With the onset of the new school year, and the return to packing lunches and planning meals for a household of busy family members I am always conscious of the food that I provide for my family. My goal is always to make sure my children get plenty of rest, a good nutritional breakfast before they head off to school, snacks if necessary and a good healthy lunch for those who prefer not to eat the lunch provided at their school.

I’ve always felt good about our health. Yes we could exercise more and eat less snacks during the day but I almost always buy organic vegetables and fruits, I rarely cook red meat (when I do its grass-fed beef )and only purchase organic poultry and wild caught fish. I don’t use sugar, only agave nectar or raw honey if I need a sweetener for tea, and almond milk is the only beverage other than water that you’ll find in my refrigerator. During holiday or other gatherings at my home, relatives and friends would joke about my organic version of soul food dishes and the lack of preservatives in the snacks I provided and I would laugh along and remind them that I would have the last laugh.

Or so I thought until I stumbled upon What the Health on Netflix. I had been thinking about removing meat from my diet because I noticed that I experienced more inflammation and less energy when I ate meat. Yet I was also aware that I had to consider my growing teenage son and pre-teen daughter and I knew that carbs and protein were essential to their diet especially during the school year. I was convinced that meat was the best source of protein and bread/pasta the best carbohydrate. Boy was I wrong! I was stunned by the information revealed in this documentary. My uncle and grandfather both maintained their own backyard farms and my ancestors worked on Georgian farms most of their lives. I knew that the earth provided everything we needed to sustain us as human beings but after experiencing these five revelations watching both movies I realized that I needed to make another lifestyle change:

1. Watching Food Inc. after this documentary confirms a lot of information that these industries are trying to conceal. The information in What the Health, even seeing the three health transformations in the movie, can seem extreme without watching the documentary Food Inc. It’s a totally unrelated documentary but for me it removed any doubt.
2. Major food companies selling quick, overly processed and preserved foods are also contributing to the major health organizations that we trust to work towards our healing. The American Diabetes Association, The American Cancer Society and other major health organizations that we rely on to provide the best health and dieting resources are all financially supported by companies that produce unhealthy foods.
3. Diabetes is an insurmountable health crisis; the fact that it disproportionately affects African-Americans can be directly related to food choice and availability of affordable, fresh foods in the urban communities. I myself visited the same “Fresh” supermarket in both a suburban and urban neighborhood and found mold and partially rotted vegetables in the urban supermarket and the price of the same vegetable was more expensive.
4. Vegetarian and Vegan eating is the ultimate goal, but can’t be achieved overnight. It’s not just a diet change, it’s a mindset. I eat fairly well, but it is a process and if you go into it with the idea of transitioning and not beating yourself up when you eat a processed food or a meat, you will have more success. Give yourself a timeline and work with a nutritionist or health consultant to create meal plans and shopping lists to help you transition. I was inspired by The Healthconscious Diva’s Facebook live and blog posts. Her customized meal plans and shopping lists are reasonable and in her videos shows you how to prepare some of the dishes.
5. Don’t beat yourself up after watching the movie. The information hit me like a gut-punch and as a parent I felt a bit of guilt for the food choices I’ve made in the past; driving through the fast food lane to get to a baseball practice in time or the countless amount of hot dogs and ice cream eaten during their early growth years. The information is bold and un-apologetic and yes promotes the vegan lifestyle encouraging the masses to increase the amount of food consumed from the earth and generally make better food choices. Reducing the amount of sugar you use and/or making a decision to remove fast food from your diet is progress. Purchasing organic meats or meat and produce from local farmers is much better for your health than not.

It’s progress not perfection. Give yourself time to transition to a more healthy lifestyle and if you have not yet watched the movie I strongly suggest you watch it. Watch with an open mind and consider your own family’s health issues and then make the changes large or small to guarantee you will be around to watch your great-grandchildren dance!

I’d love to hear what you thought about one or both movies!