TEDxOPorto - We are what we eat

These posts about TEDxOPorto will be written in English 

so I can share with the world the ideas worth spreading.

I love to eat!

For me food is lust and indulgence, not subsistence or instinct.

However we have for food the same trends we have for fashion. Nowadays there is a gourmet frenzy, with lots of unexpected forged chefs adding extravagant ingredients to sophisticated recipes, and a healthy fever, with some fundamentalist diet gurus dictating we should be all drinking detox smoothies and eating whole grains. Clean eating is now a sort of buzzword for healthy and this obsession means you should eat more vegetables and scrutinize all processed foods. Society is bullying us so much with this “green food” thing that some people feel intimidated when they assume that they still drink milk and that they love eating meat.

One of the speakers at TEDxOPorto was a blogger that has become one of these healthy movements trendsetters. The lovely and skinny Francisca Guimarães chose to talk about aging in a date we were celebrating Woman International Day.

She began by acknowledging the fact that women are every time more pressured: they have to be excellent mothers, loving wives and brilliant professionals but also they have to keep the good looks, be fit and stay healthy. 

For women who were born with a “skinny-bitch” kind of genetics this imposition regarding body image might be something more easy to domain. For those who were not blessed by metabolism or hereditary the maintenance of an healthy weight, a curvy figure and a tonified body can be more stressful than working ten hours a day, managing a house and running a family. 

Most women I know blame themselves for not being able to follow a strict and clean regime, for not eating enough broccolis and lean protein, for not exercising enough and for forgetting to put the night moisturizer before falling asleep.

We all understand that aging is a process that can be tamed but living a life "by the book" can be an exhausting and gloomy discipline… HEEEEEEELP!

In the afternoon, a fat and funny “foodie” named Rodrigo Meneses came to tell us with a contagious humor that loving to eat it’s ok, it’s a lifestyle like any other and we shouldn’t punish ourselves by falling in love for good food. 

It is not attractive to be obese but it is not compelling to look like Miss Universe.

We have to stand in life aligned with our conscience and our “self”, trying to live a healthy life as to live longer. But there is no point in living if you deprive yourself from the little pleasures that make life a happy adventure not a marathon for sustenance. After all, we eat food not nutrients!