E062 Chef Kay Miller Food and Respecting Nature
Let’s Be Well Together Podcast - Episode 62
Date: April 4, 2023
Participants: John Webster, Julie Wilson, Cameron Earnshaw, Elise Seifert and Sheila Webster
Guest: Chef Kay Miller
Start times and Segments:
[0:00:35] What’s On Your Mind: Julie and John discuss an article: “What the longest study on human happiness found is a key to a good life”, by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. There is a strong co-relationship between deep relationships and wellbeing. Taking time to reflect on relationships is rewarding.
[0:12:32] Expanding Minds Interview: We ask Chef Kay Miller about food in the context of respecting the environment. Our discussion touches physical, environmental, social and economic wellness. We have all vegetables, fruits, spices at our disposal these days. We’ve never been in a position like this in all of history, yet there’s constantly this discussion on food insecurity. Food is expensive. We have very little time. Home cooked meals are more expensive, more time consuming, but vastly more nutritious for you. However, it’s more difficult to prepare and afford them. We need to find ways to overcome this. We need to move back to more simple roots, looking at more sustainable practices, such as companion planting, replenishing the soil.
[0:28:12] Adventures of the Starving Artist: Cameron’s friend Meghant is working on a cool sound design project.
[0:32:19] Move That Body: 6 tips to motivate you to keep working out regularly. A social media post found on “verywell”.
[0:37:51] Running Popup: John finished his run feeling good while thinking about Canadian voices he enjoys hearing.
[0:39:06] Flipside of the Coin: John pulls another from his quote list, this time by Sigmund Freud: “One day in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful”. We talk about that being our experience.
Quotes and Take-Aways:
Chef Kay – It’s a beautiful time in our history. We have all vegetables, fruits, spices at our disposal. We’ve never been in a position like this in all of history, yet there’s constantly this discussion on food insecurity. We have all of these vegetables and fruits and things at our fingertips, yet we are not able to access them.
Chef Kay – Eating healthy is definitely based on socio-economic status. Everyone is aware that eating healthy is good for them, but there are factors that stop them from accessing that. The major one is wealth and income disparity. Food is expensive. We have very little time. We live in a hyper-industrialized time when individuals are working two jobs. We don’t have time to grow our food, to process our food, to cook healthy meals anymore. In fact we’ve been so far removed from that process that our understanding of basic cooking principles is completely gone.
Chef Kay – We need to move the process back to more simple roots, looking at more sustainable practices, such as companion planting, replenishing the soil and other simple things that were done forever but do not fit into our current model, which is very much a capitalistic model. We’ve exploited everything from nature to people, which comes to the point of the time constraints. We’re exploiting people’s time, their family life their outside life, and then in addition we’re exploiting the world around us. We’re just taking from the soil so the food doesn’t contain those nutrients if we do get to them.
Chef Kay – Companion farming is a term that refers to thoughtful planting. It’s a beautiful concept. All plants can assist each other in some regard. Some plants deter pests. Some plants create ground cover to protect roots from the sun. They can all work around each other. There are several variations in all cultures around the world of what to plant with each other to help each other grow.
Chef Kay – We’re learning now that home cooked meals are more expensive, more time consuming, but vastly more nutritious for you. However, our society has moved to the point where it’s more difficult to process the food, in the sense of taking the raw ingredients and making it into a meal. It’s not cost-effective.
Bulletin Board Quote brought to you by Cameron: After the big KaBOOM, maybe there was an ear-ringing tinnitus effect?
Guest Information:
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Thanks for joining us,
(-(-_(-_-)_-)-) Your wellness check-in team
John, Sammy, Cameron, Sheila, Elise, Isabelle and Julie