My Non-CM Diet

Charlotte Mason suggested moderation and balance in all things, and warned against fad diets. Here's what she had to say about fad diets (I've paraphrased her words, but you can read them in her original here and here)

Vol 4 Book I pg 193: We can be moderate without going on a narrow diet (we don't need to live on things like apples and nuts). In fact, moderation might best be practiced by eating a moderate portion of whatever food is set in front of us . . .

Vol 4 Book 2 pg 18: Conscience isn't as concerned with how immoderation is manifested in our lives so much as the underlying principle behind moderation. St. Paul wrote about it when he condemned people who 'worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.' It's by this principle that we'll be justified or condemned. In light of this, we have good reason to suspect any style of diet or exercise that encourages us to have too much concern for our physical body, whether it's a diet of nuts and fruit, peacock brains, or cock-a-leekie. England is in serious danger of giving herself over to worship of the goddess of health. But a more elusive goddess was never revered--the more she is pursued, the more she runs away. Yet she's ready and willing to bestow smiling favor on the person who never even casts a thought towards her. I say truthfully and sincerely that the pursuit of physical and mental well-being is becoming a cult. The danger of this kind of cult is that it makes us focus our attention on our own selves instead of on Christ.

Meanwhile, I'm a week into a recommitment of my nuts and fruit diet. LOL! I'd been doing a raw diet for a few months, then got lax about it for the last few months - still doing a lot of green smoothies, but indulging a lot in wheat-free, non-dairy, mostly vegetarian "other foods", too. (soy 'chickin nuggets', Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop popcorn, Peanut butter on Newman's Own wheat-freechocolate cookies - mmmmm!) It was starting to take a toll in my energy level, so I'm going back to the strict raw diet.

Moderation in her world meant three meals of hormone-free meat, sides of vegetables and bread without preservatives. In our culture, it could mean anything from a boxed breakfast cereal with pasteurized hormone-laced milk and sugar-sweetened juice, to a burger with hormone-laced beef on a chemically laden white-flour bun and a side of potato strips fried in hydrogenated fat. Balance and moderation in itself is no doubt a fine thing, but in a world that encourages excess in the wrong foods, dependence on processed foods, pesticides and hormones added to foods, with the resulting food allergies, immunity issues and food addictions, moderation can become a mammoth feat, and existing health problems sometimes need more than a determination to not think about food, and to only eat what's put in front of you. Especially if you're the cook.

Oh, my. I wonder what Charlotte would have thought about this Bug Banquet featuring dishes like mealworm pasta and chocolate chirp cookies?