Living tree essay

I struggle with both of these issues in my everyday life because I am a vegan living in a community of meat eaters. By simple observation of those around me, including my family, it is obvious that a meat eating lifestyle is unhealthy, although it's not just the meat but the other processed unhealthy foods that are being consumed in large quantities. I am now 52 years old and the only family member without a serious health issue. My parents, my brother, my aunts and uncles all died at very young ages of heart disease and cancer. We were raised on a diet of meat and baked goods made with animal fat, and large quantities of dairy products. In the community I live in here in Tennesse almost every single person is overweight. It has become the normal way of life here which is a frightening fact. If you walk through the local grocery stores and peek in the carts in the checkout line it is obvious that the culprit is meat, dairy, and large amounts of processed foods. Fresh fruits and vegetables are not even a consideration for most people.

Something else that I have observed is a lack of connection to the food, even to the point of being unable to taste the food. There is no thought of where the food comes from, or even what's in it. I rarely see anyone reading a food label. Food has become an almost chemical pill. Something that gives you a temporary high like large amounts of sugar might. It is no longer a living thing that is there to nourish your body. There is no connection in a spiritual or holy sense to the plants of animals. There is no understanding that the food enters your body and penetrates and nourishes every cell. It is just something you put in your mouth and swallow.

I think this connection develops out of a relationship with nature. It was cultivated in me when I became a gardener and understood the miracle of plants and how they grow. When you develop this connection you understand your sacredness as a human being and your relationship to the rest of the earth, and the desire to eat other living creatures and processed foods goes away. The taste of the wholesome foods and the satisfaction of eating a slow, nourishing meal sustains you in ways that other foods cannot.

In that way eating becomes a spiritual experience that flows into the rest of your life and heals your body like no medicine can. I would say that in many food trials this would be a missing link that would account for the lack of improvement in individuals switching to a vegan diet for if their mind isn't changed along with their diet, they will not improve.

Eating needs to be relearned by the majority of the American population, and what I am trying to understand now is how to accomplish such an enormous task.

Thank you for reading my essay,

Susan Kissinger