A new choice of fear
I picked a new topic. Death is too raw of a subject. And too easy, too over-done to promote fear with it. New topic: How to be afraid of your own body. Based on how many exact things need to go right for it to be sustained. How awful would it be if I succeeded in making another person afraid of their own body? Knowing how fragile mortality is.
I like this topic better because it plays with my belief that fear comes from ignorance. What if I created fear based on information?? No, just because it's a writing challenge doesn't mean I should do it. I'll just make you afraid of your dinner plate.
The World Health Organization states that the top 10 leading causes of death are:
Ischaemic heart disease - plaque in the arteries that reduces the flow of blood/oxygen to the heart
Stroke - interruption of blood to the brain
Lower respiratory infection
COPD is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Trachea and bronchus cancers
Diabetes mellitus
Alzheimer
Diarrhoeal diseases
Tuberculosis
Road Injury
I think a lot of these are caused by ignorance. Not fear. So I fear the ignorance. All of these, including road injury (only to a point, but to make a point) are fairly preventable before the age of 90. My working theory is that it's the ignorance of how the human body works that causes all of these things. I'm not here to make light of the pain and affliction and loss that comes from these things. I'm testing out a neutral theory, hoping to scare myself straight. The ignorance of how the body works starts with what we eat, and how we eat it, and how we digest it. I am only going to scratch the surface here, so don't waste too much of your time accusing me of things that haven't been put in context. Save your energy for evaluating your own food choices. And yes, I'm actually being undiplomatic and accusing here, because I want people to really think about this.
What did you eat for breakfast today? A banana? Good choice if you live in Costa Rica. Not a good choice if you live in Alaska. Those people in the land of the chosen frozen don't need the bananas specific benefits. Bananas are designed to be eaten by people living in tropical places. Eat locally grown food. I want you to be afraid of your breakfast plate. Did you eat a banana? Good. Did you eat it cooked into a pancake and served with syrup and whipped cream and fried eggs and 5 strips of bacon? Or should I say with wheat after most of the bran and germ are removed, and high fructose corn syrup, and extreme amounts of sugar, with unborn fowl and cooked pieces of the side and belly of a pig?
I picked this subject to write about, and I'm already very anxious thinking about it. I fear the knowledge because I don't feel good about the changes it will require.
I am what I eat. I am pasta salad. Olives from a can. White flour pasta. Cured pork and beef known as pepperoni. Yikes. The bell pepper is good, the tomato is good. Yay for me. The cheese is... a product of the pressed curds of milk from some cow that I've never met. The process from getting the milk from the cow to getting the cheese into my hands to shred for dinner - it's entirely unnatural. When is the last time you read a label on your food? How much time would it take you to research every item you ate for lunch, down to what type of salt was used?
We should all be afraid of our favorite foods. Most of them aren't good for us, and aren't even designed to benefit anything except a few tiny taste receptors on the tongue, and the sense of smell. We let taste ruin our health. That's frightening. I've spent time with some strange people who have odd ways of doing things. But I hadn't heard of a raw food diet until last year. It makes perfect sense to me. But it's near impossible. What we eat is a big part of who we are. My raw foodist friends have severely altered life-styles. It's so hard to not eat the stuff out there on every menu. The 3 raw food friends I have live alone. I will leave you with one last scary thought. Imagine yourself spending the next week making healthy food choices. Not just some, but all of them. How drastically would your life have to change? But every change you make now is a favor to your 90 year old self.
It's all about credible sources though, right? Looking for facts on the internet is like asking 500 grandparents to give you the same answer to the same question. Ecology.com says 105 people die every minute, around the world. That sounds pretty scary.
I like this topic better because it plays with my belief that fear comes from ignorance. What if I created fear based on information?? No, just because it's a writing challenge doesn't mean I should do it. I'll just make you afraid of your dinner plate.
The World Health Organization states that the top 10 leading causes of death are:
Ischaemic heart disease - plaque in the arteries that reduces the flow of blood/oxygen to the heart
Stroke - interruption of blood to the brain
Lower respiratory infection
COPD is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Trachea and bronchus cancers
Diabetes mellitus
Alzheimer
Diarrhoeal diseases
Tuberculosis
Road Injury
I think a lot of these are caused by ignorance. Not fear. So I fear the ignorance. All of these, including road injury (only to a point, but to make a point) are fairly preventable before the age of 90. My working theory is that it's the ignorance of how the human body works that causes all of these things. I'm not here to make light of the pain and affliction and loss that comes from these things. I'm testing out a neutral theory, hoping to scare myself straight. The ignorance of how the body works starts with what we eat, and how we eat it, and how we digest it. I am only going to scratch the surface here, so don't waste too much of your time accusing me of things that haven't been put in context. Save your energy for evaluating your own food choices. And yes, I'm actually being undiplomatic and accusing here, because I want people to really think about this.
What did you eat for breakfast today? A banana? Good choice if you live in Costa Rica. Not a good choice if you live in Alaska. Those people in the land of the chosen frozen don't need the bananas specific benefits. Bananas are designed to be eaten by people living in tropical places. Eat locally grown food. I want you to be afraid of your breakfast plate. Did you eat a banana? Good. Did you eat it cooked into a pancake and served with syrup and whipped cream and fried eggs and 5 strips of bacon? Or should I say with wheat after most of the bran and germ are removed, and high fructose corn syrup, and extreme amounts of sugar, with unborn fowl and cooked pieces of the side and belly of a pig?
I picked this subject to write about, and I'm already very anxious thinking about it. I fear the knowledge because I don't feel good about the changes it will require.
I am what I eat. I am pasta salad. Olives from a can. White flour pasta. Cured pork and beef known as pepperoni. Yikes. The bell pepper is good, the tomato is good. Yay for me. The cheese is... a product of the pressed curds of milk from some cow that I've never met. The process from getting the milk from the cow to getting the cheese into my hands to shred for dinner - it's entirely unnatural. When is the last time you read a label on your food? How much time would it take you to research every item you ate for lunch, down to what type of salt was used?
We should all be afraid of our favorite foods. Most of them aren't good for us, and aren't even designed to benefit anything except a few tiny taste receptors on the tongue, and the sense of smell. We let taste ruin our health. That's frightening. I've spent time with some strange people who have odd ways of doing things. But I hadn't heard of a raw food diet until last year. It makes perfect sense to me. But it's near impossible. What we eat is a big part of who we are. My raw foodist friends have severely altered life-styles. It's so hard to not eat the stuff out there on every menu. The 3 raw food friends I have live alone. I will leave you with one last scary thought. Imagine yourself spending the next week making healthy food choices. Not just some, but all of them. How drastically would your life have to change? But every change you make now is a favor to your 90 year old self.
It's all about credible sources though, right? Looking for facts on the internet is like asking 500 grandparents to give you the same answer to the same question. Ecology.com says 105 people die every minute, around the world. That sounds pretty scary.
I will leave you with one last scary thought. Imagine yourself spending the next week making healthy food choices. Not just some, but all of them. How drastically would your life have to change? But every change you make now is a favor to your 90 year old self. I think real fear is the 90 year old we can't become, because we made such ignorant food choices we are making today.
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/digestive-system-how-it-works has a wonderful basic information layout. I encourage you to read it.
What you eat affects your immune system's ability to keep you at maximum health. There are people out there doing it right. On her 90th birthday in 2011 Hazel McCallion was assessed by Dr. Barbara Clive, a geriatrician, who stated that "at 90 her gait is perfect, her speech is totally sharp and she has the drive to still run this city. She was a mayor in Canada until she was 94 years old.
Comments
Post a Comment