I have lost the majority of my family to preventable diseases caused by lifestyle choices. Heart disease is one. We come from a line of good ol’ fashion Puerto Rican cooks. When grandmother, mi abuela, cut open the pork roast we fought over the crisp on the outside, melt on the mouth fat that the pig was encased in. In this land of plenty we had the best butcher named Red who wrapped in paper tied with string Christmas like packages of sausages for breakfast, cold cuts for lunch and numerous forms of roast for dinner, seven days a week. When I was young I was very active and could burn it off. That was before computers and all the sedentary ways of this now modern world. The result-heart attacks, knock your socks off high cholesterol- some family members still brag about meat as the only thing they like to eat. So why did I turn from Diet Coke and Budget Gourmet’s & Red Barron Pizza’s, a meat & fat rich diet to one that is mostly fresh ingredients, composed mostly of vegetables and grains?
Cancer is another reason for my dietary changes. My fathers generation was the first to eat an entirely processed and manufactured diet. He bragged how his favorite food was SPAM. His favorite fruit was cherry topping on a ham, a glopping oozy substance one called cherry pie filling. Nitrate filled bacon was his favorite morning dish alongside eggs and white spongy bread. The only vegetable he ate were greenbeans smothered in canned mushroom soup topped with processed flakey things that some one mistakenly called fried onions. My father died of cancer 4 years ago. One wonders where all these chemicals go when they are in our body. Do they flush out? Do they accumulate over the years like cholesterol does? Do they find certain organs and hang out there? Three cancers in the family, how many to go?
I find myself puzzled over how anyone could not like vegetables. In order to return to fewer ingredients in my diet, ingredients that do not have chemical names, I have turned to gardening. Tomatoes, basil, peas, beans, cukes, zucchini, summer squash, herbs and peppers. I’ve even turned to organic seed. I have experimented with endless dishes mixed with small amounts of meat or with soy sauces and reductions that now rival some of our best restaurants. I am getting one of the best workouts ever, digging and tilling the soil by hand. I am learning the old ways, before a dinner came in a box.
One of my first gardens was at an apartment I rented in an urban area. The landlord approved of an area mixed with weeds, broken asphalt and concrete. I spent nearly a month moving broken asphalt, freeing up the land, lost weight and gained blisters. I feared passer bys would steal my hard won labor. My fears were never so wrong. Those first tomatoes and peppers grew into luscious dinners and gifts to friends and neighbors. And also fixed in me an invaluable metaphor. Sometimes you gotta bust concrete to grow great tomatoes!
Comments(4)
A perfect adventure for one who bores easily from exercise DVD’s and treadmills.