Does Context Matter?

Does Context Matter?
Everyone's body is different. For some, eating an apple helps keep the doctor away. For others, it leaves them feeling frayed or jumping off the walls. (Stockbyte/photos.com)
5/13/2013
Updated:
5/18/2013

I remember when I was a kid my parents would tell me that “on the inside, we’re all the same.”

What I’ve come to understand as an adult, and especially in the work that I do, is that this assertion is only partly true.

Sure, we’ve all got the same stuff inside of our bodies, or pretty much so. But the way those organs function and interact is different from one person to the next.

Your framework is different than mine.

And this is why, when it comes to food and diet, it’s really all about context.

A beautifully prepared chopped kale salad can be heavenly for one person’s body. For another it may cause gas, bloating, abdominal pain, and maybe even disrupt the function of the thyroid gland.

For some, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. For others it leaves them frayed, tattered, and jumping off the walls.

An egg, one of nature’s perfect foods, can wreak inflammatory havoc on someone’s joints and muscles without them even knowing it.

Just yesterday a friend told me about an article he’d read in the Washington Post. The article is a few years old, but it caught his attention, as did it mine. It spoke to this idea that context is everything.

The story, called “Pearls before Breakfast,” is about an experiment the Post conducted. They placed one of the world’s greatest musicians in a subway station, where he played some of the greatest music ever composed on one of the greatest violins ever produced, posing as a street musician, with his instrument case open in front of him, during morning rush hour.

The sound was glorious.

The musician played his music with his usual poise and characteristic passion, just had he had done a few nights earlier at Boston’s Symphony Hall and the day before at The Library of Congress. He’s hard to ignore.

What happened in the DC subway station?

Nobody listened.

Well, almost nobody listened.

Some children gaped. One man wandered back toward the musician, transfixed, for a total of three minutes. The virtuoso ended up with $32 in change after 45 minutes of playing.

You see, you take the musician, no matter how excellent, out of the very best framework in which his talents can be received, and he no longer gets the attention he deserves.

This takes us back to the kale.

It really is all about context and framework.

When a food doesn’t sit right in your body, when the nuts cause your belly to poof out and make you look five months pregnant or the cabbage causes burping or the grass-fed beef burger sits in your chest region for days, is it the food? Or is your body giving you a clue—a clue that should not be ignored?

Is it possible that the context into which the food is traveling is not ripe to receive the powers possessed by the pure morsel?

While I’ve only mentioned whole foods, some virtuosos of the food realm, you can attribute this same lens to anything you consume. What does your body tell you in response to the latte or the bagel or glass of wine? Is the applause short-lived?

Some might scoff at the idea of becoming so microscopic about what we consume.

I’m not asking you to be obsessive.

I’m asking you to listen.

Don’t walk by the prodigy without taking a moment to tune-in. You just might hear something important. Something that will change your day.

Functional nutritionist Andrea Nakayama serves thousands of clients internationally. Her unique background and passion extends to her teachings of the science behind nutritional healing as she works to change the face of health care. You can learn more about Andrea at www.replenishpdx.com and www.holisticnutritionlab.com

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