The day before yesterday a woman enticed customers (including me) into the natural health food store with a tray of potato chips and a dip that turned out to be vegan mayonnaise--with preservatives. My eyes widened as I spotted 3 bright pink hot dog sandwiches perched on the counter. "Hot dogs?" I laughed. Liz replied that some Peruvians consider hot dogs nutritious. I quickly scanned the counter: quinoa, kwicha, ginseng tea, vegan mayonnaise with preservatives, and hot dogs.
So Peru is causing me to expand my definitions of "natural" and "health food."
Peruvian companies love to advertise products as "natural." One morning between spoonfuls of yogurt, I lazily read the cover of my Gloria Natural Yogurt. "Natural--without sugar, without fat." I then flipped to the back and read the ingredient list that contained preservatives, artificial flavors, colors, and additives. I suddenly longed for some high fat, sugary "artificial" yogurt.
I've had some very tasty, albeit highly salty, food in restaurants in the last week--and then noticed my stomach swelling, and feeling nauseous, dizzy, tired, and weak. In this period, I started obsessively reading ingredients in my food products and noticed that many foods here--including mayonnaise, hot sauce, and soy sauce--contain MSG. I also did some research and discovered that MSG produces all the adverse reactions that I have been experiencing.
At this point, I am foraging for twigs and leaves. . .
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Natural food has been very much on my mind these days. How do we find a balance between going toward what we know and understand to be healthy, and not getting stuck-up, intolerant, and inflexible about participating in the world around us, the way it is? Your blog topic is very timely for me. What's more important - the physical content or the heart's intent? I suppose it's yet another both/and.
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