Supermarket Minefield

I've been thinking a lot about food and health lately.

For the better part of the past decade - if not longer, I've been aware that I have high cholesterol.  While I contributed to it with regular doses of cheese and hamburgers (tip: the two taste great when combined), I also have my genes to thank for its base level.  What is high?  Well, let's just say that it was somewhere below Ted Williams' lifetime batting average, but not much.




It always seemed unfair to me that I'd have high cholesterol. While I've taken time off from exercising from time to time, I've been active far more than not and I've always eaten better than my cholesterol number would suggest - or so I thought.  At various times, I've had doctors tell me that unless I could lower my number, they'd recommend Lipitor or other statin drugs to do the job.  But the idea taking a pill for the rest of my life (at was then only my early 30's) seemed both onerous and expensive.  I told the doctor to let me try on my own first.

For more than 5 years, I tried and had only marginal success.  The number, at times, was lower, but then it would rise again.  I modified my diet.  Less fries, 'lite' cheese, lean meat, turkey.  Inevitably, though, there'd be a plate of nachos or what is still my weakness, a bowl of French onion soup with that broiled layered of oh so tasty cheese. Let's not even talk about ice cream.

A few years ago, I felt a tightness right about the area where my heart is.  It hurt, but because I'd developed a latent paranoia about heart disease, I was aware that my symptoms were not that of a heart attack.  Soon after that I sought the attention of a local cardiologist.  (The doctor, for the purposes of imagining the scene, is a dead ringer for Matthew Broderick, right down to the voice and mannerisms.)  I made the doctor do all kinds of tests:  EKGs, a treadmill stress test, and I even got to see a three dimensional computer model of my heart.  Aside from all that being very cool and fun (and probably expensive), I learned that my heart is very strong and in good shape and that the pain I was occasionally feeling was likely musco-skeletal and had nothing to do with my cardiovascular system.  However, my cholesterol and especially my triglycerides levels were indeed still very high and I'd need to do something about it or risk heart disease, heart attack, and of course pre-mature death. (And while what the doctor was saying rang true, it's hard to take serious medical advice from - take your pick - Ferris Bueller, Eugene Morris Jerome, or Leo Bloom.)

But back to food now.  In the past couple of years, I've made some major changes to my diet.  It began, as I noted with a reduction in cholesterol laden foods.  I slowly began to cleave (dig the diction) meat out of my diet.  I ate it from time to time, but rarely ever bought it in the grocery store.  I was still eating chicken and turkey, though.  I was, along with my wife, trying out recipes from Eating Well and other more 'healthy' oriented websites or magazines, but deep down I knew that I wasn't being consistent enough to make the kind of dent necessary to make a difference in my numbers.

Thanks to some good friends of ours, we were introduced to a doctor's diet.  His name is Joel Fuhrman and his book, "Eat to Live," espoused the health benefits of what is basically a vegetarian diet loaded with essential, unprocessed nutrients:  fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, soy, seeds, nuts.  We began to eat this way far more often than not (but by no means as strictly as advocated).  Without exercising much - at that time - I lost about 10 pounds, with very little effort at all.  When I added exercise to my regimen, I had to notch the belt tighter and was quite often greeted with, "you look skinny" or "have you lost weight?"  I did and I had.  In fact, today I weigh almost the exact same I did when I graduated college at 21.  (I am the taller of the two in the photo.  The older man, who lives a healthy life, is 128 years-old.)

It wasn't very long after shifting my diet that I had a check up with Dr. Bueller, uh, I mean Dr. Lawson to review my numbers.  When he came into the room, he could barely contain his excitement.  "What have you been doing?!"  My triglycerides, which had literally been off the chart were back to near normal and my cholesterol while still being above baseball's Mendoza Line would certainly have have landed me back in Double A.  "Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it," the doctor exclaimed with joy.  I felt like I'd aced a test I'd been failing for years (like when John John finally passed the bar).

It's hard for me to recollect exactly how my present thoughts on food and diet got to where they are (and I should note they are still in flux), but the more I read about how food is processed, what industrial farming does to animals, land, the environment, not to mention America's (and the world's) waistline, the more I feel like I have to opt out - as much as I can.  And it isn't easy.  Go to the supermarket and all the aisles between the produce (which is suspect, too!) and the milk (another no-no according to Furhman) is likely processed, likely made from corn by products and likely has high fructose corn syrup as one of the first few ingredients.  The more I read in books like Eat to Live or The Ominvore's Dilemma and the more I see in documentaries (Super Size Me, and soon Food Inc.), the more I come to terms with the fact that, at least the way I see it, our health is being highjacked by the corporatocracy (Tangentially related good read:  Confessions of an Economic Hitman).  Know this:  our food today is NOT the food of our forefathers.  And while science works to solve many of life's banes, it also causes too many others.

I don't yet know where these thoughts will lead me, but I do know that in both my thinking and my actions, I am already outside of the mainstream.  I have to tell you, though, it feels like the mainstream isn't really serving me well right now.

Stay tuned.