Food and health

Just watched an episode of Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners series- about changing rubbish school lunches throughout Britain. Quite inspiring. Sure the man swears every 2 seconds but he really is an example of how one man can affect such big change.

Seeing what the kids eat is absolutely shocking- we’re not just talking not wanting to eat vegetables (or even knowing what on earth a potato looks like in its non-processed form for that matter), they didn’t even want to touch yummy roasted CHICKEN. Apparently anything that doesn’t look like a sausage or a nugget or fries just doesn’t cut it. So if even chicken and fish gets on the ‘hate list’, you can only imagine what these kids have been putting into their bodies…and even more scarily (if there is such a word), what they HAVEN’T been putting into their bodies. How can a 6 year old kid grow healthy when all they’re eating are fried processed food, sweets and other junk with no nutrition?

It’s seriously a culture- these kids become this way because their parents weren’t taught any better themselves. This is why I applaud what Jamie is doing- he’s truly changing something that is going to actually be passed down from generation to generation.

I’ve grown up with some strange innate interest in nutrition and health so I subconsciously educated myself very well over the years. I seem to automatically assume eating well and keeping healthy is commonsense…but then recently I have realised that it is NOT. We don’t need to go as far as criticising the British and American kids for eating their junk food- my own friends don’t seem to have much inkling either. It seems as long as they EAT and they’re full- that’s the end of the story. Who cares about achieving 30g of fibre a day? About how much fast food and Indo Mi you eat a week? About getting all your vitamins and minerals? Who cares that we’re all eating some 10 times more our recommended intake of salt and sugar a day?

It’s not about ‘you should be skinny and look this way’- it’s seriously about health and I understand the anger Jamie feels. I see people who don’t eat carbs because they ‘want to lose weight’ and then they pick on the fried meat or have something sugary later. No wonder they’re not losing weight! It’s not rocket science!

I’m all up for not dieting and not being skinny (it’s not like I TRY to be a stick)- but ONLY if you get that by eating well and indulging moderately. I mean, I’m not a communist. Everyone loves their rubbish food- just don’t eat it everyday. Commonsense. There are plenty of people out there who tip the scales more than they should but try to butter it up with having a ‘healthy self image’ and declaring the world is too obsessed with Size Zero and should ‘love curvy women’. Please stop fooling yourself. If you get that way because you don’t look after yourself- imagine your health when you start getting older. Diabetes. Heart problems. Kidney and liver problems. It’s not about curvy women. It’s about unhealthy women. It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside- what matters is the inside. You can be overweight or you could be skinny and still have the same health issues.

Maybe I’m even more passionate about healthy living now because I did get a health scare last month when I was called back for a second urine test because my first sample apparently had sugar in it- a sign of diabetes or kidney failure. Instantly after I heard that I had a flashback to all my medical tests last year when a doctor said he didn’t know what was causing my tummy pains and vomitting but he sees signs that I may have kidney problems in the future. Although a second test confirmed the first result was a fluke I was still freaked out. 

My family has a history of high cholestrol and heart problems. I don’t seem to have inherited that but both my dad and my brother have elevated cholestrol readings although neither are overweight. Quite the opposite, really- both eat well, exercise a lot and are rather fit. Diet is crucial in so many ways but people don’t realise it- you don’t have to be overweight to be unhealthy! You may be genetically predisposed to a condition and if you don’t get proper nutrition, you’re only enabling it to kill you in the future. I have family members who have had heart attacks and had to have bypass surgery for their clogged arteries- all weren’t overweight. They just didn’t watch their diets. My great-aunt got diabetes but managed to prolong her lifespan by 20 years by eating well- it makes me a bit sad to think of how the problem could have been prevented in the first place. You may think you’re young now and can ‘eat whatever you want’ without being controlled…but would you rather eat a moderate diet now with some give and take or just take all you want now and then get diabetes or some other health problem and then suffer and not be able to even be bad once later?

Okay, so sure you may say some people live their obsessive healthy lives and still get cancer and die. Why worry? We’re all going to die some day! Diet is not the sole cause of cancer and disease- but it certainly is a CONTRIBUTING factor. I don’t quite understand why people are so willing to gamble off their lives- sure some things can’t be prevented but there are plenty of others which can be through healthy living. If not prevented, at least prolonged. Is your health so worthless you’re willing to say ‘whatever’ or ‘this is not worth it’? Will the truth only sink in when you get a heart attack or are diagnosed with some serious problem?

Maybe you say it’s too confusing and contradicting- some studies say green tea is good, some says it does nothing. Soy beans prevent breast cancer, soy beans cause breast cancer. Margarine is better than butter, butter is better than margarine. Olive oil is good, olive oil is bad. Hello? Who do we listen to? Well, everything is bad to you up to a certain point. Most of the contradicting studies come when the food is consumed in excess amounts- e.g the soy beans. In Western countries we think soy is good so we have our soy burgers, soy sausages, soy cakes, soy cheese, soy protein shakes…Has anyone stopped to think that where the ’soy bean is good for you’ theory comes from (read: Japan), they DON’T take that much soy? They have a little stir fry, a little soup, a little drink…they don’t take soy everything. So yes, it comes back to the ‘everything in moderation’ line. You can’t go overboard- most vitamins can be toxic in excess amounts.

Think of it this way- we service our cars regularly- we don’t wait for something to fail and cause a potentially fatal accident or risk it breaking down in the middle of the highway and leaving us stranded. Sure sometimes it happens but you drastically REDUCE the risk of the unfortunate happening by looking after the car. So why do we look after our cars but not our bodies? Why are we allowing ourselves to be accidents waiting to happen? Do we love our cars more than we love ourselves (sadly this is probably true for some)? We’ve got to love the bodies we were given- we owe it to ourselves! We’re worth it!

Your body is sacred- treat it well. Have your chocolate- just not the whole block everyday. I have my rubbish food and I certainly don’t count calories. It’s just a basic principle of eating well 80%- you can be bad 20%. It’s basic respect for your body- I eat well because I want my body to feel well. It’s not just about preventing disease, it’s about giving your body the strength to put up with everyday infections and allergies and energy to last the day. It’s respect. I don’t put copious amounts of alcohol in my body or light up a cigarette because I don’t want to do anything to harm it- why do I want to harm or burden it? 

According to the Lancet (British health journal), about 1/3 of women and 1/2 of men will develop coronary heart disease in their lifetimes…and we’re talking aged 40 and younger. So that’s either you or the person next to you (or the one after that!) That’s like saying if you have a mother and a sister…there is a risk one of you is going to get it!

If 1 in 3 Americans will develop diabetes, I can only imagine where Australia is at. A few years back it was said 1 out of 4 Australians would get it…wonder where we are at now? I can’t imagine the picture is getting any rosier.

So yes. This is my health rant. And my message to say ’be good’. Eat your veggies. Eat your wholegrain cereals and grains. Don’t eat rubbish cereals as a meal. Eat the junk you like- just in small amounts and not everyday. Don’t drink soft drink and juices 24/7. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink till you pass out. Eat more real food and less processed food. If you’ve never gotten a full blood test- do it. Take your vitamins and suppplements. Go for pap smears. Check your breasts/prostate. Sleep enough. Commonsense. Don’t diet and don’t just ’eat a lettuce leaf’- everything in moderation, eat all you want- just make it good food and don’t eat till you feel sick. Wear sunscreen. Don’t bake out in the sun all day. Stress less. Get in tune with your body and it will tell you what to do. Listen to it. Animals have a natural instinct about what’s good for them- when my dog was sick with a blood parasite (we didn’t know what was wrong at the time) she only picked out the liver in her food and start actually chewing at the bricks we had in our backyard (for iron)- and so do humans! Maybe not as strong, but we still have our own set of instincts! We just have to not keep ignoring it all the time! Be good to your body. It tries its best to be good to you!

You wouldn’t lie in the middle of the road waiting for a car to hit you. So don’t not care about you’re eating habits or your activity level until something bad happens.  Educate yourself. If you get sit through Uni and study something you don’t like, the least you can do is learn about health and eat your vegetables. Don’t say ‘it won’t happen to me’ or ‘I’m too young to worry about that’ because believes me, it happens. Oh, and go to the toilet everyday please. If you don’t poop everyday, please worry. (That’s your biggest sign that your not getting enough nutrition and fibre and your system is so clogged up with junk nothing can get through.)

Be good. Love yourself. Respect your body. Don’t be a statistic.