Vegetables and the News

There are no less than three articles on today's New York Times web-site regarding vegetables.  One was about the first lady and her continued campaign to get kids to eat better food; another was about the American propensity to choose fries over vegetables, and the final one was about Dr. Preston Maring, a California surgeon who, now in his retirement, has opened a Farmer's Market.  His crusade is to make "the kitchen as crucial as the clinic". 

As I move into the next phase of my cancer battle, I am working even more on my diet than I have in the past.  Incorporating vegetables three times a day is a challenge so I am now throwing spinach into my daily smoothies.  Then if I don't have time to anything especially creative, I am just steaming vegetables and dipping them in one of the many fabulous sauces and dips that are now available.  This makes it less difficult than one might think. 

As Americans, we do seem to have a mixed relationship with vegetables.  One man in the article about fries vs. vegetables said: "I'm not afraid of zucchinis; I just don't know how to cook them".  I suppose if we don't know how to cook zucchinis we can always use them to fend off bears which is what a woman in Helena, MT did this week when a bear wandered into her garden.  She hit it with a giant zucchini!

When all is said and done, God calls us to take care of "this earthly tent" as St. Paul calls our bodies.  Stewardship of the body may be the most important form of stewardship out there.