Max’s Health and Wellness intro

I am a rising senior at Bridgewater State University, majoring in history. I  believe people enjoy history most when they experience it through personal stories and critical analysis. To fully recognize how the past influences the present local, national, and global conditions, and in order to become fully engaged citizens of their own era, it is of critical importance that people become better able to discern the complexities of historic events, civilizations, and movements while recognizing that race, religion, politics, science and technology, economics, and culture are distinct but interdependent strands from which our collective history is woven. Over the summer, I hope to find work in a local museum so that I can inspire people to access historical content and bring history alive for the public.

I engage well with people from many cultures and have been fortunate enough to live in an international student dormitory, study in China, and travel to many other cities and a few other countries. During every excursion, I make it a point to find and partake in historical tours to deepen my connection to the people and the place. I just completed intern at the Battleship Cove in Fall River where I catalogued uniforms and shared the soldiers’ stories with visitors. This was a tremendous experience.

So why I am I taking a health and wellness class? Obviously, I need the credits, but I really do have an interest in this area. I love to eat, and subsequently, I am a damn good cook. Although, I do not follow recipes, I do follow to the principals of Italian cooking or as the saying goes, “I do not measure. I just pour, shake, or squeeze until the spirits of my ancestors tell me to stop. My next culinary goal for this summer is to make some boujee homemade L’orange duck ravioli with a Grande Marnier and coriander cream sauce.

Meanwhile, I believe the connection between what we eat and how we produce that food effects our own bodies and the environment which hopefully sustains us. This is why my goal for the class is to eat more organic, plant-based meals and more sustainably raised meat and fish. My measurable goal is to eat at least one plant-based meal per day. This is going to be difficult for two reasons:

1. The ravioli mentioned above,

and

2. The new Trinidadian BBQ spot with the 12-hour smoked ribs that are that Loouuuudddddd!!!.

I know some people are skeptical about changing their diets, and I don’t think it will be easy to do. However, I do feel that we have evolved as omnivorous beings: so i dont believe that we need to enforce universal veganism or any of that nonsense. Even moderate changes in our diet may be mutually beneficial to our bodies and our planet. Therefore, my goal allows me to play a small part in what I hope is a healthy shift in the way we consume because historically, the lack of sustainable agriculture and agribuisness has led to species depletion, polluted watersheds through farm run-off, interrupted food chains (See Rachel Carson’s work on DDT), and international political instability as seen in Central America. So, what we eat really does matters.