We got food at home!

Growing up in a Black home in America provided many cultural rite of passages that the Black youth of today have no idea and will never experience. The one that I remember so poignantly and one that my mother still recites today revolves around food. She many times would respond to my and my sibling's requests for fast-food with the declaration that, "We have food at home!" Of course our adolescent and teen minds could not grasp the concept of what it meant to suppress our immediate desires for a later filling experience. Her response was met with resentment in those moments, but as I reflect today I have all of the appreciation in the world!

Visits to my internal medicine doctor when I lived in New Hampshire primarily were led with the question of, "What did you eat this week, and how is your diet?" The embarrassment on my face in those moments when I had to sit and explain as a full adult how I had been eating out and playing with my health in the corporate food chain drive-thrus. His follow-up response(s) to my honesty were riddled with disdain that I shouldn't eat there at all and how I am unable to control the salt that they put in their foods. You see, in retrospect I understand that while I met my immediate desire (not need) for a quick fried food option that the prolonged impact on my well-being could in fact be detrimental. Deep sighing after he would check my blood pressure was confirmation enough that I needed to make changes in real life.

You see, it doesn't just go away! Good health and a full life requires that we make the best choices for ourselves as it relates to our relationship with food. Dr. Chris Thurman declared in his book The Lies We Believe that one of the first encounters that we have with lies and falsehoods begin with our parents. It is the lessons and stories that our parents shared with us that shape our realities that we know today. We should consider in our adult age(s) and carefully begin to choose what is beneficial and what is detrimental to our successes and failures that while our parents said it and we believed it wholeheartedly that it may in fact not reign as true today.

Keeping the focus with this subject, I can affirm that my mama was right! Having food at home is the best option health wise and budget wise. This was one of the lifelong lessons that she prepared me for more than 25 years ago that are evident in how I go about my day-to-day. While the temptations of brunch, happy hours, and dinner in the city sound so tempting, I have consciously decided to use the month of August to use the food that is at home to meet my dietary needs. Now, I did have a moment yesterday with a local grill expert who I must say has perfected the bbq'd chicken wing, but 98% of my meals have come from what I have prepared at home. I have made fun out of it by picking recipes that my friends and I see on TikTok and Instagram. I used Tammy's Southern Fried Cabbage recipe from Youtube last week and found that recipe to be fun and the taste was surprising as it was something I did- the weekend master chef! A man who buys, prepares, and thrives on the food at home is a man of desirability! Economist Dr. Boyce Watkins is known for always declaring that you can get a PhD on Youtube and Google. I encourage each of you to search and find the best foods recipes available to you. I haven't stepped a foot in a culinary school, but Youtube creators have been the best inscrtuctors!