A Matter of Perspective

I have been reading this book called “How Not to Die” written by Michael Greger, MD.

The book is informative and scary all at the same time. It is a book I would recommend that most of us read, however.

I may have written about this before, but did you know that the Standard American Diet is SAD?

It is SAD in more than one way. But the main reason it is sad is that so many of us have fallen victims to it. At the risk of offending anyone, I will direct you to my blog at www.diabeteshealthnuts.com to read more in-depth about it, but for this column, I will simply say that we have been deceived and made sick by a host of entities that purport to make our lives better, but have done little other than make us fat, sick and nearly dead.

I was reading the above-mentioned book because I was doing some research for my blog site on How Not to Die from Diabetes and in a related vein, How Not to Die from Suicidal Depression. (No, I am not suicidal! I was writing about how depression and type 2 diabetes go hand in hand.)

One thing that I learned about that surprised me and will likely surprise you, as well, was this thing about chicken and eggs. It is a fact that arachidonic acid is present in these two along with hundreds of other foods, but the top five sources of arachidonic acid in the SAD are chicken, eggs, beef, pork, and fish. “Chicken and eggs alone contribute more than the other top sources combined,” according to Dr. Greger.

So what? You might be asking.

Well, arachidonic acid is responsible for inflammation. The book suggests that arachidonic acid is causing brain inflammation which can then lead to depression and suicidal tendencies...

Now, that to me, is SAD!

I am not anti-meat, don’t get me wrong, but wow!

Our bodies make all the arachidonic acid we need so we don’t need to have more through our food.

The example of good inflammation given in the book on how arachidonic acid works for our good is the example of a splinter. Our body uses the acid to create swelling and redness to take care of the invader (the splinter).

I certainly don’t want meat producers or egg producers to get “inflamed” at me, but the studies are showing compelling evidence that as omnivores we are doing ourselves no favors.

I don’t plan to stop eating meat anytime soon but I will certainly be cutting back on it.

In his book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” Michael Pollan gives this sage advice, “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.”

The more I read, the more I am sure of one thing...maybe I shouldn’t read so much!

No, what I am becoming more and more convinced of is that we need to evaluate what we eat and how much of it. We need to find out where our food is coming from and start eating better overall.

Maybe then we can be better people because our brains will work better!

Just a thought.