‘You need to start eating some meat’
My acupuncturist said this to me, as I felt a great anger and appall well up inside me.
For 2 years, I had been on a mostly plant-based diet, eating some fish along the way. I loved the idea, the philosophy and I strongly wanted to not contributed to the mass mistreatment of animals. The fish was a necessity I had told myself, you know… for the oils and omegas. I had made this decision based on books and articles, movies and Instagram memes.
I didn’t want to acknowledge that in those two years, I went from borderline to severely anemic, no matter how much plant-based iron I consumed. My hair thinned and eventually fell out in chunks as I developed an auto-immune condition, and I experienced shortness of breath, chronic tiredness and was irritable all the time. I chalked this up to stress, never really making the connection between the food I consumed and my deleted life-force.
As such, when the acupuncturist suggested that I started eating meat, I hated her for the mere suggestion. I didn’t say anything to her, but it was for the first time I noticed the war I waged within myself- between my mind, ideals and my body.
You see, I had misinterpreted the phrase ‘Mind over Matter’. I thought it meant, my body and my feelings do not matter, as long as I can think my way through it. I decided that having strong immovable convictions and philosophies, would force my body into doing whatever I thought to be correct.
Not only did this misinterpretation lead me to make choices for the wrong reasons, they also lead to a long period of physical ill-health followed by a mental breakdown. This is when I found myself in the chair of my acupuncturist.
Truthfully, I would have argued with her more, but there was nothing left of me to argue except the depression of my failing health and inner rage and helplessness.
I should say that I love a vegetarian diet. What I love more though, is eating in alignment to my body, my system and seasons. I had to learn this, over years, through every meal and choice.
But back then, there was no love in my heart. So, I begrudgingly started on the long road to recovery, one cup of Congee and Bone Marrow soup every morning, at a time. I made it in the slow-cooker, so there was prep required. In the beginning I hated all of it – that this happened to me, that my body apparently needed meat, when I looked in the mirror and my time spent in the kitchen making this weird broth.
They tell you ‘Food is Medicine’. It is, but not just for the body.
I started putting in dandelion, spices and other nutrient rich ingredients into my broth. I’m not really sure why or how. No-one told me to. This was the first time I can think of where there was a budding relationship with my intuition – I felt something, maybe I heard it, and I did it, without question. The broth flavour started to improve and I started liking my time in the kitchen, having fun changing up the ingredients.
I worked with my acupuncturist and a nutritionist and learned about seasons, and how in every land, the Earth herself shows humans what to eat and this was one of the reasons that eating local was actually healthier.
I enrolled in Ayurvedic studies – the sister science to Yoga – to learn about composition of holistic health. For the first time, I understood that health was a relationship of our inner constitution and the outer elements. It was a dance with the land and seasons. It was joy and pleasure that nourishes the Human Spirit, just as Food nourishes the Human Body.
Months turned into years, and slowly, I started getting better. I began including organic, free-range meats into my diet that was raised locally. Turns out that there are many local, often family farms that believe in sustainable practices. I even found some land where hunters could learn Indigenous hunting practices and the meat was supplied to a few Native run restaurants.
I understood, that as with Life itself, Food, is not a one-size fits all. There is no one-diet, one-way, one-practice for every human to follow. The Earth is diverse in her gifts, in her biosphere, and in her children, so I learned to see balance and diversity were linked in a way I hadn’t understood before.
In the years of my vegetarian diet, as long as I wasn’t eating meat I, I told myself I was okay, but I never actually care where my food came from.
While I was on this health journey, I began to look at labels, and see where even fruits and vegetables came from.
Have you ever seen a harvest of corn in the Autumn on a big industrial farm? It’s not great.
Plants cannot cry or scream the way animals can, but the treatment of Land is very visible.
Heavily chemical fertilizers, giant machines that rip though arable soil weakening it and killing worms that turn it, poisonous pesticides, are all part of the over-consuming agricultural practices that allow for poor treatment of animals too.
It’s actually connected in its disconnection from the Land and Waters, and in turn, plants, animals and ourselves.
My energy eventually returned and irritability waned. I suppose, because I listened to my intuition more, I began to trust myself, so my body stopped attacking itself and my hair grew back. More importantly, I learned that Food is an expression of love and all my choices around it pointed either to Love, or the lack of it in a moment. And, that the invitation to balance ourselves always exists, because Life on Earth is generous by nature, when it isn’t co-opted by mechanisms of greed and over-indulgence.
I no longer need to eat meat these days. I do eat it sometimes because I really enjoy a bit of it, especially when it made with love, just like vegetables, edible flowers, and lesser known native vegetables that I’m learning about.
There was also this learning about Fasting, which apparently is practice older that time, across almost all cultures of the world. I learned that Fasting for me, wasn’t so much about abstaining from food, as it was about filling myself with the Great Spirit of Creation – that which nourishes every cell in my body and soul. It’s a repatterining of our perception, because we have inherited a lack and poverty mentality, which we either get stuck in, or overcompensate for by excess consumption.
But what if, when you wake up in the morning, you are full. Not because you ate too much last night, but because you are already nourished the enriched and enlivened.
From that place, what food would you want to eat, simply for the joy of knowing it’s taste and texture?
What would you want to prepare in your kitchen for yourself and your family, simply because that’s how Creation is flowing through you in the moment?
And if you chose to not eat, how would you hold yourself in gratitude for, not only your health, but that of everyone you love and the World at large?