I’ve just wrapped the weekend getting my food activist on at the “Changing the Way we Eat” conference, with my talk ‘Shape your health and the world with your shopping basket.’ So many awesome speakers and great to meet Guy Lawrence from 180 nutrition who was also speaking about the amazing role of strength straining and wholefoods in cancer and tumour reduction. So inspiring!
Anyway, here are a few ways we as a collective are shaping the world, while we shape our health this month.
- All the plastic packaging you’re saving! Processed food is made in labs, and produced in factories. You can’t just whack it as is, in crates in the back of a truck for market. It needs to be ‘sold’ to us, and wrapped in all sorts of pretty packaging to look appealing. By ditching the processed stuff and opting for fresh, you are literally saving the world from endless amounts of plastic waste that never fully breaks down and wreaks havoc in our environment.
- Chances are you’re swapping all those products for produce, which means you’re supporting farmers, which means you’re paying someone’s school fees or a family holiday, instead of making someone’s share price go up. Eating local from farmers makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside and keeps beautiful people growing good stuff for us, instead of driving it all into the hands of humungous companies. It’s not about which political side you take… There are no sides when it comes to looking after the good energy in the world and the planet itself.
- It costs a whole bunch of food miles to ship those processed foods around the country and the world to make it to your pantry – We as a collective are literally turning around global warming every time we say yes! to eating simple, beautiful and real local food.
- You are preventing disease. Our body goes into damage control and get inflamed easily, if we give it too much of a challenge with weirdo ingredients. Over time, we then get sick. That costs us and our govt some serious cash. By staying well, we save our bank balance AND the economy.
Plus, think of the single use coffee cups! Maybe when we go back to coffee, we can find that 10 minutes to sit in the cafe and simply BE. Relaxation and time out is something we need to carve out each day.
We can be pretty mindless, wreckless and unconscious at the crazy speed we live our modern lives. What if we stopped? What if we asked more questions before consuming? What if we raised our consciousness on each purchasing decision? My shopping basket changed so drastically when I started to think like that. It was evolutionary over years and am still making little changes now and then 5 years later.
Speaking of reducing plastic and shaping the world you seriously must start buying your loo paper from WHO GIVES A CRAP. 50% of their profits go to clean water projects in pooe rural areas around the world. They’re puntastic, hilarious marketeers that actually make you excited to get their EDMs about toilet paper. No joke.
We can all do so much, but we don’t have to do it all today. I love the sentiment that we can start with whatever we have, wherever we are. You have to celebrate the little wins.
What’s changing for you this month? Anything you’ve discovered or noticed?
