Open eyes and wise decisions

First- my apologies for the long span since my last post. It is with excitement that I announce I am now a student at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition which as proven to be a wonderful experience so far (4 weeks in). I have settled in to my new schedule so I will be posting more frequently. (If you are interested in the school feel free to inquire- I would love to share my excitement with you.)

The more I learn, the more I see the importance of awareness and self education. As long as we rely on the media and our modern culture as our sole source of education, we will be ignorant. To me ignorance is similar to having your eyes closed. If you do not know how to get around without your sight- you will eventually get hurt. Closing your eyes is a lack of sight by choice. We all have the opportunity to open the eyes of our mind. It is good to close your eyes when you want to sleep. It is not good to close your eyes when you are walking across the street. If you cross the street as a semi truck is heading your way, ignorance is not bliss.

It's amazing what you can learn when you start asking questions and being curious. For a long time I had my favorite "healthy" fast food restaurant. The day I decided to look at the ingredients in the "healthy" option, I realized it was all in the marketing. There actually wasn't anything healthy about this food. It was full of MSG, lots of things I don't know how to pronounce and a dash of a chemical preservative which is a form of butane. What struck me is how easy it was to find this information. I just googled it. It was on the restaurants website.

The problem for most of us is that we do not want to know. It is much easier to turn a blind eye and keep doing what we have always done, eating what we have always eaten. The challenge here is to simply open your eyes. Be willing to look at the ingredients of your favorite fast food. Find out what unpronounceable ingredients are on the labels in your pantry. Just find out. If you don't know what an ingredient is- look it up. Then, the decision is yours. If you decide for your family, you are OK with certain less than healthy foods, that is your decision. What is scary is when we let advertising (from the ones making money off our choices) do the deciding for us. Any time you don't know what you are eating, you are letting someone else decide what you ingest. It would be wise to trust the one feeding you- or feed yourself. Trusting food companies who are just businesses making money- it not wise.

It's intriguing how people will fight to defend a certain food or brand, when the reason they believe what they do, is a direct result of marketing, culture and habit. The very one who persuaded you to believe that food was good, is often the one making money off your decision. Wouldn't it be a good idea to question the nutritional value of foods? Let's not walk blindly by choice. What we eat is working for or against our health and immune systems. You be the decider of how often your food is working for your health.

Let's take responsibility for what we eat. Be willing to be wrong. Be willing to learn. Be willing to change. Watch amazing things happen.