It is becoming more and more difficult for one to live a healthy lifestyle, and, from a very general perspective, I feel this is the result of many factors, a great many of which have been ushered in by the continued corporate takeover of America, and of the world. The sick and destructive tactics engaged in a capitalistic society in the interest of making a dollar have severely endangered the lifestyle, not to mention lifespan, of mankind. When asked the question of what I can do to live a healthier lifestyle, my reaction is usually to grimace and to, in turn, ask: “The real question is, what couldn’t I do to live a healthier lifestyle?”
The ugly truth of it is this: my diet is beyond abysmal. Family life has some, but not everything to do with my diet. I come from a middle class family of fairly active individuals, as well as a strong push from my father’s side to be athletic and fit. I also come from a family that has two vegetarian members and an increasingly (and I’ll admit often maddeningly) selective diet. This is to say that a great deal of what is offered these days is all salmon, all vegetarian, and all organic as much as possible.
I grew up, as many kids of my generation, having sleepovers with gawky, awkward boys my age where we stayed up until six or seven o’clock in the morning drinking Cherry Pepsi, eating pizza and Doritos, watching Saturday Night Live and playing video games. We read comic books. We were living the American dream as it had been reshaped in the late 20th century. Thankfully, we were also active. We had little to do in this town, and so we spent a great deal of time playing baseball, hiking, building go carts, exploring the matrix of tunnels under the city, running long distances after playing pranks on our neighbors, and making up games with giant refrigerator boxes.
All in all, those days were a blast, but as with a sugar rush, I crashed later on, suffering bouts of extreme depression that crippled me emotionally. I can’t help but imagine things being influenced, at least a bit, by a diet that I inherited early on in a household which encouraged a lot of exercise but which also was the source of a great deal of temptation due to a seemingly constant supply of chips, fried chicken, soft drinks and pizza.
Today, I get frequent lectures from loved ones regarding their worries about my diet, among other things. I have a regular schedule of exercise including hiking and weight lifting, but my diet remains absolutely terrible. Often it feels as if I eat a diet so narrow that my entire palate is recycled every three days. I have a diet that is so selective as to limit me from eating many vegetables at all. When I was young, I was told I’d develop a taste for them when I got older. While my peers began to do just that, I was still unable to stomach many vegetables, to the point where if I accidentally bit into a small onion in a pizza, I would have to hurry to the bathroom to get sick.
It is a strange twist of fate to be writing on this topic now, as just last week I was prompted to do some research on the Internet regarding my continuing, and sometimes embarrassing, distaste for a great many vegetables. Finding an article from Web MD entitled “Why don’t I like vegetables?” it was made clear to me that there are those people out there who possess a great deal more taste buds and certain concentrations than others. These individuals, often referred to as “supertasters” taste everything to a greater degree than others. Vegetables are likely to taste a great deal more bitter, and a simple test can determine whether or not one is a ”supertaster.” It is recommended these people take vitamins in lieu of vegetables if they absolutely cannot stomach them.
My conclusion from all of this is that there is a good possibility that my diet may be the result of household influences and lifestyle choices from the time I can remember, and that there is always a chance I can change it. This is one of my goals for the new year. If all else fails, I may go the route of vitamins.
But the beginning where you are blamung what is a personal problem and personal choices on the evil corporate world is pretty much of a cop out.
I think practically every kid in America early in their schooling for the last several generations has been exposed to the food pyramid. I don't buy the notion that people can't tell the difference between healthy food and the crap that they are actually eating. You made it perfectly clear that you understand the difference.
I see for the most part in your blog that you and your family are taking personal responsibility for the content of your diets. That's good. Blaming diet on anyone but the person who is putting the food in their mouths and in the case of kids, their parents is ridiculous. People have brains and they should use them to make choices and to discriminate against unhealthy foods.
Yeah, I agree. You can't blame dieting habits on a culture; it only has to do with the individual. If you're not eating healthy, then you're just acting stupid.
The only reason why people in, say, Japan, have so much healthier eating habits is obviously because they have smarter brains. Duh.
I don't know why anybody was so dull-minded as to think the culture might be to blame.
(On a side note: I'm sick of all these new liberal theorists who actually think that the type of environment a criminal was born into is to blame for his actions. So what if Johnny's brother was selling some weed on the corner at the age 12. So what if his parents might have done a few lines of coke on the weekends. So what if they sold some of that for a little extra cash too. And so what if those parents never gave two shits about what Johnny did. Just because Johnny came up in a place like that does not mean he's any less to blame for selling drugs than a kid in the wealthy perfect lawn suburbs-- a kid who's mom yelled at him to stay away from the people who drank on the weekends just as a precaution (not because he ever actually did)-- who grows into a drug dealer. Just because the odds of it even happening are infinitely higher Johny's case shouldn't lead you to suspect that maybe there was something about the environment that could stand to be changed. Geeez. These liberals are ridiculous.)
Yet lots of people in America do manage to eat healthy diets dispite our horrible culture. /end response to your sarcasm
But as a conservative and particularly a cultural conservative I do appreciate your argument. Culture is extremely important which is one of the reasons why I am not a liberal. Apparently you do not buy into the arguments of cultural relativism. I agree with that train of thought entirely. Some cultures are vastly superior than others and the evidence is the far better outcomes that they deliver to their people compared to places with inferior cultures.
Japanese culture which I believe I have seen you write about has quite a bit to admire and serves the Japanese well. I personally think that American culture, despite some of its baser aspects including our penchant for fatty fast foods and mass marketing by fast food companies is the best culture the world has yet seen and has delivered an amazing quality of life and unparalleled wealth for our people.
Even though your comment was meant sarcastically I am in full agreement that culture is important and does play a role in our behavior and lifestyles and in many other important aspects of how our lives play out. At the same time, educated Ppeople are influenced by culture but they are not slaves to it.
Superior culture?
Hold on a second there:
You seem to have missed out on part of my point. When I spoke of corporate america, and blaming them, this blame is NOT a cop out nor misplaced. The fact is that 90% of corporate America blasts our food with chemicals and poor growing habits that result in food that (in some cases slowly and in some cases quickly) KILLS us. This is the height of irresponsibility on THEIR part.
No longer is the "food pyramid" good enough to maintain a healthy diet. You can live your life by the food pyramid and still end up eating chicken breat made from chickens who spend their lives in cages shitting on top of each other (salmonela anyone?), milk begat from cows who are fed hormones that cause prostate cancer in humans and young girls to become sexually mature by age 9, or margarine marketed to people as a healthy alternative to real butter when margerine itself was first used to fatten up turkeys (killing them in the process).
Perhaps I should have been more clear in my blog as to HOW corporate America needs to shoulder a lot of blame for the diet and health problems of Americans.
Buy organic, for pete's sake!!!!
Hold on a second there:
You seem to have missed out on part of my point. When I spoke of corporate america, and blaming them, this blame is NOT a cop out nor misplaced. The fact is that 90% of corporate America blasts our food with chemicals and poor growing habits that result in food that (in some cases slowly and in some cases quickly) KILLS us. This is the height of irresponsibility on THEIR part.
No longer is the "food pyramid" good enough to maintain a healthy diet. You can live your life by the food pyramid and still end up eating chicken breat made from chickens who spend their lives in cages shitting on top of each other (salmonela anyone?), milk begat from cows who are fed hormones that cause prostate cancer in humans and young girls to become sexually mature by age 9, or margarine marketed to people as a healthy alternative to real butter when margerine itself was first used to fatten up turkeys (killing them in the process).
Perhaps I should have been more clear in my blog as to HOW corporate America needs to shoulder a lot of blame for the diet and health problems of Americans.
Buy organic, for pete's sake!!!!
If that was what you meant then fine. It was not particularly clear because most of the rest of your blog was about foods that were inherently unhealthy like pizza, cherry coke and Doritos so I thought you were blaming the corporate world for what you chose to put in your mouth.
Like I said, I could have been more clear. I just wanted to set the record straight.
Interesting blog. As for supplements instead of veggies, I recommend "Juice Plus." We've been taking it for years. I like fruits and veggies, but not a lot and don't eat them too often, so Juice Plus has been awesome. We haven't been able to order them the past few months, and I'm sick for the first time in a LONG time...you have to order them specially (you can't just get them at the store), but I think they're worth it.
Good luck!
RESPECT LIFE
SMILE EVERY DAY
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
I've never heard of Juice Plus. What is it? Is it a juice with vitamins? Or is it a vitamin?
Anyway, Vruit is a fruit juice with vegetable juice in it. It's pretty good and super nutritious, and you can buy it in the regular grocery store. Another option is the Superfood juice by Naked. It is my favorite juice, actually. It tastes like bananas and kiwi and apple. It's delicious! But because it has so much good green veggieness in it, it looks terrible! It's a nauseating green color. It has spinach, spirulina, and wheat grass in it, which means it is FULL of iron and iodine, which are really good for the immune system. (and if you leave a glass of it sitting out for too long, it oxidizes and turns brown like an apple, but that's how you know it's real!) But it really does taste good. If you can get past the color, it is so worth it!
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
My husband is a Juice Plus distributor. It is dehydrated fruits and vegetables stuffed into a capsule. When you drink water, they rehydrate in your stomach, and your intestines process it as it is, natural food. Much more absorption than vitamins, which are mostly excreted without any absorption.
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I guess the idea is to make small changes where it really counts, like limiting soda to once a week, and trying healthier pizza toppings. As for the vegetables, you could try getting creative and trying ones you've never eaten before and are outside of mainstream.
As a society, we are getting unhealthier, but at least we are becoming more active. I live in a college dorm and rely on the cafeteria for food. Although I do frequently eat a salad. I actually do like veggies, I'm really not a picky eater. I could take the time to make at least one healthy meal each day, but frankly I'm too lazy and their are other things I'd rather be doing. Plus my dorm kitchen scares me. I'm pretty sure the oven will explode one day.
As kids, we all ate crap. I still do when I go to parties. And we stayed up late and attempted to disprove the theory that TV would rot our brains. But we learn from our mistakes, so I think that it has helped in the long run. Kids can stomach pretty much anything.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711