The Invasion of The Healthy...

Healthy people don't blend in very well. In an era where the vast majority of the population are succumbing to preventable illness, “health nuts” have become more of a conversation piece at social gatherings than an example of wellness. I've had complete strangers who, upon meeting me, launch immediately into a desperate attempt to defend their eating habits. Out loud. I think they can smell the supplements on me. Either that, or my Mom is still introducing me to people as “Jessica the Vegan.” I prefer Jessica Von Vegan, but whatever. Either way, what people are hearing when they meet me is a tiny voice inside their head saying “Holy crap, it's the Health Police!” I've decided that this must be true, because it's the only way for me to come to terms with the fact that most people run screaming in the other direction. It's either that, or I need to shower more.

I haven't always been like this. What's “like this”, you ask? A nutrition studying, raw food eating, green smoothie making, tea tree oil spraying, energy healing, herb growing vegan hippie. And I mean hippie in the most derogatory sense. 5 years ago, I smoked regularly and weighed a great deal more than I do now. My favorite food group was chili cheese fries, my favorite kind of purified water was soda, and I was pretty bummed at the way my life was unfolding. Being raised in a predominantly Seventh Day Adventist family, I decided to turn to the vegetarian comfort foods of my teenage years spent living with my Great Grandmother. I contacted my Great Aunt, the matron of the Adventist side of my family, and got my Grandmother's seitan recipe.

My Great Grandmother, who lived to be 88 years old, was an amazing influence on me, though that influence didn't take hold until just a few years ago. She regularly consumed juices she made from juicing fruits and vegetables, purchased Morning Star sausages for my breakfasts, and brewed Kombucha in a dark corner of her kitchen. Once, she juiced and drank so many carrots she turned orange. It was so Beverly Hills.

That single recipe combined with a very negative child birthing experience in a hospital and a Joaquin Phoenix narrated documentary became the Axis of Awesomeness that motivated me to take my life apart, piece by piece. It's a long process, rebuilding your entire life from the ground up. I'm nowhere near finished, and in 10 years time I still won't be. Life itself is a process. But with every day that passes I lay one more brick, in the hopes that someday there will be a beautiful home where a rickety old shed once stood.

So, knowing all this, you can see that I haven't always been The Food Nazi. But that doesn't mean I'm a Pod Person who's taken over the body of Jessica and is now trying to infect humanity with a insatiable craving for spirulina which will render them physically useless when our Mother ship enters your Earth's atmosphere and releases a foreign substance that renders your bodies ready for assimilation into the Urania Atma Grid. That's just silly.

And it doesn't mean I float around on air and spend my days caressing plant leaves and whispering to the four winds about the wisdom of the Ascended Masters. I save that for Wednesday afternoons, right after Maury. Most days I'm struggling, like everyone here in the third dimension, to make the right choices. I screw up spectacularly a good amount of the time, and I make no secrets about that. I haven't set the bar higher than you or anyone else. I'm simply using a different bar.

So, let's stop the distinction between “healthy people” and “unhealthy people” because this sets most people up for failure. They have this ideal of what I am or what being healthy has to be, and they believe they could never achieve it because it's so foreign and just plain unattainable. You don't have to abandon everything you like and move to the Redwoods. You certainly don't have to spend all your money on magical pond moss harvested in the Crystal Forests of Unicorn Valley. I've tried a bottle, and I can tell you from experience they charge too much for that stuff.

All you have to do set a standard for yourself. This is it. This is how simple it really it. All you have to do....is value yourself. You must decided what you are willing to do to yourself, and what you are not willing to do to yourself. What are you willing to accept? Do you accept disease and illness? Do you accept fatigue and pain? Have you given your power away to so called “health experts”? Have you decided that other people know what's best for you and your body?

I have drawn a clear distinction between what I will and won't accept for myself, and I would encourage you to do the same, in all areas of your life. This doesn't end with food. This will drastically improve your relationships, your work ethic, and anything else you apply it to. Come on. How easy is this? All I'm asking you to do is give a crap about yourself.

I'll leave you with this last thought, and one that still mystifies me to this day. My Mother and Father have not spoken to one another properly in over 10 years, yet they both refer to me as the Food Nazi. We-ird.

Sincerely,

Jessica Von Vegan, The Health Police Food Nazi