Don’t Dig Your Grave With Your Own Knife and Fork

Scientists and physicians have understood the importance of diet in health for millennia in the Eastern world, but it’s taken the Western world a long time to take this fact to heart. Even today, nutrition is still not taught in many medical schools, despite Hippocrates’ famous words to let food be thy medicine (c. 431 BC). Nutrition also gets a lot of bad press, which makes it difficult for people to wade through rampant nutrition soundbites and misinformation to get to meaningful, actionable steps to improve health and prevent disease. And, in a worst case scenario, people lose faith in the scientific process, throw their hands in the air, and order three pizzas. (I’m kidding. I like pizza. Who doesn’t? But don’t order three if it’s just you.) Point is, I’m willing to bet you’ve had one or more of the following thoughts:

Are you suspicious of what you hear in the media about how diet is related to your health?

Does it seem like nutritionists are always changing their minds?

Are you trying to lose weight but don’t know where to look, or whom to believe?

Are you skeptical that healthy food can be satisfying, let alone sensational?

You can tell me. I get it. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.  I won’t take it personally.

But here’s my challenge to you: Reconsider what what you think you know about “healthy food” and learn how incredible meals based on principles of sound nutrition science and sustainability can be.

Accept my challenge and visit often. I promise you will be educated, if not entertained. (Food and science aren’t always funny. I try.) You may even salivate. My deepest hope is that you will be inspired to get into the kitchen and start your own culinary journey towards better health.  And if cooking’s just not in the cards, then at the very least you’ll learn more about what to order when you go out or order in … and why it matters.

Photo by Bronwen Houck Photography. “Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork” is an English proverb.