Mindful Eating
Dear Readers,
We’ve talked about my willingness to eat meat in a previous post. Yesterday I drove for nine hours from Laguna Beach to San Francisco – mostly along I-5. Nine hours?! Rush hour and road constructions substantially slowed down the trip. In the last thirty miutes we found and oldies radio station and rocked out (OK – I was the only one… the other three were completely over everything) to Tony Orlando & Dawn singing, Tie a Yellow Ribbon - it’s a toe tapper, folks!
The most poignant part of the trip was how thankful I was that I don’t eat beef. Not eating beef came because my body just decided it wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore – there weren’t any political or social reasons behind it. I supported anyone who chose to down a burger or big ‘ol rib-eye steak. And then yesterday happened. There were stretches of miles (or for some of you – kilometers) of cow farms (a.k.a. – slaughterhouses) with thousands of cows just standing there, hanging out in the mud with nothing to do, and even more miles of a stinky, stinky environment – I exaggerate not.
After we past the first slaughterhouse, I thought of the documentary, Food Inc. and how food in the United States is grown and processed. I heard on NPR last week that it takes 30 gallons of water to process one hamburger patty. 30 gallons! We have a shortage of water in the U.S. – and yet, we eat millions of burgers every year – probably billions. When we get home from our vacation, I pledged to myself – I will start buying my food more mindfully, finding out where it is grown, shopping at farmer’s markets, and cooking at home WAY more. And if I can – I’m eliminating beef from my sweet kiddo’s diet. I think I’ll watch, Food Inc. to give me a quick shove into being mindful about food.
I’m off to nudge the sweet kiddo out of the hotel bed and head off to the Golden Gate Bridge. It looks sunny out there – so hopefully, I’ll get a good shot of the bridge to share.
Namaste,
Joie
