When I was about 23 years old, I volunteered on a farm in Tasmania and helped to kill a chicken. We had to hold the live bird by the legs and swing it around madly til it got dizzy. (I did that part.) Then the farmer chopped its head off and later we de-feathered it. Why did I volunteer for this particular task? I was a junk food vegetarian for nine years in my teens and twenties. This meant that I was ethically opposed to eating animals that I wasn’t brave enough to kill myself (and I SO was not brave enough.)

But I was otherwise unaware of the other more subtle ethical implications of my food’s origins. Like that I had been marketed to all my young life, and that my preferences and tastebuds deeply reflected what the food industry wanted them to be. I never distinguised between “processed food” and “natural food,” for example. I never thought about the chemicals and preservatives in my food as something I had a “choice” about, like I had a choice about whether or not to eat animals. Even though I worried about the environment, I never considered the invisible fossil-feul-cost of my food coming from all parts of the globe. You know what? This is no joke, but I didn’t even know that tomatoes or other foods had a SEASON until I was an adult. What does eating something out of season mean when you can have it all year round?

I definitely learned a lot about food when I worked my way around the world. I was overseas for about 6 years in my 20s. In France, I noticed quickly that the fruits and vegetables tasted AWESOME! They were bred for flavor and picked when ripe, not early like many of ours. I learned how sacriligious it was to them to eat too much of a good thing! I also couldn’t help but notice that people never ate standing up. In Australia I got to sample fruits I’d never heard of before, like rambutans (like lychees) and sapotes (from South America.) How exciting! I was also astounded to realize that they cook the full, hot turkey Christmas dinner even if it’s 90˚F outside! (because of course Christmas is in the summer!)

In Japan I was bombarded with new, crazy food. I ate a whole small fish for breakfast once at a youth hostel. I grimaced at the last bite and only then did the host inform me that you’re not supposed to eat the head too! Natto, their fermented soybeans, are an aquired taste. (Meaning, they’re gross.) But apart from that, I acquired a lot of new favorites. I discovered that I LOVE seaweed and raw tuna and daikon radish and their amazing pickles. Even their fast food was amazing. For instance, you can buy “onigiri” at any 7-11. These are ingeniously wrapped triangles of rice about the size of a tennis ball. You hold it with a sheet of nori (seaweed) so your hands don’t get sticky. So fun to eat!

It was in Japan that I realized how completely different my body felt when I ate mostly rice and vegetables. I hadn’t intended to stay away from dairy products and breads and pasta, but I just naturally did because I was eating what I was drawn to. I felt so DIFFERENT. Still, change happens slowly. It was ten years ago now that we lived in Japan.

In Nepal, the culinary adventure continued, but honestly, it was hard. Nepalis eat “Dal Baat” for all three meals, every single day. It’s spicy vegetable-lentil gruel over rice. Only the spices and the vegetables change within a very narrow range. That was my hell. Spicy food with no perceptible variation, ever. But it got worse, actually. We volunteered in a Tibetan Refugee Settlement and the cook in the guesthouse prepared our meals. Dal Baat seemed like paradise compared to Tibetan food. Water Buffalo. That’s what we had at least twice a day. Huge amounts of red meat with some doughy accompaniment. Nightmare for a former vegetarian. But at least it was all uphill from there!

When I returned to the States, I relished the control I had over my food choices. But it still wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I started veering towards a whole foods diet. I remembered all the food experiments I’d conducted on myself, just by travelling around. I drank much more plain water when I was in France. I felt zippy and energetic on a Japanese diet and bloated and sluggish on a Tibetan diet. (But this was only me, the people around me often had different reactions.)

The more I became curious, the more I learned about the effect different food had on my body. I also realized how much culture and habits define our very emotional attitudes about our food– especially comfort food! For example, I REFUSED to give up my coffee (the smell and ritual remind me of my dad) or ice cream (my reward to myself if ever I needed one.) I have since largely “given up” both of those. That is not to say that I don’t still have them and enjoy them every once in a while. What I have given up is really my stubbornness and emotional imperativeness about coffee and ice cream.

I see how each of them are deeply part of my culture. I see culture as a fluid that moves about the speed of lava. It moves slowly, but it’s definitley not solid as a rock. In Asia, comfort foods are generally not dairy products like they are here. (Hot cocoa, sour cream on berries, creamy potatoes, pizza, ice cream, deep fried mozzerella sticks!!) But of course they do have comfort foods!

Since my ancestry is Irish, I would assume that dairy foods would work well for me, but, alas, it ain’t so. The thought of that SO bummed me out at first, but this is what I found. I used to love my cats when I was a kid, but I developed allergies to them in my late teens. It didn’t break my heart over and over, I just became less attracted to cats because I could see a clear correlation between petting a cat and sneezing my head off. When you uncover a correlation like that in your food (this sometimes takes removing a certain food for two weeks to see your body’s “true” reaction to it) you simply become less attracted to it. Now instead of seeing ice cream as my “comfort” food, it’s more my “intestinal cramp” food if I eat too much. I have other –wierder– comfort food now.

The global perspective on food also makes me very curious about the origins of my food. For instance, I recently wanted to try a different brand of nori (seaweed) and bought the Pacific Coast brand instead of the Maine Coast brand. The first thing that I noticed was that it wasn’t as tasty. Later I noticed that by “Pacific Coast,” they meant “China.” Hmm! Food grown in the yummy coastal waters of industrial Northern China! In general, since I learned that fifty-seven calories of fossil fuels are required to ship every SINGLE calorie of organic lettuce from the West coast (of the US) to the East coast, I have tried to source my food closer to home. Luckily, we were able to join a CSA right on our road!

Now I look back on my junk-food vegetarian days and chuckle. I was trying! I have to give myself credit! Progress is slow! For many years I had a completely different standard for the food I ate for meals (organic, healthy) and the crap junk food I would “treat” myself with. I feel like it wasn’t possible to be connected to my food (with all it’s rhythms and implications) while I was travelling. It has been only by settling down that I have had the opportunity to slowly align my value system with my habits. And it’s still a work in progress.

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