by Cari Junge
How ‘Holy’ is your Holiday
Season? Meaning, is your Holiday season
‘Hol’-istically approached?
Aside from the well-planned feasts
which we will soon review with 2011 Thanksgiving statistics, might you approach
the time from Turkey Day to New Year’s Day as a vacation from healthy lifestyle
or is it a reward from a deprived life-pattern?
The big question really amounts to .
. . do you create for yourself or follow dis-ordered patterns around and/or
during the Holiday Season in order to step away from healthy nutrition,
exercise, lifestyle patterns, when Hallmark
and Butterball push all your
‘Just Do It’ buttons? Nike might own
the tag-line but we tend to emotionally connect to sounds and smells rather
than stress and sweat during the month of December.
In 1621, pilgrims celebrated the
first successful corn harvest likely with swan, venison or duck, and surely
without green bean casserole and sweet potato pie. Sugar was hard to come by
and turkey became the feast of choice in modern day. Check out these stats
provided by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service regarding
Thanksgiving Day 2011:
·
248
million turkeys, totaling 7.1 billion pounds, raised in US in 2011 for T-Day,
with Minnesota leading the states with 48 mil. This means every man, woman and
child in the US could eat over half a turkey and there’d still be leftovers.
·
While
turkey and tart productions have gone up considerably since 2010, contracted
production of green beans went down by 100,000 tons!
·
266
million pounds of tart cherries produced, up 40% from 2010- thanks to Michigan
as largest producing state! Cranberry production went up nominally though corn
went down
·
The
expected consumption of turkey by the average American is 16 pounds, and it’s
been shown that the fatigue level that keeps the masses on the couch after is
triggered by blood sugar imbalances and over-eating more so than the
stereotypical tryptophan buzz.
There are a range of ways to turn
this feed fest concept which does great things for our economy into a holi-stic
celebration of thanks to balance the insane amounts of food and drink Americans
are known to consume along the way.
We will delve into healthy thoughts
and tips across the next two months as we ring in a New Year. Until then, the Sweat
of the Matter is a call to action from me to you:
Where
Thanksgiving originated as a three day traditional feast thanking God for a bountiful harvest (during which no
signs of turkey and stuffing), by 1941 Congress named the fourth Thursday of every November to be the Holy Thanksgiving
Day per President Franklin
Roosevelt’s proclamation. Following Abe Lincoln’s lead to extend the holiday season, FDR used this period as a
means to inspire Americans to begin shopping for
Christmas during the Great Depression.
Brilliant,
and how well We have grown a ‘forest’
from the seed our leaders planted! Or perhaps a ‘jungle’ is a more accurate picture
to paint given one reporter’s account last year
changing the name to Black-n-Blue Friday!
This year ending in ‘1’ (2011) in
the world of numerology begins a new cycle. We as a country have planted many a
seed together and killed some strong roots in doing so. Each of us has likely followed
course in some way. Some seeds are likely well soiled and will need nurturing
to grow, re-arranging to improve worth and vitality, and love to support their potential
to impact the greater good. Given the natural progression of a cycle from 2011
or ‘1’ to 2019 or ‘9’ and the parenting role we must play to instill a healthy
life for our creations, 2020 will be flourishing with plush trees, whether
forest or jungle. Act now:
·
Study
your past year.
·
Define
the seeds you have planted with clarity and conviction.
·
Decide
now which you will continue to nurture and those that are not meant to be. Seeds
are big picture life altering/ enhancing anchors. They can be ideas or actions or
commitments or relationships, you name it. They are planted by you though and
you are a powerful being on this fruitful earth created by a brilliant master.
·
Cherish
that which grew from a tiny seed.
·
Take
time before Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the remaining Holy-days until 2012
to establish your responsibilities to feed your seeds for optimal success.
·
Start
this week!
·
Join
me next week for some Holi-Day Holi-stic Nutrition Tips!
Most of you know my opinion on the matter
but I wanted to revisit news from almost 100 years ago about the most severe
Flu know to the modern world that killed over 600,000 Americans and 20 to 50 million people worldwide. 
