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DEL.ICIO.USEat to Live, Don’t Live to Eat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The word DIET is now a “four-letter” word. When you hear it, you think of the agonizing decrease in caloric consumption, cutting out carbs, lowering fat, and maybe eating nothing at all. The fact is, that you are always on a diet. The question is: On a diet of what? If it’s hamburgers and French fries, that’s not a good thing. If it’s whole foods like vegetables and lean meats, that’s a very good thing. When you speak of other species of life, such as a birds, you would say they are on a diet of worms and seeds. A hundred years from now, how would someone describe the typical American diet? Let’s stop and think about how people used to eat about 150+ years ago (on back). Back then, human beings lived like all other creatures of the Earth. You ate what was born, what was grown, or came from the sky or ground.
Our staples of food came from naturally grown or farmed vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, and leaves. During those times, there was no pasta, corn flakes, potato chips, or cheese cake.
Instead, you would either grow your plant foods in your gardens and fields or picked it from the wild. Eating whole foods like tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, and sunflower seeds came from your gardens. You might have picked berries, nuts, and strawberries from trees, vines, and bushes.
When you needed meat, you hunted, fished, and/or raised farm animals. Your ancestors cleaned and prepared the meat themselves (leaving almost nothing to waste, even the fat). Yet, the meat had less fat as it was not tainted with modern day farming practices (like the use of steroids). You sure as heck didn’t deep-fry meat and add tons sugar (curing practices might have been used for preservation, but not to increase taste).
Even the water you drank was not carbonated, colored, and filled full of sugar or articial sweetners. No aluminum cans or plastic bottles to put it in either. You would have to drink, simple, non-tasting fresh water. Hard to believe isn’t it?
To add in a little extra, you also exercised to retrieve those foods. You had to push the plow, walk and run to go hunting, pick the berries, and so on. You got exercise just to survive. Now, you need to exercise to survive.
Now, look at the modern day, Western civilized diet. Go in the grocery store and what do you see? Foods are packaged in boxes, jars, bottles, plastic wrappers, cans, Styrofoam, etc. The foods in these containers are processed grains, vegetables, meats, and fruits. They are dried, pumped up with fat (hydrogenation), sugar (usually high fructose corn syrup), depleted of vitamins and minerals, sprinkled with salt, etc.
Drive down the road, you have fast-food restaurants giving you their “meal of the day.” You can get more with a “value size” or “super size.” (If you haven’t seen the movie Supersize Me, go check it out). In the grocery stores and fast food restaurants you are given rewards like buy 2 get 1 free. Buy this “happy meal” and get this toy. Or, buy this soda you might win a million dollars, just look in the cap to see if you have won.
As a society, we have become gullible and ignorant to what is happening. Obesity and being overweight is now an epidemic, nearly 65% of the U.S. population is over “fat”. We are eating bad food and we don’t exercise. If you don’t care how it is affecting you, then look at your children. I must also compel you to think about the stress it is putting on the economy (both nationally and your own pocket) in health care costs and quality of life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you need to start hunting your own food and growing gardens. What I am saying, is that it is up to you to make wise choices and to eat a diet of moderation, variety, and balance. It’s no longer a question of whether you eat to survive, you have to eat. However, you must ask yourself, how do you survive to eat the way you do?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Weight Loss
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By Debby
December 11, 2007 9:33 AM | Link to this
You’re absolutely right. Now bring on the fudge!
By Katie
December 11, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this
Yes, diet is a 4 letter word. 1.d 2.i 3.e 4.t
By MADMOMMY
December 11, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this
I agree that we all need to sit down and look at what we are doing to ourselves, but with honesty. I know that I don’t always eat the way I should, but if you follow the 90-10 plan, workout for atleast 30-60 minutes a day you should be fine. Having something maybe once a month isn’t a big deal, it’s when people are eating it day in and day out. We need to give our bodies the respect they deserve and teach our children to do the same. I hate to think what the world is going to be like in the next 50 years if keep going down this road.
Oh yea, most of us will be dead from our lifestyles by then, so who cares where are at anyway.