Evil propaganda

Some of you are going to be mad at me. I can feel it. So I’m just going to say it, bluntly, much like a bandage getting ripped off.

Want to know one of my money-saving food tips? I’m a vegetarian.

I want to be very, very clear: I am not telling you you shouldn’t eat meat. I have chosen not to – and for me, that choice feels right and good in every way I can express. Not only do I find that my personal food choice centers me and reminds me that I am capable of compassion (something about which I must occasionally be reminded), but I feel better and healthier. I know that my personal environmental impact is minimized that much more. And it’s cheaper.

Is this the right choice for everyone? Well, judging from the number of people out there who eat meat, obviously not. Certainly I do not, and cannot, expect everyone to do as I do. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “If two people are thinking the same thing, one of them isn’t thinking.”

Here is my challenge. No, not a challenge. In the spirit of my laissez-faire attitude toward personal food habits, I’ll call it a suggestion. If you are a meat-eater, try eating vegetarian for just one day a week. Or two or three -- whatever your lifestyle might accommodate. Make sure you do this with your brain engaged. Include a protein source such as tofu or beans with at least two meals a day (three if you’re feeding children); and add something high in iron and B vitamins such as lentils, spinach, or kale. And make sure you heap on calcium-rich vegetables such as broccoli if you’re going vegan, especially if you’re a woman.

So do this for a day, and then look at your receipt. Do you see a difference? I can get tofu for $1.99 a pound, much cheaper than I can find chicken breasts. And it can’t be a bad thing, healthwise, that I do much of my grocery shopping in the produce aisle. Right?

The cayenne cure?

One of my jobs involves spending 20 hours a week at Vitamin Cottage. Yesterday, I had the chance to chat with an ayurvedic practitioner who was doing a product demo. She said something that struck me as interesting, and which I’d heard but completely forgotten: Spicy foods are marvelous immune-system boosters. And here I was marveling at the fact that I haven’t gotten sick all winter (knocking on wood!), when it might just be the fact that my black-bean chili turns red from cayenne pepper.

Turns out that cayenne pepper might also help arthritis pain. So eat up, knitters.

It made me think, though. We rely so much either on conventional medicines or on herbal remedies, which can be pricey, to fight or prevent disease; but we can create the same positive outcomes with some easy, simple (and tasty) dietary tweaks. So if you like it hot, do it till it hurts!

What do you think? Have you tried ginger or hot pepper as an immune booster? Do you eat five oranges at the first sign of a cold? Or do you think it’s all hoodoo?