What CAN you do that won’t kill you? Even the air we breathe is killing us. More than 200,000 people die per year due to air pollution according to the World Health Organization.
After watching What the Health, which documented the parallels between diet and disease, the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and food industries, much of the nation seemingly spiraled into a state of panic. This, following documentaries like Food Inc., Supersize Me, King Corn, Fed Up, and others that got our attention over the years, makes many start to wonder, what CAN you still eat?
Watching clips of animal pus and dead carcasses from factory farms is gross enough to make you go vegan (for a while, until you really miss cheese and there’s no substitution quite as good). Even your five-year-old vegetarian (soon to be vegan) is freaking out over the Sunday frittata because “eating eggs is like smoking five cigars,” which she picked up from watching What the Health (and it is not actually true). Eggs are really good for you; they’re not at all aligned with problems smoking causes. But guidelines change and certain foods are targeted as culprits.
Right now, sugar is the big killer. It actually has been for decades, and it’s just now catching up with people in the form of cancer. And it’s hidden in everything. Moms are losing it over high fructose corn syrup and trying to put kids on Whole 30 diets and detoxes to kick their sugar addictions. Sugar addiction is reported to be eight times stronger than a cocaine addiction. So you obviously can’t let your kids have sugar or you are a horrible parent. And every holiday is an attack on our health and well being with fatty foods and sugary sweets to help us eat our feelings about dealing with family drama. Valentine’s Day is coming up; go ahead, dive head first into a box of chocolates. Easter: time for cancerous ham. Memorial Day means crispy grilled carcinogen dogs of parts unknown.
And meat…this is a hot button topic because so many people have found successful weight loss on Keto and Paleo diets. Experts push protein, protein, protein. No carbs!
Yes, processed meat (lunch meats, sausages, beloved bacon) has been classified in the same category as causes of cancer such as tobacco smoking and asbestos. According to the World Health Organization, about 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat versus 1 million due to tobacco. Meanwhile, alcohol consumption is the cause of 600,000 deaths each year.
But you’re the family’s food police. No one eats Red 40 or high fructose corn syrup in your house. Dirty dozen? You’ve got that memorized, and that list and then some is all organic. Then you become “the elitist” that shows up at the family picnic with your jicama slaw made with apple cider vinegar (with “the mother” of course!) who judges everyone gluttonously chowing down on all the foods you don’t allow yourself to have, like the mayonnaise- and sugar-laden coleslaw, resenting their ambivalent bliss…if only you didn’t read so much! Why can’t you be more like your vegan cousin who actually likes the taste of kombucha and kimchee and probably has a probiotic gut worthy of a scientific scope study?
Science is evolving, humans are reaching higher levels of consciousness and evolving, and that change makes people uncomfortable. And no one likes to think their way of being, their way of eating, has been wrong all along. So if you bring it up, it’s likely to cause a debate resulting in some jaded family member mocking you.
So you can’t eat, you can’t talk about what you can eat, you can’t drink to deal with the stress, you can’t breathe…what CAN you do?
Most nutritionists agree, especially as far as weight is concerned, it’s 80 percent diet and only 20 percent exercise. And then, of course, the American Heart Association wants you to get 150 minutes of exercise each week. Some of the healthiest people stick to a 90/10 rule: 90 percent of the week, they eat healthy (no sugar, no processed foods that come in boxes, shopping only the perimeter of the grocery store and not the middle aisles, limiting alcohol to only a couple drinks per week, and whatever other restrictions you want to place on yourself) and 10 percent indulgence so you can live life and actually leave your house. Which usually means one free day on the weekends to live like a heathen, drinking, and eating carbs. And sometimes totally healthy people die, and great grandpa Paul, who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and ate eggs and bacon every morning, lived to be 95. There’s no explaining that.
