Eating Well - the Qualities of Good Foods
How long it takes to go from a live food to your mouth can make a difference in the foods nutritional value. I just read a great article explaining the benefits of superfoods and it got me thinking about how much storage and other issues can affect nutrition.
Food Storage
Foods fresh from the garden smell and taste better than store bought foods. The difference is particularly noticeable in garden tomatoes. This season we have received many pears that were wonderful that came from local gardens. Your missing this if you get fruits that were shipped from far away or stored for extended time under refrigeration – they are often picked before they have ripened fully.
In a way, any food can be thought of as a superfood if it comes fresh from the garden to the plate. The traditional herbs like parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are among just a few that grow really easily and taste great. I have heard that you can even grow goji berries but I haven’t tried that yet. It would be fun to add that to the list of berries that grow in the yard.
A fresh green onion oozes a fine liquid somewhat like cut aloe vera and it smells wonderful.
Galaxy S7 photo f/1.7 1/233 4.2mm ISO50
To me there are many other qualities to a good meal and food that are also important for nutrition. Anything we do can either nurture us or become something that takes pulls away our energy. To be able to spend some time and enjoy eating is helpful for me.
Aroma Therapy
Being able to sit and enjoy the smells of a home cooked meal being prepared is great. Smells can be very stimulating and get the body prepared to enjoy an experience. How well you enjoy each moment can help your digestion.
Simply breaking and rubbing fresh herbs can release wonderful smells. There is no need to purchase anything fancy to enjoy the smell of mint or lavender.
Spending time outside and smelling wonderful food can help balance out time that is spent in other areas where the air and odors can be hard for the body to handle. When I was younger I did not pay much attention to how smells can affect the body.
So much of the time now we are exposed to so many odors that are not natural in a historical way and I think this can be confusing. Paints, chemicals, the candle isle of some stores, hardware stores, tire stores, strange perfumes, plastics, solvents, new carpets, asphalt, the list goes on and on. Some of these things can cause a type of allergic reaction in some people that can cause them many issues - (one of my friends had health issues from new carpet and chemical odors). Sometimes I don’t even pay much attention to smells because so many of them are not invigorating.
Being able to balance this out with some fine natural garden greens can help this. Even fresh lettuce from the garden smells great.
Here are some flowers my wife was growing last year:
Panasonic f/3.6 1/100 21.6mm ISO80
Spending Time Eating
Socializing and enjoying time together before a meal and really taking the time to chew your food does wonders for how well your body can absorb nutrition. Conversation can be an aid to digestion or be something that ties your stomach up in knots.
Everything can either put energy into your bank so to speak or deplete your bodies reserves and make it more difficult for it to stay healthy and absorb proper nutrition from your food.
If your are always late and rushing, it helps to balance out and really enjoy your food when you can. Many other activities can be nurturing as well depending on your personal preferences.
Lasting Nutrition
To me, staying healthy is a wonderful thing and many aspects of what and how we eat, store and prepare our foods are important for this. I’ve heard it said that a saint can turn poison into food but spending your effort this way takes energy that could be used for other things. For most of us paying attention to what we eat can help us build up our bodies so we can more easily weather the storms that can come up in modern life.
Thanks for reading! I hope you find these ideas helpful to think about.
Great article!
Thank you! :)
Well written. My wife's philosophy is to grow a lot of things that people normally wouldn't think of eating--in essence, weeds! Don't get me wrong, she grows a lot of other food as well, but we've eaten quite a lot of green amaranth, lambs quarters, perslain, wood sorrel, sow thistle, and not to mention dandelions, this year. Plus we have some wild growing mints, like lemon balm and others. These add great flavor, as well, as perform as super-foods...might write about eating gourmet weeds...Nice work! ;)
Nice! I've eaten dandelions, and mint but haven't tried the others. I'd like to start growing some of those too. Thanks!
Learn how to identify wild growing foods in your area. That's what we did. Then, encourage the ones you want around, and discourage the ones you don't. That way, if there is ever a food shortage, you will know what to eat and where to get it. The things I listed grows most places, but you may have different things near you, that you will want to encourage and try. Look online for recipes that work for similar foods, and try it with them. You body will thank you!
That is a good idea! I know a few things that are native that are edible but don't know very much about it. You've got me interested in learning more. :)
That was my intention...muah-hahaha...