Food is about self-awareness.

Eating is an exercise in humanity. “The Third Plate”.

Angela Shurina

5 min readOct 18, 2017

We all heard this phrase, “You are what you eat”

And we think we understand it well enough to make better food choices. We think we understand it deep enough.

I thought so.

I thought, I knew why buying organic, wild, pasture-raised and grass-fed was important.

It’s a no-brainer right?

Eat good quality food, that has more nutrition, and you’ll be healthier and fitter, you’ll have more energy, and you will have much less cravings for unhealthy foods, you’ll look much better, you won’t gain weight, you’ll perform better mentally and physically, you’ll live longer.

It all makes sense, doesn’t it?

It’s proven by so many studies, that rich nutrition from the best foods brings the best possible results, when it comes to health, longevity, energy levels, resilience, mental and physical performance — life performance.

And yet I didn’t make the connection all the way through.

I didn’t think, that more nutrition comes from better soils, soils full of microorganisms, not only full of minerals that fertilizers can provide, soils, that nourish the microbiome of our planet, soils, that nourish the food we grow nourishing you and me.

I didn’t think, that more nutrition comes from the animals, that were allowed to graze on whatever they chose (They are some picky eaters! When allowed to. Not consciousnessless grazers), living a happy free-roaming life, being taken care of with love, being killed with love in the most painless way possible, that completely changes the flavor, the texture and yes, nutrition of the meat you and I end up eating.

I didn’t think, that more nutrition comes from the fish, that was caught, when it was “the time”, when it gave birth to the next generation, when it enjoyed the full cycle of life, when it was caught in the most natural way without stress and sustainably for the future generations being able to enjoy it too.

I didn’t think, that more nutrition comes from grains, yes, even wheat, gluten-FUL, when it was bred for flavor AND nutrition, to provide sustenance, volume AND more minerals like zinc, phosphorus, iron, bred not only for convenient storage and long shelf life, but also to benefit our health, to benefit the health of our soils, enriching the environment, not robbing and depleting it.

I didn’t think, how more nutrition on my plate means eating more variety provided by nature, not just tuna steak, but also less fancy and full of flavors sardines and anchovies, and even phytoplankton that feeds the fish, feeds the environment providing oxygen, more nutrition comes from variety, that nature provides cyclically, variably, different seasons, different regions. More nutrition comes from eating all the variety, not just selected few, eating from nose to tail, not just boneless skinless “best” cuts, but also bones and skins, and heads, and everything and anything in-between, prepared in a delicious and skillful ways.

I didn’t think, how each piece of food I put in my mouth affected literally the whole planet!

Because it is ALL connected.

We choose to eat foods, we vote with our dollar to produce certain quality of foods. We vote to put chemicals into our soils and lands or not. We vote to nourish our soils and ocean that feed our fish, our meats, our vegetables and fruits, our bread, or we vote with each bite to deplete our planet, robbing future generations, hoping, that somehow it will all get back to the way it was, without us making changes to what we do, how we do it.

Food is not just food. It reflects our values, our beliefs, our awareness or lack of.

Food shows how human we are, how smart we and compassionate we truly are, how we can co-exist instead of exploiting.

But besides that, from a pure selfish perspective, food builds every cell in our bodies, it creates our biochemistry, our metabolism, our health.

EVERY SINGLE PIECE of food creates your looks, creates your mood, creates your self-confidence or lack of, creates your passions and feelings, creates your fear or courage, creates your peace of mind or stress, heck, the way your face looked this morning, your skin, your hair, your smile, your belly — it all starts on your plate with the first bite. Not your bite! You are what you eat ate.

How do you think full of chemicals, hormones and anti-biotics, grown on depleted organically, enriched chemically soils and in dead seas “stressed” vegetables, fish and meat are gonna affect everything you are?!

It all goes full circle — you make your choice every time you eat, it changes the planet, our environment, our lands and seas, our food, it changes you and me.

What choice are you gonna make this meal?

Know your food, know where it comes from, know how it affects the planet, how it affects you, how it affects all of us.

The book was meant to be a book about sustainable food system, about a sustainable plate. It ended up being a call to our humanity, to our self-awareness.

It’s a deep read, that makes you re-think who you are, who we are as a species, where we are going.

And it’s also incredibly fascinating!

It’s fascinating to learn, how the best foods, like the best Bluefin tuna (almadraba), the best NATURAL foie gras, the best ham (jamon iberico) are created, starting from the day they (the animals) are born, created by every piece of food THEY eat, by the way they are provided and treated, the way they are killed, with respect. It’s fascinating to learn, how the best chefs are the biggest environmentalists. It’s fascinating to learn, that our food world can be so much richer, so much more diverse, so much more flavorful and nutritious at the same time, so much more enlightening!

Amazing book!