Actually I am thinking this needs more attention than just an addendum, Food is fuel.
There have been calorie counting books and charts galore even back when I was a kid (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) my mom had several of those little booklets you get at the checkout stand. and they were ALL useless.
What we need to get across to people are:
1. Accepting their responsibility in their weight problem issues
2. Understanding that food is a fuel, not an anesthetic
3. How to evaluate the quality of that fuel the same as they would evaluate wht brand and type of gasoline or motor oil they would choose to keep their car running and that would be most beneficial to the engine.
So I think we need more than a simple calorie counting chart. I think we should devote a good full chapter to the complete value of different kinds of foods;
- Calories
- Carbohydrate/protien/fat values
- nutrional value
- magickal property
- psychological effect (the possible reasons WHY they eat it and the effect that food has on their emotional state)
- ways to counter cravings satisfactorily (maybe this should go in a "coping " chapter)
and use that chapter as a reference in the recipe chapter to go to in order for them to understand the full impact of everything they use. The key to winning any battle is to understand the enemy and the tools of the enemy. Food is not the enemy, it is a tool. The enemy is our past choices. Once we understand the reason for those choices and accept the power of knowing we have the power to make positive and proper choices, we can use the tools to improve our health instead of destroying it.
When I learned I had Type 2 diabetes, it scared me, BAD. My attitude towadr food shifted overnight. But not in a good way. I became paranoid about putting ANYTHING in my mouth and dropped 50 pounds in a few months. NOT GOOD.
I was seeing food as a poison that was causing a disease that would make me go blind and have my body parts amputated. I had really flipped! And in the anger and resentment grew, it turned into denial. I gained half of what I had lost back. I felt like crap, but I was eating what I liked again. My mom gave me ALL kinds of information about food values and how to find a balance between what I liked and what was good for me and how much of it was safe. But I was still angry about being sick and determined to prove that the diabetes wasn't real by eating things I shouldn't and still waking up the next day. I was daring death. I'm not afraid of dying, as a witch, I know this time we have on this earth is just a blip, but each day I woke up, i felt like I had won something, or gotten away with something, like sneaking cookies when I was a kid. I never thought my death would be painful. I was Stupid.
Then one day I had to go to the hospital in so much pain from an infection in my foot and nearly having lost it, that when I got home, I knew I had to take care of my eating to save myself, the same as I had to take care of my foot if I wanted to save it. So I reread the information my mom gave me and with the support from the Chambers, managed to change my life, my attitude about food, and my blood sugar levels.