The Ultimate Diet

At this moment I am considering dieting... which is far different from starting a diet, or maintaining a diet, or permanently altering my personal routine.

Be it from carbs or carbon...

Late last week I picked up my eldest from school. We walked outside along the sidewalk noticing there wasn't any snow to cross through, just mud and wet leaves, which is a bit odd for early February in Minnesota (at least for the past 30+ years I've lived here).

We hopped in the car and before I started the ignition process he asked me a question - "Dad, how come there isn't any snow anymore?"

This is a tough question to answer to a younger kid. So I thought for a second, and tried to relate it to chemistry and elements via some description of tiny particles called carbon that make up much of what we deal with here on Earth. Ultimately, I tried to explain that there was more carbon in the air, then in the ground... because of manmade technology and that it was warming the air, which doesn't bode well for snow...

Do you think he got it?


How many people have tried to diet from food, let alone from carbon? Or tried to alter their diet to become slimmer or "more healthy?" Its a difficult thing to do - to alter their daily habits - into some different format.

Photo Courtesy via CC

But some people are dieting from food, carbon, consumption. Does "the market" push them to do so? Does "their government" force this change? Does their religion theologically call for it? They're fighting the grain, swimming upstream and thinking outside the box - for themselves - and probably finding that dealing with slower people like me is a vast waste of their time.

I guess I am not ready for the ultimate diet - yet. I can't afford to install solar panels on my roof. I'm not convinced that an electric/battery powered car is the solution for my family's transportation needs. Realistically, if its hot and humid outside in August, I am going to turn on the air conditioning (or my wife will throw me out of the house.) I hope I don't have to have a heart attack to seriously cut back foodwise.

Though I can say... my dietary tastes are changing. I'm finding I don't need the sweetest of the sweet, or the saltiest of the salty, nor as much of "the stuff", and I am trying to walk more often - which has been easier this winter. And I have to wonder where the breaking point will be... and how will it affect my status quo?

For me, the primary incentive, the dangling carrot - is thinking of  the world, this Earth, in a future tense. For the most part, how will changes and choices I make now, affect the the future lives of my three boys? For some reason, it seems to be a complicated calculation. Should it be?

What would it take for one person or family to take that ultimate diet challenge - to change and be the difference and to pay it forward?