Food - Live to Eat or Eat to Live - Just Do It Right!

Tuesday evening is family night at the Pitt home. Our two boys have grown and moved out, one is married, the other living with his love - both only a few minutes away.

When I grew up it was Sunday night at grandma's - pot roast or some other typically British fare.

These days weekends are sacred - too many things on the go and the time is too precious, so we decided on Tuesdays instead and with fairly rare exceptions we've enjoyed them for a couple of years now. This helps on a couple of fronts too - it keeps us in touch, always a good thing. It gives us as parents assurance that out kids and their loved ones are getting at least one good meal a week, and in our case it helps with the fact that Shirley just can't seem to make small amounts of food. She grew up as the oldest of 7 kids and cooked quite a bit, so there are usually leftovers. My daughter-in-law has taken to bringing over plastic-ware to take away the booty.

I learned a bit about cooking from my mom - and a lot more from my first wife, Joan, who is a home economics teacher. In my 30+ years with Shirley (#2) I've done a lot of cooking but as per usual for men, it's mostly either breakfasts or barbecue. I'm in charge of bacon and steaks. Along the way I've been teaching the boys what I can and Shirley has too. They're not good at it - but they at least understand basics and can identify ingredients and understand basic food safety.

About 15 years ago I was diagnosed as diabetic - type 2, aka "insulin resistant" - and told to lose 50 lbs. Today I'm about 200 lbs - then I was 245. I've been as low as 195, my "ideal" weight but at this time of the year I don't get quite as much exercise as I do during the better weather, so I've put on 5 lbs. I now watch my weight all the time and have changed my eating habits 100% from the lazy, fast-food and pop of the past (back) to mostly home-cooked and high-quality but small portions.

All this is leading up to my asking you to watch a video. No, it's not by or about me - it's about obesity and the problem we have with it today. The video is of a talk given by Jamie Oliver at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference this month in California.

Jamie talks about the fact that in many homes both in Britain, his home country, and in America (and by my estimate Canada is not far behind) there now is a third generation of children being raised who know nothing about food - not how to select it, how to cook it, or even how to identify the basic ingredients. This is the result of a fundamental change in our society that includes both the rise of fast food and the failing of government and education systems to guard the passing on of food culture and information to our children.

I recognized the symptom - but missed the real problem. This helped focus it - I hope it does for you too.

Tag: food diabetes obesity education