I spent thanksgiving at my aunt's house, with her, my cousin, my dad, and my little brother (My dad's side of the family - see the "Your Family's Foodways" post). Aside from my little brother, they are all extremely health conscious, in a way that seems to scream "Look at me, eating my bran flakes with wheat germ on top for breakfast! My healthy choices demand recognition!" So it was interesting to see them all try to navigate a holiday that is centered around eating what one might call "normal food".
They did it though. No matter what it was we were making, there was a way to make it healthy. No sugar in the cranberry-orange sauce, or in the pumpkin-sweet potato pies (It was decided by my aunt that since pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie are basically the same thing, we may as well just mix them together and make them like that. No comment). No milk or cream in the mashed potatoes, which literally were just mashed potatoes, with the skin and everything. Thankfully, the turkey, being pretty healthy as it was, was left alone, although I was repeatedly encouraged while eating it to remove the skin.
This relates to illness, because no matter how many disparaging remarks I make about my family's eating habits, the fact is, they don't get sick that often (And even when they do, there's some all natural way to take care of it: "When I feel like I have a cold, I just take a vitamin C and get some sleep!", my aunt said pointedly to my brother when he went to buy cold medicine).
However, no matter how healthy the food is, Thanksgiving is still a pretty sedentary holiday. Supposedly there's something in turkey that makes people feel sleepy, so I guess that would explain it. Because the day doesn't call for much physical activity, it seems more anti-body then body-centered.
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