Nutrition – what’s in it for me?

I went to my favorite library and researched nutrition. The most helpful information came from the children’s section.

Obviously, nutrition is one of the most important aspects of food. The literature on the medical aspects can be weighed by the ton. And there are a lot of proverbs and common wisdom about it. So it cannot be complicated to summarize what nutrition is all about, right?

But for me, nutrition is very personal. When you have some health issues – both personal and family – it all might be more complicated then you like. Because some things give you stomachaches, some things give you migraines or trouble sleeping. And some of them show up on your doctor’s chart and cause you the trouble of deciding whether or not to take another pill. I am not questioning the good intentions of my doctor, he does an excellent job and I trust him completely. But somehow I feel that at some point in my life, taking serious medication will probably be unavoidable. A time which I would like to postpone as much as possible.

That is why I started looking for alternative foods at a very young age, in my childhood. I did not feel that you “just have to eat it” because everyone else does. I felt it was my personal right to eat only what was right for me. And as a kid who cared a lot about fairness (I really did, and still do, even though I am quite grown up now), I wanted that for everyone else – or at least for as many people as possible.

The books in the children’s section of my favorite Berlin library cover many subtopics of the matter, and they have beautiful pictures (did I mention that I love colors and shapes?). They talk about how everyone needs to eat so that their bodies can run, learn, or even breathe. They give some pointers on which foods might work a little better or worse. They are pretty clear about sugar and junk food, which makes me proud. But they don’t condemn, they just suggest. Because you cannot learn if you are afraid of a subject. Wise choice, many campaigns could learn something from these colorful and sometimes very insightful little masterpieces.

So when I write about nutrition on this blog, I try to follow that inspiration: I make it personal – I am not a doctor or a nutrition expert – and I try to make it … well, relatively picturesque to look at and pleasant to digest. Not because I think the subject is easy or even banal. I just think it is better to understand and face a challenge than to fear and avoid it.

Many campaigns could learn something from these colorful and sometimes very insightful little masterpieces.

Side Notes:

• I have to admit that these colorful little books and their beautiful pictures have inspired me to use graphic images instead of photographs to illustrate my recipes.