I’ve read, listened to, or countless things about the need to healthy, something that most Americans are either disinclined or unable to do. I am no exception. While I have the first spark of inclination – fears of colon or prostate cancer, long-term digestive problems, and/or diabetes will do that for you – I find that it is tremendously difficult to eat properly.
First there is this oft-publicized distinction between regular and “organic” foods, the latter a classification that seems subject to a variety of individual interpretations. I recently watched a video (see below) that discussed how even when foods manage to be “certified organic”, it says nothing about the conditions by which they are shipped to the markets, or how the markets handle them in turn. So for all the trouble of finding organic foods corresponding to your diet, not to mention the higher costs, what’s the point if all the benefits are negated by shipping and handling?
And that’s not even the half of it – because in truth, I almost never buy organic. Since I can’t afford to do it on a regular basis, it doesn’t seem particularly useful to only do it every once in awhile. Avoiding pesticides and other chemicals only every other Tuesday probably doesn’t do too much.
The real problem, though, is in preparing the food. With my long work day and long travel time, I have very little personal time to myself, and one of the last things I want to be doing with that time is preparing some elaborate meal. And it does have to be elaborate, if I expect it to meet even the daily intake requirements for these vitamins and those minerals – these set by the USDA – which fall short of many experts’ assessments.
I consider myself a pretty good cook. Don’t expect to see me on Iron Chef or Hell’s Kitchen, but I think I can hold my own for everyday purposes, and even to entertain a few guests from time to time. Part of cooking well involves a lot of preparation – like cutting up vegetables, selecting spices, pre-heating, simmering, all of that. You spend an hour or more preparing, only to shove it all down in under 20 minutes. Then there’s the clean-up, which is bound to take at least another half an hour – which I often skip altogether and leave to my girlfriend, and even she tends to leave it for the next day or even the weekend.
As much of a hassle as that is, the temptation to eat out increases dramatically. Why spend up to an hour and a half preparing and eating, when you can have it all done in about half an hour by having other people do it for you?
The obvious problem is that it costs a lot more in the long run – a LOT more. A second problem is that, where I live at least, there are virtually zero healthy options. A salad from a fast food restaurant may be healthy by their standards, but not by the standards of anyone who has done any serious research into eating right. Chinese food may have some vegetables in it, but it’s so laden with other questionable things that their effect may be negated. There usually aren’t a full serving of vegetables. Most often I go to the local pizza shop – reconciling the obvious fact that nothing they offer is healthy with the knowledge that the store is run by Muslims, and as such they in theory conform to halal standards. Of course there are no guarantees there, and halal doesn’t necessarily mean nutritious.
Lunch on workdays is the same story. I hardly ever bring my lunch – because that would mean either waking up earlier (and that’s not going to happen), or preparing my lunch the night before – another “no no”, because both mean that I have less of my free time to spend on more stimulating activities. So either I don’t eat at all, or I eat out at the local mall, my choices being either Chick Fil-A, Subway, or Sarku Japan. In spite of what I tell myself, I know quite well that the little bit of green leaf on my chicken sandwich, spinach on my sub, or low-nutrient vegetables in my teriyaki barely put a dent in my requirements for the day.
So what options are there, for a person who wants to eat healthy, but neither has the time or energy to prepare things, nor any viable eat-out options? I have been wracking my brain over this for months, as well as my conscience, as I receive constant reminders from various sources about how I am not treating my body well.
I am at a loss…
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