Aero Herb Garden

Several years ago, I got myself into a health food kick. Through a series of personal tragedies, (my father and a colleague at work died of heart disease) and after some frank talks with a close friend of mine, I decided it was time to wake up and give myself a chance to grow old, feeble and die, boringly, in my 80s.

First on the list was improving my eating habits. My father, god bless him, had never been the healthiest eater. Whether it was chicken wings, ribs, or steak, if you could grill it, he'd eat it. It's not as if he avoided fruits and vegetables, but in general, his favorite stuff was something that he could conceivably have hunted.

My colleague was almost pure carnivore, turning his nose up at anything that was grown (with the notable exception of the potato). His diet, his smoking habit and an unknown defect his one of the valves on his heart combined to due him in at the all-too-young age of forty-two.

So I set myself on a quest to avoid their fate. Part of it, for me, was quitting smoking. I did this by cordoning off blocs of my life, and bit by bit limiting the time when I could have a cigarette. First it was "no smoking during the day", then "no smoking during the work week", then "no smoking unless you're drinking," and finally "you're not buying cigarettes anymore." Within the span of a year I'd quit.

After that, it was onto my diet. I'd developed a bit of a green thumb - something I'd inherited from my father, ironically - and wanted to put that to good use. As I was and still am pressed for space (living in a city has lots of perks, but room isn't one of them), the aero herb garden was a natural fit for my new and improved lifestyle.

The aero herb garden has been a big help for me now, several years after the tragedies I endured. Not only has the process of gardening given me a new, fulfilling hobby (seriously, gardening can actually be a lot of fun), but the aero herb garden has given me a steady supply of fresh vegetables and herbs that make any bland meal into a spectacular culinary delight.

And it's paying off. I've dropped eleven kilogram in the last two years, thanks largely to my aero herb garden, and my cholesterol is down around 170 for the first time since I was a teenager. Yes, quitting smoking was the big step. But eating tons of fresh veggies and herbs is nearly as important.