Is Our Food Killing Us?

Last week while I was browsing through Borders in search of a book that I had in mind and never did find, I came across Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, An Eater's Manifesto. I had read a brief article about the book recently and had it in the back of my mind to look into it. I scanned a few pages, it piqued my interest, I paid for it and walked out.

The book begins with these three extremely small, yet powerful sentences: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." That's all I read, that's all I needed to read. I wanted to see what he had to say.

In his Introductory chapter, he starts by giving us some bare essential facts:

"...eating a little meat isn't going to kill you, though it might be better approached as a side dish than as a main."

I consider this a nugget of wisdom. Since reading this, I have incorporated this approach. The recommended serving size of meat should be 3 ounces or the size of a deck of cards. However, I rarely ate 3 ounces, going over the recommended allowance. I do not eat much red meat, but I do, however, eat much chicken. All of my life I've regarded meat as the foremost and essential portion of my daily nutritional needs. This was the way I was raised. But, unfortunately, today we are no longer living in the age of our parents where the meats that landed on their plates were not injected with the hormones and antibiotics they are today because of the mass production that exists. We can no longer be cavalier about the foods we eat because wholesome foods and wholesome raising of animals is no longer the norm. Today, we are more knowledgeable than a generation ago about the harmful effects of consuming too much meat, including how its fat content makes its way into our arteries in time producing heart-related problems. However, a shift is happening and Americans are once again taking their health into their own hands and questioning the conditions in which the food on their plates have come from, how much meat they wish to consume, if any, and the nutritional value of the abundance of empty calories (an oxymoron for sure) that proliferates supermarkets.

"Four of the top 10 causes of death today are chronic diseases with well-established links to diet: coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer."

This should not come as a shock. Americans like to do everything large. I rarely find a restaurant where I finish my entire meal. And the accruing years of too much food - too much sugar, salt, fat, processed foods, starches and meat - is not healthy. Moderation is not a word we heed often. And so it goes without saying that if we glutton our way through life, we will inevitably pay a price.

"...chronic diseases that now kill most of us can be traced directly to the industrialization of our food: the rise of highly processed foods and refined grains; the use of chemicals to raise plants and animals...the superabundance of cheap calories of sugar an fat...and the narrowing of the biological diversity of the human diet to a tiny handful of staple crops, notably wheat, corn and soy. These changes have given us the Western diet...lots of processed food and meat, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of everything - except vegetables, fruits and whole grains ...wherever in the world people gave up their traditional way of eating and adopted a Western diet, there soon followed a predictable series of Western diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer."

There you have it, black and white, which shuts the door to those who might want to argue different. All you have to do is rent Super Size Me, a documentary with director/writer, Morgan Spurlock, who decided to sustain himself on a MacDonald's diet for one month. One month of breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald's. Before embarking "he consulted three doctors - a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a general practitioner, all of whom said this experiment obviously wouldn't be GOOD for him, but that the damages would be minimal. Instead, the results were pretty shocking. Spurlock gained almost 30 pounds (over 10 in the first week), saw his cholesterol skyrocket, and experienced frequent nausea, chest pains, mood swings and loss of sex drive." The film is a learning experience into the world of those who frequent fast food and its correlation into the deterioration of your health.

So given that what you eat can healthily sustain you or cause you illness, what changes will you begin making today?