Did you know today's affluent American Diet finds the average person eating:
*****140-150 pounds of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (including "nice" sweets like honey, fruit juices and "fortified" sugar water) per year? It's so ubiquitious that I won't elaborate here, though we can start with our morning coffee mocha lattes?
*****200 pounds of flour and grain products (including bread, pretzels, pasta, English muffins and bagels, oat meal, enriched cereals, cakes, muffins and breakfast foods.)?
*****130 pounds of potatoes and potato products including potato chips?
*****27 pounds of corn?
*****the unknown but large amount of lactose sugar found in milk, ice cream and many other dairy products?
Each one of the foods above (and there are many more of them) screams to our bodies for lots and lots of insulin, manufactured in the pancreas, to appropriately deal with them: to turn it into useful, productive energy.
After our body screams long and loud enough, starting in childhood, for the higher and higher quantites of insulin it requires day in and day out, sometimes the pancreas gets exhausted and completely quits without prior notice. Or it starts to work only part-time.
It's here all the trouble begins---the symptons, the lump in the breast, the weight gain, the mood changes , sleep problems and depression---just for starters......From there it can go downhill fairly quickly as we enter the medical/pharmceutical world looking for relief of our symptons, rather than rock bottom root causes. We want a pill to do it all, and it never can and never will.
We are killing ourselves with sugary, floury, milky kindness. And we're doing it to ourselves and our children now at younger and younger ages, and even in vitro.
But hope is according to Taubes stunning new book, if only we are willing to listen and then slowly take our health back into our own hands.
*****140-150 pounds of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (including "nice" sweets like honey, fruit juices and "fortified" sugar water) per year? It's so ubiquitious that I won't elaborate here, though we can start with our morning coffee mocha lattes?
*****200 pounds of flour and grain products (including bread, pretzels, pasta, English muffins and bagels, oat meal, enriched cereals, cakes, muffins and breakfast foods.)?
*****130 pounds of potatoes and potato products including potato chips?
*****27 pounds of corn?
*****the unknown but large amount of lactose sugar found in milk, ice cream and many other dairy products?
Each one of the foods above (and there are many more of them) screams to our bodies for lots and lots of insulin, manufactured in the pancreas, to appropriately deal with them: to turn it into useful, productive energy.
After our body screams long and loud enough, starting in childhood, for the higher and higher quantites of insulin it requires day in and day out, sometimes the pancreas gets exhausted and completely quits without prior notice. Or it starts to work only part-time.
It's here all the trouble begins---the symptons, the lump in the breast, the weight gain, the mood changes , sleep problems and depression---just for starters......From there it can go downhill fairly quickly as we enter the medical/pharmceutical world looking for relief of our symptons, rather than rock bottom root causes. We want a pill to do it all, and it never can and never will.
We are killing ourselves with sugary, floury, milky kindness. And we're doing it to ourselves and our children now at younger and younger ages, and even in vitro.
But hope is according to Taubes stunning new book, if only we are willing to listen and then slowly take our health back into our own hands.
I've been spending some time here catching up today. I know you have a multitude of knowledge in this field yourself! Years ago, when my little sis (Jungle Mom)worked in a health food store, my mom totally changed our shopping/eating habits. My brother's GPA went up an entire full point! I KNOW we really are what we eat! We all felt great and looked great! Then we moved away from each other, our lives branched out in separate directions, our life styles changed! I fell back into poor eating habits. After years of not making my health a priority, I'm paying for it now. This past April,however, I received a wake up call, and have made some dramatic changes in my lifestyle over the past 6 months. I've dropped 20#, walk and exercise almost daily; but realize I have a long ways to go to be as healthy as I want to be. I've said all that to say this: I am ready for the information you are sharing in these posts and I'm considering purchasing Taube's book. I don't think any of this would have interested me a year ago, but boy, what a difference a year can make!
ReplyDeleteThat's such a great story, Pam, and I am truly heartened by your progress.
ReplyDeleteLet me make it clear too that I am where I am because of nearly dying a number of times as a child and then being on drugs doctors said I had to be on for four decades. I finally made a decision to take matters into my own hands through lifestyle changes and if I couldn't I'd rather be dead.
All of our journeys are a work in progress, including mine. But I want to cotninue and I want to know how your lifestyle changes are going. Over the next year, I will continue to blog about healthy ways of eating and any suggestions you have are always welcome.
Thank you, Pam.
I read this when you posted it a few days ago. Since then I have gained ten pounds just from all the anxiety-induced ice cream and cake.
ReplyDelete