The Truth about “Truth”

January 15, 2010

in eating disorders,God,My story,recipes

We all heard the saying: Ignorance is bliss.

Of course, ignorance isn’t something we typically desire. It is human nature to constantly seek knowledge, to relish in new information and deeper knowledge. That’s why we study. That’s why we read the news. That’s why we love to gossip. But when that knowledge is skewed and tinted, it just becomes toxic to our minds. And thus it’s up to us to distinguish what is truth.

Unfortunately, the word “truth” is a very ambiguous term. I mean, truth is defined as "an obvious or accepted fact”, but fact is also defined as “a truth known by actual experience or observation.” Eh?(No, seriously. I copy and pasted from dictionary.com)

Ultimately, I think that truth is a subjective view on the reality around us that is portrayed heavily by our mind. Our mind is a very powerful thing. It is also an extremely complex organism, one that is made up of so many different things: beliefs, culture, upbringing, background, experiences, relationships, you name it. So, how do we even trust our mind to figure out the truth, when it’s so subjective to outside influences?

Truth can touch upon so many issues and topics, so let’s focus on just one subject: food.

Scientists and doctors have been analyzing food and nutrition for a very long time. They’ve poked and prodded and experimented and calculated and taken notes after notes on food, trying to determine which food is good and why it’s good and how it works on the human body.

And I wonder what kind of contribution that has made. We’ve certainly amassed a shitload of knowledge. We’ve been told that whole grain is good, refined sugar is bad, omega-3 fats are great, trans fat is horrible, we need xx% of protein in our diet, and have a mega-long list of vitamins and nutrients we need to ingest each day, along with daily percentage recommendations.

The result? We’ve gotten a whole lot more stressed out, anxiously trying to meet all the doctor’s advices…yet we’re not exactly healthier, are we? Disease rates like cancer are increasing, and so are the rates of mental illnesses like depression and eating disorders. So what went wrong?

Simple. We just know too much, yet we know too little. The knowledge we gained have only given us more paranoia and misconceptions. It is human tendency to take things to the extreme, and to divide things into “good” and “bad” categories. We think fiber is good, so we bulk up on them. We think protein is good, so we gorge on them. We love the idea of a “perfect” food, so random “superfoods” like goji berries go in and out of fashion.

In truth (no pun intended), we’ve gained only enough knowledge to realize that we actually cannot ever understand every fine detail of the miraculous human body, and all the intricate powers and life in food. A slice of whole grain bread isn’t just about the fiber, the complex vitamin B’s, or the plant protein. There is just so much more going into that simple piece of bread that nourishes our body than just the few factors that we discovered through science, like our saliva which digests it, our emotions when we’re eating it, the type of soil the grain was planted in, etc.

Of course, some basic knowledge about food and nutrition is important, especially in this age where we are surrounded by tons of items packaged as “food” which really are just human-made chemical products. But it’s all too easy to take this knowledge to the extreme, and take it to the negative direction, because as much as we know, we’ll never be able to get the whole picture of it.

I should know. I used to be a walking encyclopedia of nutrition. I could name the positive and negative effects of most foods, and I had memorized the calorie content of every grain and fruit. But in reality, I never knew the whole truth, and the bits and bites I knew about nutrition set me off into the negative direction. And of course, my own eating disorder played a lot into how I read all these “truths”.

For example, there was a time when I read up about how cow’s milk is not fit for human digestion. In interest, I read up even more deeply into the subject, and received so many plausible and convincing information about the horrible effects of cow’s milk that I rejected any kind of dairy for a very long time. I even did a presentation in class about it.

The thing is, once such information enters your mind, it’s very hard to eradicate it. It’s like a poison that first infects your thoughts, and then transfers to your very actions, behaviors and habits. A simple misinformation turned into something much more serious: a paranoia, which in turned affected my physical health.

My conclusion? We humans are dumb. It’s dangerous to know too much and to absorb everything as the absolute truth, because we can never be able to understand and view the whole picture. There are more to facts than the things we can see and touch and hear. Sometimes, we just have to concede that we are ignorant, to see “truths” with a grain of salt, and to trust things unto God whose wisdom is infinitely grander than ours.

Anyway, thank god my “Milk is the Devil!” phase is gone. Ever since I’ve discovered the wonderful, delicious goodness of cheese, I’ve completely changed my perception on milk. And trust me, I’ve eaten loads and loads of cheese. And I’m still alive. In fact, I’m much, much, much healthier than my “no dairy, no refined flour, no this and that” days. So much for those “truths” about the dangers of milk consumption.

Biz is one smart blogger who shares my affinity for cheese. In fact, she is hosting this week’s BSI (Bloggers Secret Ingredient), and she chose cheddar cheese as the secret ingredient. Ah, I love that lady!

I decided to stay relatively tame with my recipe this time. No rude fish staring you down, I swear. In fact, my recipe submission would be a take on the classic comfort food, scrambled eggs. Except in my case, it is more like scrambled cheese with eggs. Hey, you gotta let the cheese shine.

Scrambled CHEESE with eggs

3 whole eggs

1/3 cup cottage cheese

1/2 cup vintage white cheddar Cabot Cheese, divided

olive oil or butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup diced red onions

1/4 cup diced mushrooms

any kind of carbohydrate like bread or potatoes

Beat together the eggs, cottage cheese, and 1/4 cup of the cheddar cheese. Set aside.

In a frying pan, heat up the oil or butter, and then toss in the garlic, onions, and mushrooms. Stir-fry until soft and fragrant, scrape them into a plate and set aside.

Next, in the same pan, turn the heat down to low, and then pour in the egg-cheese mixture. Stir the mixture while it cooks:
Continue stirring and stirring until it is all cooked through, then mix in the stir-fried vegetables, and the remainder of the cheese. Serve with your choice of starch for a well-rounded comfort meal.
Okay. I sprinkled a tiny bit more cheddar cheese on top. I couldn’t help myself. It was just begging for it.
This recipe is so simple, and so versatile. I make this when I come back home from classes at 2 pm, starving.
It doesn’t require any thought, and you can use up all sorts of leftovers in the fridge. Instead of the onions and mushrooms, I have also used bean sprouts, chickpeas, kidney beans, and zucchini.
The cottage cheese in there makes for an ultra-light scrambled egg. It’s so fluffy, and the texture is impossible to mess up, unlike the regular scrambled egg.
And don’t forget your carbs! I used pita bread for mine, but really, anything goes.

All things said, I’m very interested to see what you guys have to say about all that flood of nutritional information we are receiving. I’d like to think that I’ve made my opinion clear, but actually, there is more that I wanted to say which I left out because of space issues.

Question of the day: So help me fill the gaps in! Do you agree? Disagree? Think I’m full of bullshit? Let me know (No, really. Just don’t be too nasty about it).

'cuz burping and slurping is mandatory and polite when it comes to good eats

The Truth about “Truth”

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