I know you. We have a lot in common. You have been doing some reading and now you are pretty sure everything in the grocery store and your kitchen cupboards is going to kill you.
Before Your Healthy Eating Internet Education:
I eat pretty healthy. Check it out: whole grain crackers, veggie patties, prawns, broccoli. I am actually pretty into clean eating.
After Your Healthy Eating Internet Education:
Those crackers – gluten, baby. Gluten is toxic to your intestinal health, I read it on a forum. They should call those crackers Leaky Gut Crisps, that would be more accurate. That veggie burger in the freezer? GMO soy. Basically that’s a Monsanto patty. Did you know soybean oil is an insecticide? And those prawns are fish farmed in Vietnamese sewage pools. I didn’t know about the sewage fish farming when I bought them, though, really I didn’t!
The broccoli, though..that’s ok. I can eat that. Eating that doesn’t make me a terrible person, unless….oh, shit! That broccoli isn’t organic. That means it’s covered with endocrine disrupting pesticides that will make my son sprout breasts. As if adolescence isn’t awkward enough.
And who pre-cut this broccoli like that? I bet it was some poor Mexican person not making a living wage and being treated as a cog in an industrial broccoli cutting warehouse. So I’m basically supporting slavery if I eat this pre-cut broccoli. Oh my God, it’s in a plastic bag too. Which means I am personally responsible for the death of countless endangered seabirds right now.
I hate myself.
Well, shit.
All you want to do is eat a little healthier. Really. Maybe get some of that Activa probiotic yogurt or something. So you look around and start researching what “healthier” means.
That really skinny old scientist dude says anything from an animal will give you cancer. But a super-ripped 60 year old with a best-selling diet book says eat more butter with your crispy T-Bone and you’ll be just fine as long as you stay away from grains. Great abs beat out the PhD so you end up hanging out on a forum where everyone eats green apples and red meat and talks about how functional and badass parkour is.
You learn that basically, if you ignore civilization and Mark Knopfler music, the last 10,000 years of human development has been one big societal and nutritional cock-up and wheat is entirely to blame. What we all need to do is eat like cave-people.
You’re hardcore now, so you go way past way cave-person. You go all the way to The Inuit Diet™.
Some people say it’s a little fringe, but you are committed to live a healthy lifestyle. “Okay,” you say, “let’s do this shit,” as you fry your caribou steak and seal liver in rendered whale blubber. You lose some weight which is good, but it costs $147.99 a pound for frozen seal liver out of the back of an unmarked van at the Canadian border.
Even though The Inuit Diet™ is high in Vitamin D, you learn that every disease anywhere can be traced to a lack of Vitamin D (you read that on a blog post) so you start to supplement. 5000 IU of Vitamin D before sitting in the tanning booth for an hour does wonders for your hair luster.
Maxing out your credit line on seal liver forces you to continue your internet education in healthy eating. As you read more you begin to understand that grains are fine but before you eat them you must prepare them in the traditional way: by long soaking in the light of a new moon with a mix of mineral water and the strained lacto-fermented tears of a virgin.
You discover that if the women in your family haven’t been eating a lot of mussels for at least the last four generations, you are pretty much guaranteed a $6000 orthodontia bill for your snaggle-tooth kid. That’s if you are able to conceive at all, which you probably won’t, because you ate margarine at least twice when you were 17.
Healthy eating is getting pretty complicated and conflicted at this point but at least everyone agrees you should eat a lot of raw vegetables.
Soon you learn that even vegetables are trying to kill you. Many are completely out unless they are pre-fermented with live cultures in a specialized $79 imported pickling crock. Legumes and nightshades absolutely cause problems. Even fermentation can’t make those healthy.
Goodbye, tomatoes. Goodbye green beans. Goodbye all that makes summer food good. Hey, it’s hard but you have to eliminate these toxins and anti-nutrients. You probably have a sensitivity. Actually, you almost positively have a sensitivity. Restaurants and friends who want to grab lunch with you will just have to deal.
Kale: it’s what’s for dinner. And lunch. And breakfast.
The only thing you are sure of is kale, until you learn that even when you buy organic, local kale from the store (organic, local kale is the only food you can eat now) it is probably GMO cross-contaminated. Besides, it usually comes rolled in corn starch and fried to make it crunchier. Market research, dahling…sorry, people like crunchy cornstarch breaded Kale-Crispers™ more than actual bunny food.
And by now you’ve learned that the only thing worse than wheat is corn. Everyone can agree on that, too. Corn is making all of America fat. The whole harvest is turned into ethanol, high fructose corn syrup, chicken feed and corn starch and the only people who benefit from all those corn subsidies are evil companies like Cargill.
Also, people around the world are starving because the U.S. grows too much corn. It doesn’t actually make that much sense when you say it like that, but you read it on a blog. And anyway, everyone does agree that corn is Satan’s grain. Unless wheat is.
The only thing to do, really, when you think about it, is to grow all your own food. That’s the only way to get kale that isn’t cornstarch dipped. You’ve read a lot and it is obvious that you can’t trust anything, and you can’t trust anyone and everything is going to kill you and the only possible solution is to have complete and total control over your foodchain from seed to sandwich.
Not that you actually eat sandwiches.
You have a little panic attack at the idea of a sandwich on commercial bread: GMO wheat, HFCS and chemical additive dough conditioners. Some people see Jesus in their toast but you know the only faces in that mix of frankenfood grains and commercial preservatives are Insulin Sensitivity Man and his sidekick, Hormonal Disruption Boy.
It’s okay, though. You don’t need a deli sandwich or a po’boy. You have a saute of Russian Kale and Tuscan Kale and Scotch Kale (because you love international foods). It’s delicious. No, really. You cooked the kale in a half-pound of butter that had more raw culture than a black-tie soiree at Le Bernardin.
You round out your meal with a little piece of rabbit that you raised up and butchered out in the backyard. It’s dusted with all-natural pink Hawaiian high-mineral sea salt that you cashed-in your kid’s college fund to buy and topped with homemade lacto-fermented herb mayonnaise made with coconut oil and lemons from a tropical produce CSA share that helps disadvantaged youth earn money by gleaning urban citrus. The lemons were a bit over-ripe when they arrived to you, but since they were transported by mountain bike from LA to Seattle in order to keep them carbon neutral you can hardly complain.
The rabbit is ok. Maybe a bit bland. Right now you will eat meat, but only meat that you personally raise because you saw that PETA thing about industrial beef production and you can’t support that. Besides, those cows eat corn. Which is obscene because cows are supposed to eat grass. Ironically, everyone knows that a lawn is a complete waste in a neighborhood – that’s where urban gardens should go. In other words, the only good grass is grass that cows are eating. You wonder if your HOA will let you graze a cow in the common area.
In the meantime, you are looking for a farmer who raises beef in a way you can support and you have so far visited 14 ranches in the tri-state area. You have burned 476 gallons of gas driving your 17-mpg SUV around to interview farmers but, sadly, have yet to find a ranch where the cattle feed exclusively on organic homegrown kale.
Until you do, you allow yourself a small piece of rabbit once a month. You need to stretch your supply of ethical meat after that terrible incident with the mother rabbit who nursed her kibble and ate her kits. After that, deep down, you aren’t really sure you have the stomach for a lot more backyard meat-rabbit raising.
So you eat a lot of homegrown kale for awhile. Your seasoning is mostly self-satisfaction and your drink is mostly fear of all the other food lurking everywhere that is trying to kill you.
Eventually your doctor tells you that the incredible pain you’ve been experiencing is kidney stones caused by the high oxalic acid in the kale. You are instructed to cut out all dark leafy greens from your diet, including kale, beet greens, spinach, and swiss chard and eat a ton of low-fat dairy.
Your doctor recommends that new healthy yogurt with the probiotics. She thinks it’s called Activa.
This article is fantastic! I’ve been getting healthier over the past two years as i’ve lost over 100 lbs. I’m certainly guilty of doing my ‘internet study’ and following health trends. This article hits close to home and us health nerds need to be mindful and make sure we don’t become too drastic in our measures to become more healthy!
OMG – this is soooooo true. I don’t know what to eat anymore.
This is hilarious! My eyes were wide with amazement as you ticked off every bit of health related information I had previously sifted through one after another. After stumbling out of the fun house of never-ending health advice, I remained confused; perhaps even more confused than I had been before. But as you stated, one thing remained true: kale is awesome. I think what I learned from all of that excessive research is that paying attention to what REALLY goes on in the big bad food industry, and how YOUR body reacts to different foods is the only way to choose your supposed ‘diet’. Sure, eating pure ingredients that haven’t been processed is important. But when it takes over your life? That’s when things become weird (and annoying!). Great post!
when it gives you cancer, or your many loved ones..and you dont know why they are dying..then maybe you will pay attention to this stupid crap the Monsanto Chemical company is feeding us…90 percent of processed foods have genetically altered organisms in them..all of Kelloggs…most tortilla and corn dishes…l-cystine in bread is a Monsanto chemical, derived from the gel of human hair…Chinese hair is the most protein filled…only then will the real issues with our foods seem like they make sense. Just try to find out if your favorite things are genetically altered..it is simple…many really dont want to stop mis eating…cokes, sugary foods, fried McDonalds foods..supersizing foods that dont spoil when left in the sun for months…it is your call, and your childrens future…you set their aims…..aim high mom and dad…Chemical and pesticide companies dont care about you or your family..it is not being a radical…just using your head…common sense
I do agree that Monsanto has has had a horrible effect on food, and that it has altered many of the ingredients in the food produced all around the world. Processed food sold by fast food companies that have little to zero nutritional value is also something that has become much too normal (and convenient!) to consume in the last 20 years. I am not arguing these facts, so I do not know what your point is against my post. I am merely saying when you worry to the point of it taking over your life (ie, ONLY eating kale since it’s apparently the only thing all of these supposed diet sites can agree on)- then it becomes an issue. By trial and error, I do not mean trying out fast food chains. I mean consuming dairy, eggs and various types of grain in comparison to being strictly vegan etc. I do believe that healthy diets should ALL be based on whole (preferably organic, non-GMO) foods. It’s just where you go from there is what should be catered to your own body and its specific reactions to foods (in my opinion, that is).
you are smart Emma..nothing against you…just venting I guess…against the junk in our food..did you know Monsanto is the maker of Aspartame….that it is a total bad thing for you and also asflusame..total chemicals…..now the agent orange insecticide gene is being spliced into corn and sold to us as big beautiful ears of cancer ridden foods that took twice the amount of pesticides to kill the bugs these guys invented….double down…so bad for babies and other living things…
HaHa loved it! So true about the food deal what to eat and what not to eat that is the question. Some say no meat then others are telling me I am getting too many carbs by juicing. Think I will keep my mouth shut about what I eat and do the best I can! Thanks for you blog, very well said.
This post is hysterical. Love it.
Someone shared this with me. I wish they had told me about the cursing,.
I would like to be able to share this with people, but your unnecessary use profanity prevents me from sharing it. Could you perhaps remove the cursing and make the message so it can be shared with people who do not appreciate profanity?
No, I’m sorry I cannot. https://nwedible.com/faq#swearing
Thank you. I will not share your posts with people who might truly benefit from them.
It’s a same you cannot leave off your profanity, but it’s your choice.
Cheers!
Indeed. Best wishes!
The drama on this is beyond my tolerance, I am unfollowing because there are so many inappropriate, annoying comments……your writing is adorable and full of humor, balanced with the conflict of the soul….your positions reflect the approach avoidance so many have with their food issues…but, while I do live Paleo, I refuse to subject myself to people who are so insecure with their choice that they reduce themselves to personal attacks. If something works for someone, they should work it………if it does not……find a path that does…….please folks, do not diminish those who are looking……the answers are all but in………but…if you do not listen, you will never hear the truth……. moving on, luckylin
I am truly sorry that this offends you to the point that you would actually request the author to edit the post. Do you ever leave your home or church?!
Jennifer, you don’t sound “truly sorry” that I am offended by unnecessary profanity. In fact, your questions of me are rude and unwarranted as are your assumptions as to the reason for my objections to profanity. Honestly, since you are not the author, and are not speaking for her, I think it’s not your concern.
I asked the AUTHOR to consider her words would be better shared without the cursing.
Of course I’m not sorry. Your request and sly remarks toward the author are rude and unwarranted. It may not be my concern, but when you post on a public forum rather than sending the author a private message, you’re making it everyone else’s concern.
Since this is not your blog, perhaps you didn’t know that the AUTHOR and OWNER of this blog has this INVITATION for people to comment, even if they disagree (and even if YOU don’t like it):
Comments: like giving your blogger a high-five. Or a punch in the face. Either way, your participation makes this whole thing work, so join in!
Jennifer, it’s simply not your business. I’m unsubbing from these comments since THE AUTHOR answered my question and your opinion has no bearing on it.
It’s cool. As of now, this post has been read approximately 305,000 times and shared on Facebook 16,500 times. If, because of the language or use of satire, it’s not the right fit for some people, I can live with that. Clearly, it’s finding a mostly appreciative audience. 🙂
Newest “diet/lifestyle” craze info…think it is pretty hilarious that people jump on the Paleo bandwagon just like Atkins, SouthBeach, etc….Until the next great thing comes along…
This is amazing and so true! Love this article.
Only Dane Cook has ever made me laugh harder than this article did. And I was laughing at myself the whole time. You do know me. Thank you.
Thank you! This is TOTALLY how I feel, only for me, it’s what friends say versus me researching it on line! BUT…parkour IS badass! LOL
Ok, I loved everything that you wrote here! Hilarious and so true. We can make ourselves crazy by obsessing over being healthy (and not just food related ways). Thank you for posting! I am sharing this article everywhere 🙂
As a Naturopathic Student being bombarded constantly with all of the positives/negative associated with food this may have been one of the funniest and sadly true articles I have read in a while…passing this around at school. Very well written!
I think the sarcasm in this article brings out a humorous view to what so many people argue and fight over these days: environmental issues, organic vs. traditional, animal rights, meat lover vs. vegan, etc. It makes everyone stop and realize the ridiculousness it looks like in the big picture. Great job!!
If you’re only worried about personal health (outside of the ethical issues of food-growing which is important, I’m not discounting it) I say just eat whole unprocessed foods and exercise regularly and stop stressing.
That is the best thing I’ve read in a long time. Love it. And guilty. I am so guilty. A mild panic attack occurs at least once a grocery trip. That is quickly followed by a @##$ this, no one is going to die if we get non-organic ___ here and there. It isn’t even on the dirty dozen list, I don’t think anyway. Then the guilt of forgetting the cloth bags while my 3 and 5 year old are melting down because I bribed them mid-store with some sort of hydrogenated sugar to just get through the freaking bulk row. The bulk row where I can get my spelt flour and quinoa. Some quinoa that they probably won’t even eat. After they eat the requisite bites of quinoa and veggies and grass-fed pasture raised wild caught protein, I’ll just make them a P & J anyway.
You’ve obviously been here to Ashland, Oregon.
Wow, I identify with that. I’m just trying to live long enough to go to my granddaughter’ s wedding in 20 or 30 years.
Turns out leafy greens are trying to kill you too: highest rates of food poisoning.
http://seattletimes.com/html/health/2020238047_apusmedriskiestfoods.html
After having read books by Michael Pollen, John Robbins, Atkins, and Eades… I spit a little yerba mate on my keyboard in hysterics while reading this article. Gosh, my brain is sore contemplating low carbs vs. vegan vs. GMO vs. orangic non-GMO…
Whatever you believe to be a wholesome diet, this writer fully captured the brain-space in which many of us mistakenly wander. Lacto-fermented tears of a virgin? I died. I died of laughter.
Thank you for writing this piece, dear Erica. You are brilliantly funny.
Over the past few years, I had lost 170 lbs, without really thinking about it, worrying about what I was doing, just eating… mostly decent food.
Then, over about a 6 month period, I was stressed to the max… long lost love reentered, with a whole crapload of baggage, my overbearing aunt lost her home and moved in with me, a new job that wants me to move across the damn country; all this on top of healing PTSD…
I gained back 40 pounds without even thinking about it.
So I started all over again, this time, actually thinking about it. Or trying to. Figure out what is going in my mouth… that’s safe and healthy and … don’t stress out because stress causes you to retain weight. I completely melted down. SO much so I declared this whole new journey as defunct! And I ranted, very very much like this.
How the hell is someone supposed to put all the information together to make educated and realistic choices.
Ugh.
Your article is much more presentable than my in-the-middle-of-a-mental-breakdown rant, and is exactly how I felt that day. Thank you for taking the time to write it and make us laugh in the process. I’m pretty sure w can all relate to it. <3
Listen guys….I’m sure we’ve all come to the conclusion that we can just be perfect hungry children eating every single thing good for us…especially in this day and age when there is so much deceit in our markets and food chains. But the knowledge we receive should guide us to a more balanced lifestyle. We will die and it may be from the food we eat or the chemicals we breathe. It could be from hereditary diseases or it could be from a plane crashing onto your house. We just need to find a balance in our diet that gives us a healthy lifestyle. I think giving up and just eating foods that are bad for you is lazy and shows disregard to your health. But at the same time, lets not let fear run our lives. Choose your indulgences wisely is all I am saying.
OMG this is EXACTLY what I feel like. It’s all killing me slowly and I might as well just eat McDonald’s than eat veggies unless I buy everything organic. The world is slowly killing itself!
SO love this!!! It’s amazing that we humans are extinct yet!
I laughed my butt off. But seriously maybe I should raise my own rabbits for meat hahaha. Rabbit meat literally costs $20 a pound here.
I’ve been sharing a link to this article with a lot of people on facebook. 😉 Well done.
wtfudge, was that just a long commercial for activa? gross. now i feel gross too
CLASSIC! I cannot stop laughing at this post.
LOVE the terrible tragedy! It wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t so true. 🙂
This article does really speak to what many are thinking. Should we just not care because it’s too hard to care and better to simply listen to what your body needs.
I was yours at the Mark Knopfler reference. Hilarious and, unfortunately, true. Thanks for a good laugh and a fun article.
Ohmyword. I laughed so hard I spit my breakfast kale on the computer screen 😉
I am a holistic MD who, like everyone with some knowledge and concern about health and diet, shares many of the same dilemmas discussed in your wickedly funny and well-written essay! I wrote a somewhat more serious essay called Diet and Health on how one can try to sort through all the conflicting claims and information on diet that some might enjoy. It is still a work in progress but can be found at http://drrandybaker.com/
I plan to include a link to this essay as I continue to write it.
As for the discussion re: Lyme Disease, Arthritis and MS above, I will echo that Lyme Disease is incredibly common and under-diagnosed. Lyme commonly manifests (and is misdiagnosed as) Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS etc. Most doctors are fairly clueless about Lyme. IgeneX Western Blot is the best readily-available/relatively affordable test but rather than directly measuring Lyme measures our immune response to it. Ironically, those who are most ill often have negative tests but about 80% with Lyme will have evidence of it on this test- if not a fully positive test, at least an equivocal one. Ultimately, as others have mentioned, Lyme is a clinical diagnosis.
Early Lyme is readily treated with antibiotics. Once it is more advanced (within a few weeks of onset) antibiotics have only limited benefits and it requires a more holistic approach. Those who are most ill with Lyme generally have co-infections like Babesia & Bartonella, intestinal parasites, food sensitivity, nutrient deficiencies etc. and all of these must be addressed.
But Rheumatoid Arthritis can have other microbes that trigger it- an excellent resource is http://www.arthritistrust.org/menu_list/howtogetwell.html
Re: the link between MS and Lyme (I believe most with MS actually have misdiagnosed Lyme) see http://owndoc.com/lyme/multiple-sclerosis-is-lyme-disease-anatomy-of-a-cover-up/
Thanks!
You sound like a dangerous quack. Not one of those sites is a legitimate scientific organization. How clever of you to advantage of this blog to post an advertisement for your “practice.”
Love this article!! But you ruined the joke at the end by misspelling Activia. Maybe consider revising? Thought you’d want to know.
OMG. Can I ever relate to this post. I watched Food Inc a few weeks ago and one line stood out to me above all the rest.. “cows are corn fed to fatten them up quickly”. It suddenly dawned on me that if it fattens cows up quickly, it probably is fattening me up. So I decided then and there to cut all corn and corn products out of my diet. HOLY CRAP!… corn is in EVERYTHING. And I do mean everything that isn’t still inside its own skin.
I love kale chips. I make them myself with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And the vinegar contains CORN!!!!!!!!!!
rant and rave… or what? lol…
This was me above that posted a link to your blog in our weight loss maintainers weekly chat on another website. I love it! I’ve never seen your blog before today so I’m catching up. And probably buying your gardening journal. 🙂