Tag: Food

Miscellaneous

Keeping Healthy When You’re Busy

theadventuresofcaptainhetty

We all know how it is: Waking up at the crack of dawn, the commute at rush hour, long working days, busy afternoons, evening spent recuperating and repeat. An all too familar story. By the number of days since my last post, you may be able to guess that this has happened to me too. Indeed, I have been cramming in placements, work experiences and paid work into my summer; turning my holiday much more hectic than term time. But I have stuck to ‘keeping healthy’, whatever that may mean.

With the rise of Instagram idealism of perfect bodies, holidays, workout routines and diets, there is a pressure to keep healthy more than ever. Taking pictures of our food has become all too present in Millennial culture. We have to be at our best ready for any click of a camera. However this is not reality. And that isn’t a bad thing either. As Oscar Wilde said, “only dull people are brilliant at breakfast”. Keeping healthy isn’t always instagramable, neither does it necessarily fit into the idealisation of oat breakfast bowls or beautiful lycra clad people. The real kind of keeping healthy can be messy. And that’s okay.

The secret of keeping healthy when you’re busy, tired and exhausted is to keep to a routine as best as you can, and to grab any opportunity to do something for yourself when you cannot. It is okay to miss a gym session because you’re too tired; or to demolish that chocolate sitting in the cupboard. Listening to yourself is the most important thing you can do when you’re stretched at all angles. For example, when I had to work out of town, and away from my gym, I took to walking arounf the local area. However, I usually go to the gym late in the evening after a few hours recharging (as an introvert) after finishing my work experience for the day. Some days I have to miss out because I have evening shifts, but that’s okay. Missing sessions at first seemed like a mortal sin, but slowly I have found that it only makes me more determined to go the next day: or to find another way to get those endorphins flowing.

Ultimately, everyone’s ability to keep healthy is dependent on their individual schedules. Yet whether they are after a changed diet or more active lifestyle, there are small, personal changes that can be made whether or not that conform to social media standards. We should remember that keeping healthy is allowed to include sweat, messy hair and often taking time for yourself.

Miscellaneous

Being Vegetarian

theadventuresofcaptainhetty

News headlines of late have been littered with Extinction Rebellion, air quality, electric cars, the reduction of coal powering power stations and the latest David Attenborough environmental programme. At a time when climate change is converging ever more into the public eye, conversation about the vegetarian diet has never been more topical.

Almost three years ago I made the switch. I cut out bacon, sausages, Sunday roasts. But it’s all been worth it. Before, I would go piscetarian over the lent period. It makes you think about your food differently, question what’s in it, where it came from, who might have handled it. I came to realise that generally, I did not consume an awful amount of meat anyway. But that didn’t stop the cravings for pork scratchings during the early stages!

It was a particularly inspiring philosophy lecture that prompted me to go veggie: on Peter Singer’s personhood. He carries the pioneering view that animals have personhood, even going as far to say that they have more personhood than newborn babies and people in comas. This goes against Aristotle, Plato and Descartes who deny that animals have spirits. He’s actually convinced Richard Dawkins too! As funny cat videos and animal rescue centres take social media by storm, I don’t think we have ever cared more about animals more.

More than protecting animals, we are being encouraged to cut down on meat in order to reduce carbon emissions: Whether that might mean only having meat dishes on weekends. You can cut down nearly a quarter of your carbon footprint by simply cutting down on red meats, such as beef and lamb. Being carbon conscious is increasingly trendy, with vegetarian menus cropping up (shout out to Wetherspoons who do a fantastic veggie breakfast!) and vegan cafés.

However this brings into question the farming industry. And a dilemma. Is it better to let these slaughterhous animals to die out so they no longer suffer but do not exist? It would affect biodiversity for one thing. We have breed cows so much that the Chillingham Wild Cattle in Northumberland are one of a few natural cattle left in the world. Check out Bong Joon-ho’s Okja on Netflix for a vivid dystopian view of meat farming.

Ultimately, I enjoy being veggie. It’s a challenge to minimise the suffering of animals I respect as possessing personhood; and it reduces my footprint. Although I am not entirely sure I could commit to being vegan (and I have full respect to anyone who does!), maybe one day I will take that extra step. For now though (without coming across as an angry radical vegetarian!), I would encourage anyone looking to contributing a small change for the wider good to look into flexitarianism!