Since when has a bad example become a good one?

I have been reading many books about how every single piece of food that we put into our mouth affects our lives: How we talk, feel, work, study, and act. How our liver, colon, kidney, brain, and everything else works. This is not something I have imagined, something I have dreamed up in nightmares in sleepless nights in bed. No, these things I mention I know as much about as any scientist who has been studying this for decades.

Recently I had an argument about food — a painful one. A big one with the argument that I am a weird monster who thinks that people should eat at precise times, drink before they eat, and stop eating every hour, 30 minutes, or basically whenever a person wants. I am torturing kids (not just mine) for not letting them have colored candies, "palm-full" cookies, and lemonade whenever they want just because the rest of the world does that. So why can't I just accept and allow?

A mother I know (not very well though) told me that she is completely ok with the fact that her pre-teen daughter goes out every day after school to buy colored sweets and “all included” foods with her pocket money as she has no power to fight against that. Everyone is doing it and takes too much effort to explain to her why she should not. So today, after many years of evidence in schools where kids eat sweets like morning bread, where people die not of starvation but overeating, where even in an organic shop 90% of cookies are made with palm fat, I ask myself, “When the bad example become the good one?” How come in our society everyone who eats well, thinks about products and ingredients, and when it is consumed is the bad guy? Still, everyone who eats just about every piece of food put in front of them are the nice guys who do not make a big fuss about killing themselves and their kids and friends with a simple thing like food. 

At the same time, people ask me how come I do not roll down the hill like a small ball? After all my job is to eat everything? The answer is simple – I do not put every single piece of food into my mouth, not even when it is free. Also not when it is 2-for-1 or a reduced price. I do not appreciate margarine in puff pastry and will not eat it if offered at a party, just because it is free. I will not sip that glass of white wine that comes from the 3l pack or cheapest bottle possible, just because it is free. I will not eat sugary yogurt for breakfast just because people around me do as I will not indulge in eggs benedict every day, just because someone else does it. I would on a holiday if I knew the eggs are good, but that's about it. 

I do read about food, and I try to teach my kids and my husband (with lots and sometimes too many discussions, as the same monster story applies to me at home). There is so much evidence of how CRUCIAL it is to teach our kids NOT TO EAT all those sweets and fats, and that can be done by our example. It is known that people who eat artificial flavors have much worse intestinal problems than those who eat balanced diets. Ten off the world's longest-living populations (there was an excellent edition of National Geographic dedicated to the theme “Living in green zones”) consume honey and dried fruits or dark chocolate as sweets; they haven't seen palm fat, and they do not use nitrite salt. They do not allow their kids to nibble with candies – just like that.

I have been talking about this for years resulting in people turning away. I know, it is an uneasy topic to discuss, especially if opposite you is a person who does not care or only pretends to care to the extent that shows his friends he cares – until you see his weekly receipt at the shops. But it is a topic we have to discuss. How come we have to say "I bought organic kale today" when we should say "I bought conventional kale today!" How come we say "I had a bar of organic chocolate with four ingredients today!" when we should say "I had a palm fat, soy lecithin, and 20 ingredient chocolate today, and what an experience it was!" How come we give pocket money to our kids to spend and let them go to the shop for colored candies, saying that it is too hard for us to explain when we should be teaching and explaining again and again. How come today, the poor example of letting everyone eat anything has become a good example?

Text: Signe Meirane
Photo: Aiga Redmane (for campaign we did for HM Conscious collection, 2019)