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!