Odd Health Kicks
For weeks now, I’ve been hearing the strangest sound coming from one of my neighbor’s apartments. At first, I thought it was a vacuum cleaner or other medium-duty appliance, only to discover the noise coming during the early and late hours of the day. It suddenly occurred to me this morning: what I’m hearing from my neighbor’s apartment is a blender.
Blenders, it seems, come and go in the food fad category. Health “experts” seem to come up with new, more noxious concoctions some combination of fruit, vegetables, and a “specially-formulated protein blend”, the last element also used to advertise dog food. At what point did liquifying an entire meal become a substitute for actual food?
Now, I’m certainly one to talk about diet. One of my signature dishes is a fettucini that has the same energy density as an anthracite coal mine. However, I do my best to use natural ingredients (i.e., actual food, not processed food-like products) and to monitor exactly what I’m eating. I haven’t had a soft drink in years, and I go out of my to avoid high-fructose corn syrup, arguably the worst food-like product ever created. I don’t over-indulge and exercise on a very regular basis. In short, I try to balance everything without succumbing to marketing hype.
What I don’t understand is the American tradition of subscribing to trendy health-food diets. The majority of these diets seem to center around some “miracle food”, a combination of other (patented) add-ins, and some way of packaging this into a semi-palatable form. The cycle seems to be as follows: (1) some doctor, often from the L.A. area, creates diet; (2) a few early-adopters try out the diet; (3) some day-time talk show diva catches wind of the diet; (4) diet featured on CNN, etc., (5) new study discredits diet, sales plummet; (6) repeat.
Before the advent of the modern agri-business, mankind seems to have not only survived, but lived a reasonably healthy, comfortable existence. Variety of foods, combined with moderation and home-cooking, provided a more enjoyable and healthful way of life. As Michael Pollan writes,
“the more we worry about nutirition, the less healthy we seem to become.”
I understand that people are “busy,” but often times busy is an excuse for selfishness. Most meals, with only the smallest amount of forethought, can be prepared and consumed in less than an hour. Eating, after all, is one of the most essential elements of life. If people want to be healthier, they need to start with the fundamentals, and what we consume plays a critical role to that end.
