Dear Food

Dear Food,

My relationship with you over the years has morphed and evolved so frequently that

sometimes it’s hard to look at you objectively. There are countless vivid memories, powerful

emotions, and positive and negative thoughts associated with you, all that filter my vision of all that you are and all you represent.

There are times when sitting down for a meal are the most stressful part of my day,

when the dinner table feels like a battleground rather than a venue for socializing, connecting, and relaxing with friends.

Why have I felt I must deserve you? Why have I felt I must earn the right to eat the

quantity and type of you that I truly desire? Why can’t being a human living, breathing, and

walking around on this earth be justification enough to fuel my body and my mind? Why must

you be judged, categorized as “good” and “bad,” divided into groups of you that I must and

must not eat? Why has a person’s diet become a reflection of their value as a human being?

What I choose to eat or not eat is completely up to me. I have the right to be able to eat what I want, when I want, with whomever I want, and not feel judged.

It was never supposed to be that way. You, food, were designed to sustain us, to enable

our survival and perpetuation as a species. Yes, over time, it has come to be so much more. You can mean comfort and joy; you can be a reward and you can be a punishment; you can be a blessing, and you can be a curse. You are the fuel that powers my body to satisfy my deepest desires and achieve my

greatest goals. You keep my neurons firing, my heart beating, my lungs breathing, and my

internal temperature constant. You give me energy to climb mountains, run races, teach

children, love my husband, and just be me. Your steady supply bestows upon me one of

greatest gifts imaginable: the ability to create new life.

At the end of the day, you are just food. You can be tantalizingly delicious -- a gourmet

meal prepared with precision and care -- or you might be a packaged snack hastily consumed en route from one activity to the next. Regardless, you are energy to be consumed by my body, used for my own good.

You don’t need to be restricted or controlled. You will always be there when I need you,

sometimes for comfort, sometimes to quell the gnawing ache of hunger deep in my belly, and

sometimes because a meal shared with loved ones enhances every aspect of the eating

experience.

Food, you do not consume me. I consume you.

You are a part of my life, but you are not my whole life.

Sincerely, Calesse

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