Soul-Less Food- Right on!

[Guest guest]

Wonderful sentiment, Tarikh! Right on! Your note reminded me of when I expressed similar thoughts to a Sister friend I went to the movies with to see Soul Food originally in the theater. I was outraged at the ONE line used addressed the illnesses that took the life of the matriarch in the film, " You have to watch your salt/sugar, Big Mama. " But then everyone kept eating the same food! When I expressed this to my girlfriend after the film let out, she looked at me like I was crazy and said, " Soul food is a cornerstone of Black American culture and families. " I told her I thought that mealtime is a gathering point for many peoples but we are much worse the wear for the kinds of " food " (if we can call it that) that many of us have grown accustomed to. And all the food related illness from tumors to hypertension, diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure and on and on. She thought about and then said, “I know, I know but I can’t live without my fried catfish, mac and cheese andcrackling bread [cornbread made with pork rinds]!” We just laughed andcalled a truce. Fast forward 6 years later. The same sister friend called me this spring to tell me that she was being recommended to have a hysterectomy for her enlarged uterine fibroid tumors (3 the size of oranges). She asked her OB/GYN if there was anything natural she could do and he said that what she eats/drinks has nothing to do with the tumors and their growth. So she called me wanting to know what I thought she could do to avoid the surgery. I asked her if she remembered all the dishes that were in the movie we saw all those years ago. She laughed and said, “I know, I know. I’m listening now.” She made the commitment to go vegan and to add more (and more and more) live foods to her diet. When she returned to her OB/GYN 5 months later to have an ultrasound he said, “Well, I don’t know what you’re doingbut the tumors are almost imperceptible.” When she told him that shechanged her diet and added natural supplements, he laughed and said,“Sounds like hocus-pocus to me. But whatever you’re doing keep it up.” She said he looked down and darted so quickly out of the examining room that she felt a breeze. :-) She looks and feels great now (after years of thinning hair, dry hair/scalp, heavy cycles, fatigue, anemia). She now tells everyone who will listen about her ‘Soul Food vs. Mind/Body/SpiritFood’ experience. Be well, ~Sunyatta

 

 

 

Tarikh Tehuti Bandele

[tarikh_bandele]

Tuesday,

November 18, 2003 3:32 PM

 

Soul-Less Food

(re: Somewhat Disappointed)

 

Alafia All,

 

Here is an essay i wrote a while back, that i

believe is just as

pertinent today, and only adds to the

" somewhat disappointed "

discussion that has been going on.

 

Tarikh.

--------------------------------

 

Ankh (Life), Udja (Prosperity), Soneb (Health).

 

Tonight, i had the opportunity to watch Soul Food

(the original

movie) for about the tenth time. One thing i

noticed throughout the

movie is that NOT ONCE is the issue of how

debilitating some of our

eating habits can be. Several times during the

movie, we hear the

voice of the young brother hailing such dishes as

Macaroni and

Cheese, Catfish, Chitterlings, Fried Chicken, and

so many other

disease-causing dishes. A huge chunk of the movie

is even spent on

the matriarch of the family, Mama Jo, and her high

blood pressure,

dizziness, sharp pains in her arm, and her

diabetic condition (that

eventually leads to her leg amputation and death).

 

But not once is there a connection made between

these ritualistic

sunday dinners and these ailments. Not once are

the viewers educated

on how menacing these foods can be, esepcially

when consumed on a

regular basis. This leads the unsuspecting viewer

to the assumption

that these foods are " good " ; that they

don't cause life threatening

ailments; and that they were actually the cause of

Momma Jo's demise.

(But then, what do we expect from a pig but a

grunt???)

 

There are some who opin that the movie wasn't

really about the food;

that the food was used symbolically. That is quite

interesting,

especially considering what pertinent role food

played throughout the

movie. If it wasn't that significant, why did

Momma Jo explain the

rots (sorry, roots) of these sick eating habits???

 

Clearly, a different message must get out to the

masses of Afrikan

people. Especially when we consider that more of

us die from high

blood pressure, heart disease, coronary artery

disease, strokes, and

heart attacks than any other group of people in

the U.S. Of all

these " plagues " , Afrikan people

can prevent them. A heart attack is

NOT hereditary. Just because my grandmother ate

ham hocks,

chitterlings, and pickled pig's feet (straight out

the jar), that

does not mean that i am locked into that kind of

eating myself,

therefore making a heart attack or a stroke

inevitable.

 

The title Soul Food should have been scrapped for

a more apt title:

BODY SNATCHERS!!!

 

Alafia,

 

Tarikh.