Healthy Chelsea

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What Are You Made Of?

Yesterday morning, a local headline caught my eye.

It announced the official ribbon cutting ceremony for the grand opening of a new Chick-fil-A located outside Milwaukee.

Last night, Matthew said to me how dangerous that Chick-fil-A will be for him…

It’s landed right next to his work.

He’s worried that he’ll eat there too often, since it’s right around the corner.

And while he doesn’t want to eat fast food frequently, the temptation for him is all too real.

Fast food chains play to their strengths of being convenient.

Conveniently fast, conveniently playing to our food cravings, conveniently right around the corner.

So the question then becomes:

How do we choose something healthy and homemade over something so convenient and crave-worthy?

To answer that, I’ll share with you what I said to Matthew last night:

“Every time we eat, we choose our building blocks.  What we’re made of…

The protein, fat, carbs and all the nutrients in food are the building blocks to our brains, nerves, muscles, heart, lungs, bones, hormones…everything about us.”

Matthew quickly affirmed that he didn’t want the building blocks of his body to constantly come from fried chicken sandwiches!

And while it’s amusing to think of being made of Chick-fil-A sandwiches, I think the image is powerful.

If you think of food as the building blocks for your entire being, does that impact your own decisions around food?

Just to be clear, I believe that food is more than fuel and building blocks.

Food is the access ramp to memories, culture, family, relationships, celebrations, and emotions.

And health is the accumulation of our daily habits.

So if you consider your daily building blocks, what are you made of?