How courageous are you when it comes to healthy eating?

When we think about Meal Making Transformation are we yearning for something more and deeper in our food lives?

A few weeks ago I was outside watching an incredible super moon pop over the horizon when a neighbor walked up with her dog. I barely had time to ask “How are things” when she started enthusing about her trip to Ireland. She had just returned and was so excited.

She had been completely captured by the Irish culture — the simplicity, the slower pace, the friendliness, the real-ness–and the food! She so appreciated the culture’s embrace of local, real, whole food and its careful preparation and enjoyment.

I could sense her yearning to have some of that Irish peace and comfort in her American life — and was right there with her as I was watching the moonrise on a soft summer night.

Why indeed are our lives so complicated and hurried? Why are our food lives dominated by industrially prepared stuff that can’t even be called food?

The answer, I think, is that we aren’t willing to pay the price for lives less complicated and food more nourishing.

That price isn’t a monetary one. If a simple, nourished life could be bought, we would all be reveling in it, because we’re good at buying things.

Rather, the price is courage. Because it takes courage to say “No” more often to all the glittering, sparkling opportunities that beckon in our abundant modern lives. And when it comes to food, it takes courage to instead

• take time to figure out what to make
• take time to shop for the food needed
• organize life so you’re home in time to make good meals–or organize so easy meals are within reach for busier nights
• take time to sit down and eat meals, with enjoyment

There’s a universal law at work here. I call it the Universal Law of Tradeoffs. In other words, acquiring one good thing (like super convenient meals that take no time) requires a tradeoff of at least one or more other good things (like nutrition, comfort, community, taste and economy.)

Food marketers have led us to believe that modern life has delivered us into a you-can-have-it-all, free-for-all bonanza. In reality, our wonderful world of processed convenience foods has exacted a terrible tradeoff price, not only in terms of our health but also in terms of deep enjoyment and communal sharing–those intangible elements that my neighbor sensed and yearned for.

Generally, we are so immersed in our crazy, misleading culture that we don’t even notice its toll. But immerse yourself in a sane eating culture, as my neighbor did, and the shortcomings become obvious, glaring and even dismaying.

A clarifying trip to Ireland may not be in your future, of course, but you can still experience an “awakening” of sorts. Just skew up your courage and take the time to make yourself a good meal. Doesn’t have to be fancy, just tasty and comforting. Then take time to sit down, eat and enjoy.

I know that there is precious little in our culture to support such a wildly time-consuming activity that hardly seems a worthwhile use of your precious time. Can I tell you how many times I have felt pitied, ridiculed and even belittled because I devote some of my precious time to making life-giving meals, every day.

But this is where courage comes in. Courage to do what’s right for us, regardless of what our culture or friends and family think.

Share in the comments: Do you ever yearn for more in your food life? What does it look like? Do you have the courage to create the food life you yearn for?