Dietary Diatribe
By Tom Goode

The way things seem to be going in the wellness field, I am thinking of dropping out altogether. When I began to get healthy as a treatment for what had been diagnosed as a terminal and incurable condition, it was easier than now. Then, all you had to do was find out what was thought to be the healthiest dietary regimen and adopt it. You “sucked it up” in terms of your conditioned taste preferences and adapted to new flavors that you consciously associated with health.  Sugar is poison; get over it, coffee is bad for you and alcohol eats your brain cells.

Next, you only had to avoid the preservatives (they “caused” cancer) and animal hormones that infused the system at the time of inhumane slaughtering. The “then” condition of the world led me to become a vegetarian, not for any concern for food-stuff animals, but because it was conceived as the healthiest alternative. Of course I had to “purge” my system to get rid of all of the “bad” stuff I had been unconsciously consuming. That took the form of colonics, liver cleanses, gall bladder cleanses, and periodic—up to month-long—fasting. I also learned to brush my tongue along with my teeth.

Then things changed. Research showed that pesticides were rampant in our vegetable stock; low-cost chemical fertilizers caused “unnatural” growth, and salad dressings were found to be loaded with unhealthy and sometimes addictive substances.  I adopted a macrobiotic regimen, eating fish and soy, rice, beans and seaweed. This apparently worked well for the Japanese and became widely adopted here in the US.  Coffee was considered detrimental and tea was the suggested substitute—that and cereal based beverages that pretended the appearance if not the taste or boost of coffee. 

Alas, it was found that too much soy increased the hormone estrogen in the body, resulting in weight gain and producing a feminizing effect in some men. That and the soy that most American ate was a processed food with attendant impurities and disadvantages.  Fish was found to be potentially toxic from mercury and fish farms considered to be unclean. Rice was seen as mucus producing and insulin producing so I quit being macrobiotic.

I became an observer of the Ayurvedic lifestyle and a dietary participant in its practices.  This was a healthier choice and is still a generally good one to make for those concerned with their health. It too had its disadvantages, however. The meat was mostly chicken and commercial sources were laden with antibiotics and hormones. The rice was still a high glycemic index food and there was a fair amount of sugary fare to be avoided. I did lose some of the weight that accumulated while I had been selecting from the macrobiotic menu. Coffee intake was revisited and considered healthful if not consumed in excess.

Research indicating the loss of minerals in vegetables from being raised in depleted soil increased the need for supplementary sources, and a healthy dietary regimen was not considered complete without a complement of daily vitamins that had to be taken throughout the day to provide the best opportunity for absorption. Plus vitamins were seen as the required offset to growing concerns over environmental toxins from automobiles and acid rain. Coffee was thought to be harmful to the adrenals and productive of aggressive tendencies. Milk was found to be from cows and best suited to their offspring, causing difficulty in digestion for a large percentage of the American public with allergies cured through its discontinuation.

Further research then established that protein was the best source of nutrition (see the Adkins diet) and exercise the panacea for ill health. At that time, a brief daily walk was the prescription for both peaceful mind and healthy body. Chicken, however, was tainted and eating it thought by some to be a harmful chemical ingestion. Mostly it was fried in harmful substances that would override any benefits it might provide.  Commercially produced meat was unnatural for the most part and filled with hormones, preservatives, and grain substances that themselves were deleterious for human health. Eggs were thought to be a contributor to conditions of heart disease, fat was out and fish continued to be suspect. I turned to protein powder.

Protein powder from soy turned out to be productive of the same soy problems as previously encountered and might also contain neurotoxic substances. Whey and egg protein powder became my next option. Too much of any one good thing however does not confer goodness itself, only a sensitivity that is produced over time. A variety of protein sources was best then and now.

Fortunately for every problem, there was a vitamin or other supplement, a tea, a tree extract, and infinite variations of their underlying themes. There was even a protein pill to assist digestion. As each new food problem was discovered, nutritionists and other experts came up with a fix. My “medicine” cabinet  continued to grow with the numbers of  vitamins, herb concoctions and other substances I was consuming to protect  me from my food and to make up for its lack. Coffee became recognized as a vasodilator, beneficial CNS stimulant and researchers produced studies demonstrating preventive benefits.

Today, eggs are considered to be virtually “the perfect food” and we should drink only filtered water. I wonder what a half century of drinking unfiltered water treated with chemicals has done. I won’t worry about it though since there is a pill somewhere in the cabinet for it. Organic food is the big thing now; that along with free range chickens, and free-range, grass-fed beef, sheep and bison. Have you ever seen a “natural chicken?” They are muscular and wiry; not at all like the plump, tender poultry your mouth is used to. It humors also me to read that my eggs come from free-range-uncaged chickens fed a vegetarian diet. I think this means that someone patrols the yard to keep the chickens from eating insects which, when I was a boy, was their natural preference. Plus if they are fed a vegetarian diet that would include grain (chicken feed) including corn and we all know what is in that!

Of course, organic isn’t the whole answer either since, with new regulations, you can’t even tell if a particular food is organic. The word “natural” on the package is helpful sometimes in that it indicates that your food wasn’t injected with antibiotics or hormones. You get enough of those in your water supply nowadays and even if you drink purified water most of the time, your iced tea at lunch, your coffee from most commercial establishments and your water with a slice of lemon at the restaurant are all suspect.  All of the “unnatural” stuff that you consume creates an annoyance to your system—call it irritation—that produces inflammation. What is considered natural, however, by some food purveyors just isn’t. No worries, take another pill. Specifically take fish oil, making sure that it comes from non-contaminated sources—like they’d tell you on the bottle, right?  The commercial substitutes for sugar are worse than sugar ever was and now, we are told, alcohol doesn’t eat your brain cells and drinking may be good for you unless you are pregnant, have blood sugar problems, an addiction gene or have to drive. 

The final insult, moving upon us as a great tidal wave, is obesity. Food has been so romanced as a source of delight and comfort in what may be perceived as a sometimes harsh and lonely world that we Americans are eating ourselves to death.  As a substitute for companionship, harmonious relationship and as a drug to offset the woes of everyday life, food is served in an infinite variety of tastes, textures, colors and arrangements that invite our consumption—vast quantities of it. We are eating so much now that “medical experts” are recommending 90 minutes of daily exercise to combat the eating epidemic. Plus, you guessed it, there are pills to block absorptions of fats thought to contribute to obesity, prevent carbohydrate digestion so you can have your cake (and breakfast candy, called boxed cereal) and eat it too, and concoctions to speed up your metabolism to burn off the extra calories (without considering of what is happening to your endocrine system or long-term prospects of damage).

Do you believe you are overweight because you eat too much? Has it occurred to you that you might eat too much because you believe you are overweight? Think on this!

Now, you can take an acid blocker and overeat to your mouth and stomach’s desire and not suffer the consequence. Of, if you should inadvertently overindulge, there is a remedy. And never mind that your elimination process becomes skewed and you have to take pills to regulate your bowels.  Also disregard the evidence that having stomach acid is the cure for indigestion rather than taking a pill that blocks its production. Why overeat in the first place? Who holds the gun to your head? What part of you thinks that stuffing the face will make up for perceived lacks in your personality life?

Getting older? Now it is considered normal for you to be unable to digest food. The latest in promotional wellness is the need for Probiotics. Since you have been killing off the healthy bacteria in your digestive tract, you need to put some in. Of course the body will do this on its own if given permission and the proper conditions. There is also a new trend I note regarding enzymes, and they are absolutely required for your healthy functioning. This idea however, says that all those enzymes that you needed, are now exhausted because of your past eating and you are powerless. The good news? There is a pill. And, if you worry about it or have concern for the future, you can start by taking them now before the (implicitly inevitable) condition takes place and you are stricken. Cells phones and microwaves may be damaging depending upon whose opinion you read and the current remedy is to avoid both while X-rays used to diagnose conditions may, along with the treatment, be worse than the condition itself.

So I may be getting out of the wellness business because there is no one to talk to. My advice to the diet weary is that the last time I looked, your cells replace themselves on a regular basis and, if left alone and not constricted by a belief in powerlessness, the body is a self-repairing mechanism. I note that the animals in nature and household pets have weathered all of the outside threats pretty well…meaning that they still live about the same length of time and have all of their functions up until the end of their lives. This occurs in spite of toxic food from China, low-grade processed food (mostly cereal and grains and left-over animal parts) and environmental pollution. Caron and I were caretakers (pets are companions; I’m not sure we are ever “owners.”) of a female Great Dane. She lived to be 16 years old, almost 3X the average and even though she lived in the (then) most polluted part of the country, she never worried and she never took vitamins.

The future surely holds new threats to health and, as they arise, so will new cures appear in the forms of medicines, vitamins, pills and potions. All convince the individual of his or her essential vulnerability and helplessness. As such even the cures that come from the alternative side of treatment are a form of negative programming that will weaken the system and cause the predictions to become self-fulfilling prophecies. What’s a person to do?

What I am counseling is that you can use a certain amount of common sense and innate wisdom in engaging your personal future with food. ..and other things. Above all, remember and affirm that your body is a self-healing manifestation of nature that is highly adaptable to a wide variety of influences. And if you do not believe in your own health, there is no cure that will be effective.

Finally, let’s suppose there is a man who observes the cleanest of dietary habits, exercises regularly and is a non-smoker. He is, however, an angry person, distrustful and blames others for his misfortunes. Then there is a second man who, disregarding all that is known about diet and exercise, eats what he wants and doesn’t exercise. In addition, he smokes a couple of packs of cigarettes each day. He is however, friendly to all, having a good word to say about everyone and thinks that people are basically good.

Who do you think will live longer? Who do you think will enjoy it more? Of course, it is only in my imagination, but I believe firmly that if we could ask Jesus or the Buddha about our diets, they would tell us that what comes out of our mouths (as mirrors of our innermost thoughts) is far more important that what goes into them.