You'll never eat anything again

A couple of years ago I went through a complete cardio exam.  Afterward there was an appointment for a discussion of results.  To this day I have no idea what the credential of the woman I spoke with was.  To begin with she told me nothing of the results of my testing.  After advocating the mantra of diet and exercise, the consultation consisted of her asking me questions mostly analyzing my diet.  At the end of it, she told me essentially nothing I eat regularly is healthy except  orange juice.  

This year's solution: more vegetables, fewer flowers.  In front spinach,
middle snow peas and the big ones in back are beans.  I may have
started them a little early, given the garden soil is still frozen solid.

At the time a large part of my diet consisted of a Subway (eat fresh) sandwich for lunch at work every day, a sandwich loaded down with vegetables.  The vegetables didn't matter to this woman.  It was the three thinly sliced pieces of processed turkey that were bad for me.  So, I left there having no clue what the tests had uncovered but unsure what to do about a diet in which nothing but orange juice was good for me.

Fast forward to my next appointment with my regular doctor.  He asked how things had gone and I told him about the analysis of my diet, ending with the one healthy ingredient, that orange juice.  He hesitated there,  made a note, looked at me and said, "Well, you know, orange juice has a lot of sugar in it."  Oh, great, now nothing to cling to.

Fast forward to a more recent visit.  The office I go to seems to cycle through dispensing nurses on a regular basis.  Often that is who I see rather than the doctor.  I don't mind that; I have dealt with them in smaller clinics around the state and for the most part have found them to be competent.  A new one  examined me during this most recent visit.

Again the subject of diet came up.  I had been reading about the various fads of danger and health that circulate regularly through the health media. Mostly what these people want me to eat are fresh vegetables.  But reading about what goes into growing those and the pesticides used in that effort would scare a Syrian watching a government airplane flying overhead.  You are supposed to wash all vegetables but one article I read said with most thin-skinned vegetables, the pesticides have penetrated into the meat of the plant and can't be washed off.  Hormones and other additives to meat, genetically modified plants and animals all increase the dangers in the diet, not to mention the plastic containers they are packed into.  So, I looked at her after this discussion, none of which she disagreed with, and asked her what a guy is supposed to do; her answer was, "well, you just have to take your chances."

So, today I ran across a facebook site dedicated to safe diets.  Read it and you will never eat anything again except honey and pure chocolate.  I wonder what these doctors and nutritionists would say about that.  Here is the facebook page  Every picture tells a story.

One item in the collection caught my eye especially.  In one of my past creative daydreams years ago it hit me that I had no blue in my diet.  That led to wondering if color had anything to do with nutrition.  Just to be sure,  I started eating more blueberries (in the form of pie, so probably not to great benefit) to get something blue in my diet.

Even I knew it was an outlandish idea, but one of those fun things you think about.  So today I learned there are benefits to adding color to your regular food rotation.  In the middle of the list were blue and purple, foods that contain flavonoids which help with vitamin C in your cells and can boost immunity, help prevent damage from free radicals which are rogue molecules that can alter DNA.  The anthocyanins may be anti-inflammatorries thus protecting against heart disease and stroke.  Of course this probably is all dependent on being able to wash off the insecticides.

I won't go into all the other colors.  Here is the particular link on that site for the story of color benefits in various foods. The benefits of eating colors

This is the kind of solution I am thinking about.

Meanwhile, I am preparing a lunch of a salad including carrots, yellow peppers, a main course of squash  cooked with tomatoes and spinach (uh oh a thin-skinned vegetable) and a dessert of blueberries and cantaloupe.  I wonder if beef counts as red.

Maybe here is a better solution though one more difficult.  There is a movement under way to replace lawns with small gardens.  Maybe it is time in life to become a gentleman farmer and start raising my own crops.  What an excuse to buy a nice small tractor too. Not sure how the owner of this land would go for turning it into a farm.

And, oh boy, you ought to see the chemicals in the "organic" fertilizers available at the big box garden stores.

Later I saw an internet meme that probably has the best advice of all: "Don't eat anything that's featured in an advertising commercial."