By Nwenna Kai
On the back of my book, The Goddess of Raw Foods, I have a quote that reads, “The revolution starts at the dinner table.” For such a long time throughout history we have seen a trend in our families where we no longer value the contribution of the nuclear and the extended family in our culture. Western culture has taught us to value other things other than the family like our careers, our social affiliations, our college degrees, and our finances, but we neglect to value and take care of is our greatest wealth of all which is our health.
In these stressful economic times, it appears stressful and expensive to take care of ourselves, exercise, and learn how to eat healthy. We often find often too tired to prepare our own meals, exercise, or even to get a massage for ourselves, but if we like everything can learn to handle stressful situations together as a family and as a community, we could be saving more lives and living more abundantly.
The dinner table however especially in the Black community represented sound traditional values that kept the family healthy, whole, and happy. The dinner table was where you got nourishment from the food but you also got nourishment from the exchange of congregating with the people you love the most. Why do you find when you a lot of people in your house at one time that most of us gather in the kitchen around food?
Keeping our families healthy is of utmost importance especially in these economic and stressful times. It’s the perfect time to resolve issues with family and bond with each other and what better way to bond-over a healthy home-prepared meal with your family. If you want to battle diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, your first instinct is to change your diet, so I encourage couples, singles, and families to take on this revolution together.
Here are some suggestions for starting the revolution at your dinner table.
– Learn to grow your own food. You don’t need to have a large patch of soil in your backyard in order to grow food. You can grow food in a high rise building in New York City. Even if you can only grow one crop, try it. Growing food gives you a sense of ownership and pride and once you make that connection with the earth, She will provide over and over again. Growing food only requires a window, sunshine, and water.
– Take at least one day a week and have the entire family prepare dinner. Everyone in the family can contribute to the nourishment of the family. Don’t underestimate your small children who may not be able to cut vegetables. Children can pluck string beans, wash vegetables, and they can garnish the finished product. Involve the entire family in the preparing of a healthy meal. Healthy meals meaning no fried or processed foods. Healthy meals meaning something green and organic and fresh on your plate. Healthy meals meaning something made from scratch. Healthy meals meaning something that involves food that comes out of the ground or from a tree. Involve the family in choosing what to prepare, shopping for the ingredients, preparing the meal, serving the meal, and cleaning up afterwards. Its such a bonding experience for everyone and it makes everyone feel valuable.
– Just like you made a commitment to be married and stay married. Make a commitment to your health and to your family’s health. If you want to stay happily married for 30, 40, 50, or 60 years, you’ve got to stay healthy. Who wants an overweight, sickly, tired, and depressed spouse in the elder years. Getting older doesn’t have to mean getting sick. I hike every week-end in the LA mountains with women who are 20 and 30 years older than me and I find myself the last one to get to the top of the hill. Besides that healthier couples enjoy better sex!
Excellent post! Thanks for the information.
Outstanding article! When it comes to food, I feel like we’ll either pay now or pay later. It’s not cheap to eat healthy, but it’s even more expensive to pay for medications regarding hypertension, diabetes, lupus and a host of other autoimmune and degenerative diseases.
My friends sometimes make fun of me, because I chop up bell peppers and serve them to my son like fries. He tears them up! All my meals have more green stuff than anything. Every meal has to have some kind of fresh veggie. Even my husband is on board with that now (there is a God). LOL
But I saw what my pops went through with diabetes. Slowly and surely his toes left, then his heart, then his eyes, then his kidneys, then his leg, then his life. He couldn’t even enjoy his retirement from the military because he was always sick. Eight years after he retired, he was dead. He never wanted to eat right, and it got to the point where he couldn’t digest anything at all.
That’s too much of a price to pay for me. I’d rather spend the money in the produce section, thankyouverymuch.
Great post…..to me this just reinforces our need to remember to love ourselves and take care of our bodies….
@Harriet: I loved this statement, “When it comes to food, I feel like well either pay now or pay later. Its not cheap to eat healthy, but its even more expensive to pay for medications regarding hypertension, diabetes, lupus and a host of other autoimmune and degenerative diseases.”
We are what we eat. I’m no dietition, but I encourage people to give themselves 30 days, while making small changes as they assess and re-evaluate their diet. I’ve taken small steps, like eating carrots, a small handful over a two week period, and drinking water. It was amazing the change I saw in my skin. Later, I’ve also experimented with meat reduction …..I’m not vegetarian (at least not yet), but I’ve noticed changes in my energy levels, mood, and regularity.
Harriet I also cut up bell peppers like french fries and my kids are grown and still love them. I know parents that give their kids soda or fake fruit juice all day. I gave my kids ice water, they still continue to drink it because it was introdued from day one. As we get older we have to have snacks to watch tv. Our snack are raw/ broc or cali or carrots and of course fresh fruit. We as humans have a oral fixation of wanting to eat while being entertained. I went to a concert last week and saw ppl with buckets of buttery popcorn and nachos. Who eats that watching Maxwell live in concert? LOL. (I want to sing along and not choke on my dry popcorn or nachos). America thinks they are getting so creative cooking that I heard about ppl deep frying “butter”. I like that Mickey D’s has apple slices (and a choice of health foods like most resturants)that they put in what looks like a french fry carton. It amazes me of the many ppl my age that I see in motorized wheel chairs and walking with canes. America is obese and it needs to stop. Hubby and I went to Big Boy’s last week(not healthy but it was the only thing open). There was a man with a cane who could not walk to the vehicle parked in front of us. Someone got in the vehicle and picked him up at the door that was not far away. He was big, but not 400#. Ppl don’t realize that changing diet habits will give you better health and a longer life. Take baby steps, stop drinking soda and cut out the bread and sugar. White bread has no nutritional value at all. I do agree that eating heathly is expensive, in the long run it won’t run up a doctor/surgery bill for a heart bypass/transplant or complications due to diabetes. It’s up to us to take care of our health. I don’t want a food czar to take beef or pork out of my grocers freezer. Big Brother is already way too much in our business, and I think I deserve a really hearty steak or juicy pork chop every now and again.(ok a few times a week) I am not ready to be a vegan yet. The holidays are around the corner and I love my Ham, chittlins, and all the fixins’. It’s called “moderation” ppl.
FYI: You can get full from fresh veggies and fruit. I replaced iceberg lettuce with fresh spinach in my salads.