So far in my Journey, the best path to flow is vibrant health. It’s difficult to be in a flow state if you’re exhausted, distracted by health issues, or listening to a self-critic who is always nagging at you to take better care of yourself. Good health is not just a lucky draw of the genes. It takes positive choices and a bit of work. As we continue to explore my series on 52 Ideas to a Healthier You, this week we examine Eat Whole Foods. 
For me, eating whole foods means fresh fruits and vegetables in season. It also means fresh eggs, honey, fish, shellfish, chicken, turkey and steak. The more I stick to whole foods the better. I still like processed foods like dairy, chips, salsa, mayo, canned tuna, and grits, but I try really hard to stick to minimally processed foods. It’s easy to say and not so easy to do.
Eating whole foods is not only healthy, it can help support local farmers and sustainable agriculture. If you don’t live where fresh fruits and veggies are available year round like Florida or California, you can still find whole foods in your local supermarket. The challenge is to shop around the outside of the store - focusing on fresh fruits and veggies.
Another option is to can or freeze produce when it is in season. When my mom was a girl, she learned to can and freeze summer fruits and veggies and to make jams and jellies for the coming winter months. As she passed these skills on to me, I think I was the only kid in my high school who knew how to shell fresh peas and can fruits and vegetables. I still remember summer days when my friends would come to the house to see if I could go out and they would find themselves sitting on our back porch with a pan of peas to shell. Just this past weekend spent at my Mom’s, we had home-canned green beans from her brother’s garden in North Carolina. They had the distinctive taste of home grown and were delicious! They brought back memories of summer vacations at my Mom’s family home in NC where we sat around my Aunt’s kitchen table; peeling and slicing peaches for the canning jars and snapping green beans fresh from the garden - and oh the stories that were told! I learned more about my Mom and her childhood around that table than at any other time - it was priceless and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything (although I do recall griping quite a bit about having to work and not play).
Enough nostalgia already. Here are a few resources for finding local, fresh food within your own community. I know I talked about the Chattanooga Market in an earlier post, but it is such an example of the kind of place every community should have. If there’s not one in your community, why not start one?
http://apps.ams.usda.gov/FarmersMarkets/
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
Tags: flow, food, health
So far in my Journey, the best path to flow is vibrant health. It’s difficult to be in a flow state if you’re exhausted, distracted by health issues, or listening to a self-critic who is always nagging at you to take better care of yourself. Good health is not just a lucky draw of the genes. It takes positive choices and a bit of work. As we continue to explore my series on 52 Ideas to a Healthier You, this week we examine Eat Whole Foods.
For me, eating whole foods means fresh fruits and vegetables in season. It also means fresh eggs, honey, fish, shellfish, chicken, turkey and steak. The more I stick to whole foods the better. I still like processed foods like dairy, chips, salsa, mayo, canned tuna, and grits, but I try really hard to stick to minimally processed foods. It’s easy to say and not so easy to do.
Eating whole foods is not only healthy, it can help support local farmers and sustainable agriculture. If you don’t live where fresh fruits and veggies are available year round like Florida or California, you can still find whole foods in your local supermarket. The challenge is to shop around the outside of the store - focusing on fresh fruits and veggies.
Another option is to can or freeze produce when it is in season. When my mom was a girl, she learned to can and freeze summer fruits and veggies and to make jams and jellies for the coming winter months. As she passed these skills on to me, I think I was the only kid in my high school who knew how to shell fresh peas and can fruits and vegetables. I still remember summer days when my friends would come to the house to see if I could go out and they would find themselves sitting on our back porch with a pan of peas to shell. Just this past weekend spent at my Mom’s, we had home-canned green beans from her brother’s garden in North Carolina. They had the distinctive taste of home grown and were delicious! They brought back memories of summer vacations at my Mom’s family home in NC where we sat around my Aunt’s kitchen table; peeling and slicing peaches for the canning jars and snapping green beans fresh from the garden - and oh the stories that were told! I learned more about my Mom and her childhood around that table than at any other time - it was priceless and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything (although I do recall griping quite a bit about having to work and not play).
Enough nostalgia already. Here are a few resources for finding local, fresh food within your own community. I know I talked about the Chattanooga Market in an earlier post, but it is such an example of the kind of place every community should have. If there’s not one in your community, why not start one?
http://apps.ams.usda.gov/FarmersMarkets/
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
Tags: flow, food, health