Whole Green Foods…An Appetite for
Life
Our faced-paced society has perhaps consumed our priorities by necessity; however the concept of interconnectedness between our self, and the environment, has not yet extinguished the power of individual choice. Still, as we tackle each day, tripping over our own two feet in this race against—what we perceive as—time, a great divide has been facilitated between our physical and mental being, and the very source that fuels us. No, it’s not fossil fuels or money, it’s our food. More often than not, we fail to actually sit down, smell, taste and understand our food; both where it comes from and what its functions are. As a certified Herbalist, a degreed Nutritionist, and a Vegan Chef by trade, Lisa F. Ehlers, of The Natural Cook Studio of Bend, is closing this gap that disconnects us from our food as her “part of creating consciousness.”
In 1996,
while expanding her own understanding of foods at the School of
Natural Cookery in Boulder, Colorado, Lisa began her journey
down a path of proactive health. By incorporating the
teachings of the Natural Cookery, with her own insights and
knowledge of foods, Lisa provides others with the opportunity
to understand food. The course is designed to teach the
function of food using a non-recipe based format. The key
is thinking about food in categories and knowing the function
of that category in each cooking method. Using ratios of these
categories, in place of prefabricated measurements, as used by
conventional cooking methods, allows the function of the food
to reach equilibrium in a way specifically tailored to your
body’s needs. What food is, how it functions in your
body, which functions your body needs and how to integrate it
into a dish; these facets are only part of the teaching
process.
In order
to understand food, you must understand the whole food; that
is, foods that are minimally processed, not refined or
enhanced. Lisa explains that one reason that we process
foods is so that they will cook faster in order to keep pace in
the daily marathon of life, however, what people do not realize
is, as food cooks faster on the stove, it cooks faster in our
bodies; in this way “we can be full, but still be
starving.” Foods that are not whole are those that
have been denatured by artificially-enhancing chemicals and
synthetic pesticides, which are not only poisons unto
themselves but act to poison the whole system in which they are
grown. The whole system can be described, in its most
simplistic sense, as the air, water, soil (i.e., non-living
components) and the
interdependent—living—organisms; whereby dynamic
and complex interactions function together as a whole
ecosystem. The interconnectedness among these components is
termed as the web of life, for which we, humans, are a part of.
As these poisons course through the web of life, they weaken
the system as a whole. “If you love the Creator (self)
take care of the creation (the planet).” The harmonic
equilibrium decays as these chemicals corrode the different
parts of the greater whole.
To realize
how we, as individuals, are only one part of the whole system,
and “how we choose to purchase food, is how we can choose
the sustainability of our planet” is truly encouraging,
as we learn that we can make a difference. Being able to
make this connection between the whole foods and the whole
environment is thus part of the consciousness Lisa aims to
inspire through the teaching at the Natural Cook Studio. The
concept of the whole food is, in a sense, extended to her
business practices as well. In that, as a sustainable
business, Lisa seeks out sustainable sources and encourages
others to do so as well; in fact, she used The Green Spot
directory to find these sources!
