Sunday Musings

Where my food comes from. I know that it is likely a cliche at this point, but I really do wish I had moved towards a vegan diet earlier. Whilst going vegetarian was a good way for 16 year old me to learn how to cook meals and ease myself into the lifestyle, I had always had this thought that perhaps the dairy and egg industries weren’t showing me the full picture.

But on a deeper level, I also wish I was taught more about food growing up and during school. I remember being taught the basics of the food pyramid but not what any of this really meant, nor the very many ways in which we all differ when it comes to food. What I know about food now, including what I know about nutrition and properly fueling my body (and even this is quite a basic understanding) I learnt as an adult and doing my own research. Through training for a marathon, I have found that rice and pasta are great sources of carbs for me, whereas I find that potatoes tend to make me feel very sluggish. Oats make me feel fuller for longer, but pasta seems to keep my fuelled for my longer runs without needing extra sweets on hand to get me through energy slumps, which I find I expereince more of when I eat bread before a run.

Now I know that dieticians go to school for years to become experts in how food works, but I feel that at least a basic understanding of how our body reacts to different foods would have been useful in school. There is a chance that this has changed, as I also admit I left secondary school over 10 years ago at this point, but I still wish I had this sort of education growing up. It may also have helped me handle food in a healthier way as I went through puberty, especially if I knew how hormones could impact on my weight and how I likely need to fuel differently depending on each stage of my cycle.

I am also a big advocate for giving people a choice. Yes, animal agriculture is an unpleasant topic to talk about, but I feel if this information was given to me as a child as I was growing up, I would have been able to make more informed decisions about what I was eating and the food choices I was making. I remember in school watching The Meatrix, and even this little animation allowed me to go away and do my own research. I had been curious about vegetarinism since I was about 7 years old, and I still credit this animation for being that final push I needed to fully investigate and commit to a vegetarian diet in my teen years. But I was likely the minority, with most of my classmates still choosing to eat meat products despite seeing the same animation that I did. But that’s what we should be allowed to do – make a choice. This is always what I aim to advocate through this blog – I am not trying to necessarily convince anyone that veganism is the greatest thing ever (even if I personally think it is), but I want to give people the information which allow them to make more informed decisions about what they are eating, and to think a bit more about where their food is coming from.

T xxx