Yesterday we signed up with Anderson Organics for our first ever CSA! I'm super excited! We're going to be receiving a half share every week from June until October of delicious organic veggies.
Our signing up has been a long time coming. Ryan and I have had lots of great conversations about food since we've been in Ecuador. We've both seen some pretty dramatic weight loss (yes, Ryan too!) with the change in lifestyle that Ecuador has brought. We feel livelier, we have less cravings, we eat better and we get regular exercise.
So as the 'regressamos' looms less than a month away, we've been talking about our attitude towards food when we're in the USA. Here, as you know, we really stock up on veggies and fruits. We eat a lot of rice/quinoa/beans. And we mostly only eat chicken. I'm sure the chickens that we eat here aren't the cleanest or really organic in the way that the USA would deem them. But the chickens are normal sized, they eat grass, and they aren't full of hormones. We rarely eat beef. But when we do it's life is similar to the chickens'.
What does that mean for us back at home? Neither of us want to put the weight back on, neither of us want to go back to feeling tired and sluggish, and neither of us want to support the corporate food industry in the States. (If you haven't watched the movie FOOD INC, please do.)
These are the principals rolling around in our heads...
1. Grow an organic garden. We're really excited about this because we'll be living with a gardening expert (my mom) and we have Grandpa Jo just down the street! We're going to build a raised bed and go from there!
2. Buy local and organic. I understand that these cost more and I know that we don't have a lot of money, which I know will be the argument of some. But it all comes down to priorities. Our priority is not quantity, it's quality. My priority is my health and the health of the Earth. If we keep eating food with pesticides and hormones, the industry will keep producing them. Which will continue to deteriorate the health of the nation and the health of the Earth. Plus local tastes better. It tastes more real, fresher. This is where Anderson Organics comes into play. I'm also so excited to hear about this great farmer's market Rockford has going! Go Rockford! I know that we'll run into problems come the winter, but we'll deal with them then.
3. Avoid processed foods. We rarely buy something in a can or a jar or a box or a bag that has already been processed. Here, in Ecuador, we eat slow food; real food. And that's been probably the biggest contributing factor to our health improving. I like to have a snack in the afternoon but it's usually a piece of bread, a piece of fruit or a bag of papas or chifles (potatoes fried or plantains fried). It's amazing to me what happens when you remove corn syrup from your diet and replace it with real sugar, or better yet with panela. Your body has to work (burn calories) to burn those types of sugar down. This is a good process. With corn syrup, it breaks down so quickly that there are very few calories burned. This is a bad process. So we're going to try and avoid it. At least in our home and when we are in control of the food on the proverbial table.
4. Keep moving. We walk, run, hike, climb, lift, and swim here all of the time. In the States we drive. Granted we have convenient weather and we live in a big city with public transportation. In IL that will be harder because of the location of my parents' house. But I'll be training for a marathon and Ryan can't wait for regular soccer games and basketball games. Plus we've got Chuki to walk and we both want to start lifting actual weights (not the water bottles we've been lifting here) together. There are tennis courts just down the street, bikes to be rode, and hikes to be had within hours of Rockford! We're looking forward to doing a lot of exploring in our own neighborhood for new hikes and forests to enjoy, something we've gotten extremely used to here.
There you have it! There's really nothing more important than your health and doing what you can to preserve it for as long as you can. Everyone owes it to themselves to take care of your body in a healthy, non-abusive, non-judgmental way.
It's not a competition of who can be the skinniest. Life is so much more than that. It's about maintaining your health so that you can enjoy all that life has to offer: the people you love, the smiles, the laughter, the tears, the adventures, the delicious food, the nature, and the beauty of this Earth.
MULUB,
Taylor
