Eating What’s ‘Safe’-may not be nutritious or healthy

Posted by admin on January 2, 2011 under Food Associations | 3 Comments to Read

According to research done by David Barker, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland we learn in the last trimester of fetal development what foods are safe to eat.    The reduced availability of fresh fruits and vegetables during the late fall and winter season would have meant that during that period a  fetus in its last trimester of development during those seasonal periods was not exposed to fresh fruits and vegetables, which are readily available now but prior to 30 years ago were not available in many locales of the world. The fetus’ cellular development takes place in an environment that is devoid of nutrition from those food sources.

My own fetal experience of a diet would have been lots of fried meat/poultry/fresh water fish options, dairy, eggs, canned green beans (very little nutrition left by the time they got to the table), potatoes and breads.  If it wasn’t canned or stored in the root cellar it was not available to eat.  Everything that could be was fried.  All canned vegetables had had the life cooked out of them.   I was subsequently raised on those foods.  Fresh raw vegetables were not prepared as a regular part of the diet.

So my reference point for safe eating would have been anything fried, lots of empty calories and cooked vegetables with little nutrition left.   Nutritionally, my best guess, would be that my mother ingested plenty of protein but little in the way of vitamin nutrition.   The protein that was ingested would have been calorie heavy from being fried in lard or hydrogenated shortening.

As an adult my comfort level for eating has always been to fry my food.  When I was eating meat/fish/poultry I would often roast those foods but they would always have a layer of fat added to the roasting process.   As nutritional information became more readily available the rational thinking part of my relationship with food directed me to safer forms of frying, like stir-frying and using a spray mechanism for putting oil on my food.  I can barely stomach steamed anything without a layer of butter.   I have an unhealthy and ‘safe’ association with food.  These foods keep me safe because I know how to survive eating them.  I may not be eating for health in the process but the association is not around health it is around survival.  Eating that type of diet has been part of my ancestry for many generations.   There is overwhelming scientific evidence that type of diet creates a child that will grow up with obesity, heart disease and diabetes.  This is evidenced by the number of people in my ancestry with heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

I am literally working through this information at a personal level as I write the article.   Eating healthily should not be a challenge.  It should not be stressful.  When I visualize sitting before a plate of raw vegetables and feeling very hungry, I have feelings of deprivation rise up.  I don’t feel nurtured by the food.  For me the diet described above is nurturance and filling.

Using Reference Point Therapy I will clear those unhealthy associations.  I will write an update in the coming days about my experience of working through those associations.

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