This week in Contemporary Nutrition class, we had to develop a “sustainability” food pyramid. It may sound strange – but the more we worked on it as a group, the more value I saw in the project. I am most interested in what we put as our base and what we put at the top of the peak. In between we had things like, ‘grow your own food’, buy from a local farmers market’, and ‘eat food grown within 150 miles of your location’. These are wonderful suggestions and could make a huge difference – but some people either cannot do these things, or are not yet ready to make a change.
The top of our pyramid lists:
“Limit processed and pre-packaged foods” (use sparingly)
This has many benefits – less packaging going into the environment, less manufacturing of chemicals and additives to preserve the food, less machinery and fuels used to create the foods. On the other hand, if you are limiting these types of foods, hopefully you are increasing your consumption of whole and unprocessed foods – grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, meats. Any person could do this if they just increased the awareness of their choices at the grocery store.
Our base lists:
“Consume only what your body needs. Do not eat in excess. Enjoy as many meals as possible with family and friends”
Can you imagine the impact this could have if people took an interest in it? Do you know what your body needs? What if you started paying attention? Enjoying meals with friends or family could start to create more of a community around food, more fun around food, and possibly more respect of the food we choose to eat.
Love it! I can't wait to see everyone's pyramids and definitions of food. I found those exercises surprisingly thought-provoking and useful too.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's hard to eat only foods 150 miles from your home. I need lemons! If everyone could eat "only what they need" think of how many more people we could feed! That's sustainability at it's best!
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