Episode 042: Raising Awareness and Respect for Our Food with Thane Kreiner

If you've been following us for a while now, you'll have noticed the emphasis we put on building consciousness so that we can create change. One of the many aspects this applies to our food. I'm personally super excited for this episode and post, because I am a major deciding factor when it comes to what food enters our house and makes it into our mouths. I've always been an outspoken advocate for taking out the synthetics in our foods that are negatively affecting our health, and for finding more sustainable options. I'm also the catalyst for a lot of our diet experiments, whether we tested out being vegetarian, vegan, keto, alkaline, you name it. I'm constantly looking at ways to improve the quality of food my family eats. So obviously, I'm super excited to dive into this topic with our guest from the podcast, Thane, who is an amazing author and permie. He mentioned a few of his books in the episode, so if you'd like to check them out, here are the links to those. 

A Walk in the Garden

Composition of Life

The Corrupted Food System

Many people have heard of the studies performed on our commercial fruits and vegetables of today vs. 50 years ago. Produce today is DRASTICALLY less nutritious, studies have shown that to obtain the same nutrients of an orange from the 1950's, you'd have to eat 21 oranges from today's markets. Iron in meat has dropped by half. Broccoli has 1/4 the amount of calcium, and you would have to eat 100 apples to obtain the vitamin C that an apple had 50 years ago.

Why is this? We've started messing with our food, trying to make bigger yields, make them resistant to pests, and creating a mono-crop system that strips the soil of the vital nutrients that the plants, and we ourselves, need.

And that's the healthy stuff.

The American Institute for Cancer Research noted that almost 60% of the average American's calories consist of ultra-processed foods (think soft drinks, cookies, french fries...)

It's not wonder that over the last few decades we've seen a scary, and steady increasing trend of cancer, auto-immune diseases, and "1st world diseases" like cardiac disease. Our food system is making us sick. Anymore we want our food accessible, fast, and with big portions... and it's putting us in the grave. For the last 5 years, our life expectancy rate has been dropping. 

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The Energetic Value of Our Foods

Food is more than macro nutrients, and it is more than micro nutrients. You can take a pill with all of your micro nutrients, or eat a bar with all of your macro nutrients and survive, but you cannot thrive. On a deeper level, there are energetic properties of our foods. Centuries old traditions like native american food preparation and Indian Ayurvedic practices reflect the need to respect our food, and to value the energy transfer involved. Only a few decades ago has science caught up to these ideas with the development of quantum theory. We are all energy and we are all connected.

If that is true, what kind of energy are you putting into your mouth with a piece of food that was almost entirely created in a factory? It is surely not of the same caliber of the salad grown in your back yard, connected to the pollinators, watered by the sky, and grown out of the rich and diverse life beneath its roots. In Ayurvedic language we would refer to this life energy in ourselves, and in our foods, as prana. Depending on how our food is grown and treated, it will drastically affect the type of prana we are ingesting and taking as part of our being.

Old Ways and Sacred Connections

The oldest of cultures saw their food as sacred. There were gods and goddesses associated with their food, prayers said when animals were killed for meat, and dances performed to attract rain to water their crops. Food used to be a very sacred thing, partly because people relied so heavily on the food they acquired themselves to help them survive. Today with supermarkets, fast food, and grocery deliveries, food has become a convenience... and a luxury for many.

Yet with that change in mentality has gone the respect for our food we used to have. If you've ever read The Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto, you'll be aware of the undeniable fact that water has memory, as Josh brings up in the podcast. Most of ourselves, and our food is made up of water, and so how we are treating our own bodies, and the food we put into our bodies will greatly affect our personal health and prana.

Maybe it's time to re-analyze our outlook on our food and add more sacredness to the relationship we have with it.

Finding Connection in a Disconnected World

So are we supposed to start burning incense every time we kill a chicken for meat? I mean you can if you want, but that's not what we're getting at here. As Thane said in the podcast, at the end of the day we need to start respecting our food more, and looking for better options. We can grow food almost anywhere these days, whether that's on our own land, on an urban patio, or in a community garden. There are also farmers markets popping up everywhere. So get engage with the conversation about YOUR food. Be educated and learn where it comes from, so you can put higher quality prana into youself.

If you have questions about his topic or ideas to share, feel free to comment below, or chime in on our Community.

Keep Growing!

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