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Inside Out Tom Roddy ’61, DMin ‘84 While recovering in the hospital my youngest daughter said that she knew some people who could help stop artery disease. “Anything to keep me from having to do this again,” I said. One of the persons she connected me with was David Wolf, a natural food advocate. He said things like “if you pollute the inside you will pollute the outside and that the best way to make the environment healthy is to become incredibly healthy yourself.” I was introduced to the world of good fats (olive oil) and bad fats (transfats, hydrogenated oils). I saw beakers full of greasy white stuff that represented the fat content of a Whopper. I had watched my salt and caffeine levels, but this was a whole new ballgame. I learned that high heat can cook the life out of vital enzymes and minerals in those pretty green leafy vegetables. I learned how sugar can send the body on a daily roller coaster ride. There are even fruits that are high in sugar. Avoid bananas and carrots? This is crazy, I thought. In restaurants, I would ask that my fish be grilled without salt using only olive oil. Much of this information is mainstream now, but when I started it seemed that I was kooky. At Bodies the Exhibit I saw clogged arteries as well as clean arteries. It does not take much plaque to make a stroke. I thought that my body was an intricate filtering system. It is but I overloaded it. I have good genes so why worry? My granddad lived until he was almost 91. But he lived on a farm and raised many of his own vegetables. There were more trees and open space, fewer cars and factories, and fewer chemicals in the air and food.
If I do not want to pollute my body, I become immediately interested in how my fruits and vegetables are grown. Are they full of chemicals? If they are organic, how can I know? Where can I buy organic? We began visiting a Saturday market where local organic farmers sell their crops. What about the water I drink?
I am concerned about the air and the number of trees that are cut down for development. I want to save the trees we have and the woodlands that are taken over by English ivy. We started a vegetable garden hidden among the ornamentals so neighbors will not think they are living next to a farm. In a few months we will have tomatoes and lettuce! It does not take much land for our family to supplement the organic vegetables we buy. I wonder how the neighbors would feel if I raised a beef steer? I would need their grass.
A DeKalb County (GA) public service ad asked residents not to put grease, oil, and fats down their disposals. Our human sewer system is developing sewer-pipe sclerosis, hardening and narrowing our vital pipes that carry our waste. I did the same thing to my environment that I did to my body. Pollute the inside, pollute the outside.
What am I doing for my environment? I am putting my grocery money behind growers of organic fruits and vegetables; supporting food-processing companies whose products are low in fat, sugar, and salt. I am releasing land by not buying red meat. Now that I am cleaning up my body, I am able to see much more I can do to preserve this earth that supports us. The body and the environment are linked together. Pollute one. Pollute the other. Clean up one. Clean up the other.
In the dusk of this winter afternoon, I walked by the stream that formerly ran through a thicket of privet before I rooted it out. I leaned against the ancient trunk of a giant oak that I had rescued from rusted barbed wire cutting into its flesh and the thick ivy roots that snaked up to its canopy competing for a place in the sun. The stream and the oak seemed to thank me. Reward enough.
Tom and his wife, Alexandra, are former missionaries in
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