by Ruchi
HEALTHY GIRL’S KITCHEN
Healthy Girl’s Kitchen is a blog written by Wendy, a dear friend. She advocates
eating a “plant-strong” diet and offers info, support, ideas, and recipes for
those that are trying to adopt a different kind of diet from what the average
American is eating, and may be encountering resistance or even negativity.
Here’s a sample:
“Your health is your responsibility, so only you are charged with asking for
what you need in social and restaurant situations. I know that this behavior
may be very foreign to some of you… The reality is that no one is going to take
care of your health for you. Not your mom, not your dad, not your spouse, not
your kids, not your friends… How about parties and pot lucks? Are you afraid
that you are going to offend people if you steadfastly say that you are
choosing to eat a certain way? Are you a little embarrassed at your past
history... We have to able to… move on from whatever failures are in our past
and not use that as an excuse to hide our new knowledge.”
Makes sense, right? No one is charge of your body aside from you. Most people
don’t really care, with the possible exception of your mother, who may care too
much, how healthy you are on the inside, unless it is negatively impacting
their lives. So you have to step up and ignore criticism! Take your body
back! Are your gossiping friends going to pay the doctor bills?? Are you
going to let a few awkward moments in a restaurant dictate your future??
AN EXPERIMENT
I could not agree more with Wendy, and I’d like to strengthen and re-apply her
arguments.
So now let’s try a little experiment. Take the word “body” and replace it with
the word “soul.”
Because your body is yours in this world; your soul is yours for all eternity.
Here’s how her advice sounds now:
No one is in charge of your soul aside from you. Most people don’t really
care, with the possible exception of your mother, who may care too much, how
spiritual you are on the inside, unless it is negatively impacting their
lives. So you have to step up and ignore criticism! Take your soul back! Are
your gossiping friends going to pay for your mistakes and regrets?? Are you
going to let a few awkward moments in a restaurant dictate your eternal
future??
LIVING THE DILEMMA IN REAL TIME
Imagine that, due to what you know about Judaism, you have recently been
feeling conflicted about eating shellfish. You haven’t actually done anything
about these feelings, and certainly haven’t vocalized anything to anyone. Now
you and your spouse are invited to dinner with friends in a fabulous new
restaurant for… seafood. And I don’t mean gefilte fish.
You’re not sure what to do. Should you go and just eat as usual? Go and order
salad? Suggest a more neutral venue? Honor your pride or honor your
conscience? Alienate your friends or your soul? Do you really have to choose?
What would you do? What do you wish you would do?
REVERSING DISEASE
One of the things Wendy discusses often on her blog is cancer, heart disease
and diabetes. She correlates it directly to our diet. She also discusses
reversing these diseases once one starts to eat plant-strong. To wit:
It's never too late to undo the damage done by years of poor eating. Have you
ever cut your finger? Did it heal? Of course it did! The same goes for your
internal parts . . .the human body will heal if given a chance!
Did you know that our souls can become diseased? The Talmud discusses the
calcification of the soul that takes place when it becomes disconnected from
spirituality - frighteningly reminiscent of the calcification of the arteries
that takes place by ingesting unhealthy substances.
The good news is, reversal of spiritual disease is built right in to Judaism.
It’s called “teshuvah,” and literally means “return”: returning, or reversing,
your soul to what it used to be. To the child inside with the beautiful
arteries and a beautiful soul. It was there all along, but got so covered with
calcification, rust, and dirt, that it became hard to recognize. But each of
us possesses that soul – it’s that spark of goodness, of intuition, of
conscience, of unerring morality that lives within us all.
