Why I mostly eat plants

I thought it’d be a good way to start this blog to explain why certain things are important to me, and why I do them. In this post I’ll talk about something that’s a much more recent passion to me, something I’m still exploring and learning a lot about.

Nutrition is vital to all beings, to every body’s life and function. Obviously. But how food or nutrition is produced and consumed is also hugely important to the planet we live on. There are environmental impacts to almost every choice we make in life.

Think about it, the food you eat builds who you are, and enables everything you do. But so many of us still don’t make conscious and responsible choices when it comes to food or nutrition. And neither did I, until I met this person about 6 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been eating quite well my whole life. My parents brought me up on traditional Swedish foods, always home cooked and honest. But it’s only recently I started making really conscious decisions about food. Really thinking what impact my choices will have on myself, and other beings around me.

It’s 2017. Today we know a lot about nutrition and what impact it has on ourselves, and our planet. Sure, there’s a lot of different opinions out there on what’s better or worse. But there’s a few simple things that almost everyone agrees on:

• Eat more whole foods, like vegetables and fruits
• Eat less processed foods
• Eat more locally produced foods. Industry farming has gone too far
• The environmental impact of the agriculture is too big

These are very general and simple guidelines to live by. And I try to live by them every day, in every meal. But let’s unpack each of them a bit.

Eating more whole foods, like vegetables and fruits is a no-brainer. Not too many people disagree. They’re packed with all the energy, fibre and nutrients that Mother Nature meant them to contain. And if you stick to what’s seasonal, it’s reasonably easy to find locally and more sustainably produced veg and fruits that haven’t been transported around the world to your grocery store.

Processed foods are everywhere around us, and that’s why they’re difficult to stay away from. These are foods that Mother Nature didn’t design. Like dairy, pasta, sausage or tofu. It takes lots of processing, chemicals or unnatural ingredients to produce them. And therefore they’re expensive, both money-wise, but also for the environment.

When it comes to industry farming and the impact agriculture has on the environment, it isn’t rational to continue to rely on them to the extent we do today. And that’s the thing, too many decisions we take throughout life are primarily based on culture and comfort, and we forget about being rational. Rationality should go first, in my opinion.

When we are being rational, nature tends to play in our favour. We were never meant to eat meat or other processed foods 7 days a week. Not even multiple times a week. Humans were never that good of hunters ;) I feel that my body and my mind work best when making simple and rational food choices, home cooked whole foods, based on plants. I don’t cut out meat or other animal products entirely. That’s not the point. For example, last week I enjoyed my grandfather-in-law’s lovely Solyanka. But I enjoy these types of food on much, much rarer occasions than I’ve done before.

The point is, let’s start being more rational and take care of ourselves and our planet first. Old culture and behaviour must come second.