It can be so incredibly difficult these days to know what is good for you when it comes to how to take care of yourself. Should you eat the new line of fake “meats” being touted as helping to save the climate? Should you choose the latest drug promising to cure obesity? Should you consider wearing or having embedded into you the latest technology to monitor your health?
In a world moving at the speed of light when it comes to what we are being sold around health and self-care, how will we keep up? How will we determine what a human body actually, fundamentally and always needs to be healthy in the face of so many choices that may not have anything to do with real biological Truths?
As a matter of fact, to try and run down every new fad, food item or pill that hits the market would be a full time job. Basically, out of reach for most of us who are just trying to live our lives, pay our bills and raise our kids. Meaning, that most of us will never devote the time or the energy to thoroughly vet what is coming our way in this regard. This leaves us at the mercy of the commercials and other agendas trying to get us to buy or do something.
What then? Isn’t there something we can return to? A kind of infallible North Star to help us navigate far too many choices, hidden agendas and scare tactics?
I believe there is, and I think of it as “Those Things That Stand The Test Of Time.” What this means for me is looking back across history and to earlier generations to see what was naturally done in the past. Not as a way to romanticize earlier times, but as a solid foundation for determining fact from fiction when it comes to what our bodies truly need to be well. What it is we did before all the technological inventions and marketing schemes.
An easy example to work with is food. Each year, we are bombarded with tens of thousands of new and “improved” food items in our supermarkets. And while this is a great way for Big Food to claim more market share, along with the stellar profits that goes with that, is it actually good for your health to eat what they churn out? The current chronic rates of lifestyle diseases, obesity in particular, would say no. As would the food research that tells us these so-called “new and improved” food-like substances are merely a new take on highly processed ingredients created to trick your taste buds in order to get you to buy in order to create more profits for them.
Does this sound like a scenario where your health and well-being are central in the equation? If not, you are onto something and it’s called using your common sense; the main ingredient in what it is that stands the test of time.
To get even more specific, if we apply standing the test of time to our food choices, some simple questions to ask would be, “Is this something my grandmother or great grandmother would have made for her family? Would she have recognized this as food?”
In a world that loves to complicate things, one of the best ways to navigate our way through when it comes to health, or really anything for that matter, is to get simple. There is nothing more simple than common sense. Nothing more basic than looking at what has stood the test of time.