I value my health highly. I know what it is like to be sick, everything is bleak when your body isn’t working to the best of its ability. What has changed over the last few years for me is what my actual definition of health is.
I’ve been a vegetarian for 18 years and I have always been conscious that I need to get lots of protein into my diet – lentils, beans, tempeh, tofu, I ate it all. I also at a lot of packaged and processed vegetarian alternatives.
So as I have journeyed down the road of living with less impact on the planet, I have also become aware of the story behind food and the amount of things that we put in our bodies, that aren’t actually benefiting our health.
Food has a major impact on our environment. We all need to eat, and we are bombarded with various types of food and all the advertising that comes with it each and everyday. The more I dive deeper into the environmental implications of food, the more it feels like falling down a bottomless pit – processed food, over packaging, pesticides, waste, preservatives, chemical ingredients etc.
The main lesson is that we have moved away from natural whole foods for the sake of ease, variety and convenience. This ease and convenience all comes at a cost and I have learnt it’s both a cost for my own health and the health of the planet.
What I eat fuels my body and my mind.
When I feel sluggish or sick – everything is hard and living a sustainable life is nearly impossible. So taking care of myself is the first ingredient for me to be taking care of the planet. The healthier I am, the more I can do for the planet.
So for a healthy me it means, getting back to natural whole foods, buying local and nutritious produce. (Do I slip and get pizza every now and then… yes. But the majority is what counts.)
Healthy You and Healthy Planet – we need both of them.
One cannot exist without the other.
