Food for thought

In my class today, we were talking about the various prices of things and my student mentioned that the cost of eating healthy is expensive. I don't actually think this is true in most developed countries considering that basic good food will nearly always be cheaper than packaged, quick, convenient alternatives plus, the hunger satisfaction level is different. It takes less good food to feel full than high-carb processed alternatives. On top of this, there is the long-term costs to for health care as well as quality of life and psychological, emotional states.

Then we moved on a little to intelligence.

Most of the brain structure development takes place in the first 3 years of life and it is no surprise that food plays a vital role in the process. How much of a role though? It is really hard to say but we know that if some vitamins and nutrients are missing from diets, brain development suffers.

What I find as both an interesting and sad part of this is that the person themselves has o chance to affect it as, they are under three. The responsibility of diet lays solely on the caregivers, the parents. This means that depending on a host of factors outside of the child's control, they can be fundamentally disadvantaged due to early food or, lack thereof.

If we looked at places where famine and food shortage was common, would we find indication s in later life? Would there be intelligence variations, emotional stability changes or would ability to instant or delay gratification be affected. It is an area I think that needs a great deal of research and as the big data gets more readily available, may lead to large shifts in the way aid and dietary needs are considered.

This also affects the developed countries too though as in general, the lower income, less educated often feed their children lower quality food. How much of it is chicken or the egg though. It is possible that early dietary experience makes children less likely to get an education and this could drive a repeating spiral that becomes difficult to break free from.

Our eating habits are heavily affected by our early childhood programming and the way food is introduced and, the habits of the parents themselves. The ramifications of 'healthy' dietary habits and 'unhealthy' are much further reaching than the looks and disease factors most are concerned with. Diet affects all factors of our experience including our ability to think and feel and much more than physiology should be considered.

I think that I have to spend a lot more time developing some healthier habits for myself as even though currently our daughter eats very clean due to her allergy considerations, as she grows and can tolerate more foods, the habits of her parents are going to play a much larger role. At this point though, she is doing fine.

When most of us consider how we eat we worry about how we look, not how we think but if one pays attention to the changes in thought after eating a salad or, a bag of candy, one can quickly recognize the impact it has and on a growing brain, that affect might be irreversible. More thought is needed.

What are your thoughts on diet?

Taraz
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