Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es. [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.] That famous quote is from legendary epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's 1826 tome, Physiologie du Gout, ou Méditations de Gastronomie Transcendante. In the nearly two centuries since its publication, what we have learned only confirms this seemingly reductive statement. The rise of industrialized and fast foods—and the attendant increase in cardiovascular illness, obesity and diabetes—has brought renewed focus to the pervasive impact of nutrition on health. This is not news to anyone who reads this blog. Three of the basic tenets that are the backbone of my work here are directly related: Eat adventurously, for health and pleasure. Stay close to nature and explore its ability to nourish and heal. Expand your mind and your palate, not your waistline. So it was with great interest that I read Dr. Mitchell Gaynor's just-released book, The Gene Therapy Plan: Taking Control of Your Genetic Destiny with Diet and Lifestyle. Christiane Northrup describes it as "a godsend that could save your life." 

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Last week's visit to my nutritionist was extremely edifying. Sally is such a font of wisdom and information, I always come away feeling energized, newly motivated and armed with a plan. I brought a food log that chronicled every morsel I had ingested for the week prior and we discussed my ongoing uphill battle with my weight, as well as with a general malaise that I could describe only as "a loss of faith." Sally advised me on food, supplements, exercise and meditation, and then she practiced iridology. This is similar to reflexology, in which the feet are held to contain a blueprint of the body, except for the blueprint is in the irises. It's truly amazing what can be discerned through this ancient practice. Sally also uses kinesiology to gauge food sensitivities and supplement doses. If you have no idea what I am talking about or think this all sounds nuts, I recommend you check out Sally's book, Vibrant Living, and her series of DVDs, which fully explain her holistic approach to health and wellness.
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Has the light appeared at the end of the tunnel? The days are definitely getting longer. Daylight savings is right around the corner. And soon, delicate shoots and buds will begin to festoon the skeletal branches of winter. But I've got the blues, baby, and I'm dancing as fast as I can to shake them from my weary bones. On mornings like this, the sun on my face is a balm, a promise of better days to come. I thank my stars for the roof over my head and the love of a good man, but there is a heaviness in my soul that, like a magnet, seems to dredge up all the pain and bitter disappointments I have ever known.

This, too, shall pass. Because everything always does. I have no child upon whose steady growth to mark the passage of time, but the ever-changing seasons tell it all. The snowdrifts out my window will give way to Queen Anne's lace and monkeyweed, Japanese beetles will streak by in a flash of iridescence, and I will crush tomato leaves between my dirty fingers and inhale the smell of summer. In the meantime, I will harness the raw energy of the sun, chewing and swallowing it in the form of life-giving sprouts.
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By now you've probably all heard Michael Pollan's edict, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It's an approach to healthy eating that takes into account everything we now know about artery-clogging animal fats and the global ramifications of factory-farming; about the stress caused by over-eating and the benefits of calorie deprivation; about the value of antioxidants and flavanoids and fiber. But let's say you're too busy to read the books (Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Eating Animals), you haven't seen the movie (Food Inc.) and you just want to know a few things you can do every day, realistically, right now, to improve your diet. Again, my disclaimer: I am no health professional. I have simply read a lot about these issues and experimented with changing my own eating habits. I am not into deprivation. I am into consuming delicious foods that help me thrive.
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An earthquake in Haiti. A funeral in Boston. One event global, the other local, but both bringing home the realization, once again, that life on this earth is not something to be taken for granted. How then to optimize the time we have? In a sense, this is what my blog is all about. To be a glutton for life means to gobble up experience, to hunger for everything out there. It means to want more of this life and, perhaps paradoxically, this means finding some measure of restraint, some balance. Life is pain and suffering, and it is joy and wonderment. We must learn from both extremes in order to create harmony somewhere in the middle. Today, I listened to the eulogies for a great man who died of cancer. A philanthropist and successful businessmen, a supporter of the arts, a horseman (those are his horses, above), a family man, a beloved friend. His accomplishments in just 68 years were staggering. The Boston Symphony played under the direction of Sir Colin Davis. James Taylor sang. This was no ordinary man, and yet the qualities for which he was most lauded were things we can all strive for: moral integrity, loyalty, selflessness, humility, curiosity about the world, a thirst for knowledge.
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