lifestyle accessory – it should be the basic foundation of how we are all able to eat.  It does not have to cost a lot of money to eat food that comes free of chemical baggage.”

That’s the whole mission of Three Dollar Dinner in a nutshell (an organic, fair trade nutshell) and I’m grateful to Leo for helping to spread the food love.