SFH #10: Food and Ecology

Our health is directly linked to our ecological systems 🔗

Weston Price concluded long ago that people's common factor in good health is a diet comprising fresh foods from animals and plants grown in nutrient-rich soils. In other words, our nutritional health is a relationship between food and ecology. 🌳

Unfortunately, our modern diet is now mainly an industrialized process. We know little, if anything, about the locations or soils from sourced foods. When the health of one link in the food chain is affected, it can impact all the other links, so I like to stay educated on my food sources and find naturally occurring foods locally and sustainably sourced! These satiate, sustain, and give us high-quality nutrient plentiful benefits to balance our systems. ⚖️

When I started this journey 15 years ago, learning about Weston Price through 'The Omnivore's Dilemma’ and 'Skinny Bitch’ (believe it 🤪), I made it a fun game. I cleaned out my pantry, paring down to foods under five (5) ingredients. And did my best to stay away from sugar as an individual ingredient in any food. I did and still do eat naturally occurring sugars in foods--like fruit. 🍇

I kept taking it a step further with my food health, and I encourage you to educate yourself about your food. Below is a video I like on soil health. 📺

Here are some questions to start on for your food selection.

1) Where is the food geographically sourced? 

2) What is the name of the farm or producer?

3) What are the practices of the farm or agricultural process producing your food? (Google searching and reading about your sources can be eye-opening).

4) Is it seasonal?

5) Is it a sustainable practice? Are they growing for high yield, or is their mission and vision discernible and not just marketing?

At the end of the day, like in every phase of our life, we want to raise the bar. The higher the quality of soil, the higher our food quality, and the higher our quality of health!