Chinese Version
06-06-2016
In the summer of 2016, while visiting my parents in China, some of my friends asked if I ate health supplements, and I said: “I don’t eat health supplements.” My friends asked me why. I thought a bit and said: “Because I felt those products contain concentrated ingredients and they don’t need to be chewed but just swallowed down. Swallowing those products makes me feel like a farm animal being fed by formulas for reasons other than enjoyment, as those supplements are neither natural nor carrying the color, aroma, texture and flavor of conventional food.”
Today, seeing a friend talking about how eating is a great pleasure of life, I suddenly wanted to share more about my belief that “eating is a great pleasure”.
I imagine that every action involved in the process of eating: such as seeing, smelling, touching, licking, chewing and swallowing are performed by sophisticated human muscles that are hardwired to specific nerves. While eating and passing the food down in my digestive system, I imagine the actions can trigger many subtle nerve sensations without delay and without being noticed, nerve sensations which are accumulated and carried along while the food reaches different parts of my body in a well-balanced way, my brain continues to receiving, processing, and broadcasting “eating is a great pleasure” to my body and soul. All together, I felt the great pleasure of eating that is released from the brain during the specific period of time for digesting food.
I guess the balances in the human body probably include: current balance, acid-base balance, air pressure balance, water balance, bacteria balances, mineral balances, and enzyme balances… Natural foods, such as vegetables, are generally well-balanced by nature. Digesting natural foods would be less likely to disturb the balances in our body, but to maintain the complexity and comprehensive balances in our body while transmitting “eating is a great pleasure” to the brain during the digestive process of natural food. I feel eating natural foods will more likely to boost the pleasure of eating.
However, health supplement products generally contain concentrated specific ingredients, swallowing such products requires almost no involvement of our digestive muscles that generate signals of “eating is a great pleasure”; concentrated ingredients inside our body may disturb the balances in our body and weaken the already weak signals of “eating is a great pleasure” compared to eating regular food by seeing, smelling, touching, licking, chewing and swallowing. Overall, I felt taking supplements likely reduces the quality of “eating is a great pleasure”… Therefore, I don’t like to eat health supplements.
On May 28 before I returned to the United States, a farewell dinner prepared by my uncle and aunt: fried Chinese chives, diced chicken with chili, fried Chinese toon eggs, asparagus lettuce root and loach stew, braised frog. All nature and tasty Chinese dishes.
