This is an email from a friend, Bob, who owns and operates Fiddlehead Farms in West Tisbury the Island of Martha’s Vineyard. This is a photo of Bob. I had asked him for some mint to put in my veggie drinks and he had just come in from picking it from his garden.
I’m finally back on the island after several weeks of schlepping to CA to visit family then D.C. to see a friend. Now I am in a mad dash to prepare to leave for Nicaragua on Thurs., hopefully for the next four months. I spent several days in Los Angeles visiting my older brother. He is 57 and an unhapppily retired vascular surgeon who has type 2 diabetes. To his credit he lost thirty lbs. and is controlling his blood sugars reasonably well but I was stunned with how little he knows. His exercise regimen consists of walking the dog around the block twice a day and he subsists on Lean Cuisine! I asked him about what an optimal diet consists of for a diabetic. He said he is limiting his intake of bread, starches, etc. After a few days in his house it occurred to me that I never ate so much bread in my life! I guess it’s all relative.
I suggested he read Death by Supermarket but I think I will have to send him my copy if that is ever going to happen. By the way, he is also taking statins and probably a handful of other stuff.
I also saw the local supermarket (Von’s) and was pretty disappointed considering it was in a fairly affluent area. The produce was minimal and organic choices were more abundant (by far) at the Edgartown Stop & Shop. This really surprised me. Lot’s of premade foods that looked sort of tired and dry around the edges.
When I arrived in D.C. the disappointments continued. I remember that D.C. in spite of its residents is a pretty poor place as far as food is concerned. I went to Eastern Market (oldest market in the USA) and was appalled. Mostly very generic stuff and poor selection and quality. The meats purveyors made up the bulk of the displays which were uniformly cheerless and drab expressions of the lowest order. Produce was nearly nonexistent and what was there was marginal. I was so disappointed. It reminded me of a supermarket: circa 1962!
Well, soon I will be shopping daily in a thriving, bustling third world market with stalls piled high with all sorts of things, freshly slaughtered meat, smoky tortilla griddles and sacks of rice, beans and God knows what else.
I’m never surprised anymore by the stories of doctors and other intelligent, educated people flushing their health down the drain. I remember once hearing Michael Moore say that he only had a high school education and he’s figured things out about corporations. If you read my bio you’ll see that my formal education is even more spotty, but I’ve managed to figure things out about food and health.
I spent 13 years tryin
g to change people’s minds about food. Now I just want to be healthy myself and write my novels. The recalcitrance of the American people is one reason why I am changing careers. It started to feel like I was the food police and I really hated that! I’ve given up thinking creatively about changing people’s minds and it’s liberating because now I’m thinking about characters in my fiction and that’s more fun! I’m still going to write health blogs because I’m interested in the subject but as I have pointed out many times there is a division of the classes occurring in this country and people have the free will to decide which side they are going to be on, eating poison and taking handfuls of pharmaceutical drugs, and being tethered to tubes and medical appliances and procedures, or eating natural food and being healthy. It’s a choice and the fact that people pretend that it’s too confusing or make up excuses is their choice. People are smart enough to figure it out, they are simply making the choice to be ignorant.
My blog is dedicated to my Life Mission: Living a happy and fulfilled life, caring about body, mind, and spirit. I hope you come back and read how you can define, explore, and live your Life Mission.
DIVISION OF THE CLASSES
When I arrived in D.C. the disappointments continued. I remember that D.C. in spite of its residents is a pretty poor place as far as food is concerned. I went to Eastern Market (oldest market in the USA) and was appalled. Mostly very generic stuff and poor selection and quality. The meats purveyors made up the bulk of the displays which were uniformly cheerless and drab expressions of the lowest order. Produce was nearly nonexistent and what was there was marginal. I was so disappointed. It reminded me of a supermarket: circa 1962!
I spent 13 years tryin
g to change people’s minds about food. Now I just want to be healthy myself and write my novels. The recalcitrance of the American people is one reason why I am changing careers. It started to feel like I was the food police and I really hated that! I’ve given up thinking creatively about changing people’s minds and it’s liberating because now I’m thinking about characters in my fiction and that’s more fun! I’m still going to write health blogs because I’m interested in the subject but as I have pointed out many times there is a division of the classes occurring in this country and people have the free will to decide which side they are going to be on, eating poison and taking handfuls of pharmaceutical drugs, and being tethered to tubes and medical appliances and procedures, or eating natural food and being healthy. It’s a choice and the fact that people pretend that it’s too confusing or make up excuses is their choice. People are smart enough to figure it out, they are simply making the choice to be ignorant.