Relax, It’s Just Food!

I’ve got a question: When did food become health food?

Just because it’s “vegan” doesn’t mean you have to freak out…it’s just food. Food people all over the world eat. Food our ancestors (even the Gladiators!) ate for thousands of years. Food that gives strength, well-being and nourishment to cows, horses, rhinoceroses, gorillas, elephants, giraffes, hippos and MANY others! These are some of the largest land mammals on earth and they seem to be doing just fine (minus the bastards who hunt them for “sport”). I’m just saying: If these animals don’t need meat or dairy, neither do you. Be an adult and wean yourself from another species tit already!! You’re embarrassing them!

Recently I was forwarded a very peculiar e-mail by a friend. It described why eating fruit holds no nutritional value unless it is eaten on an empty stomach. I did a little research to see where this ridiculous myth may have originated. Turns out there were several “diet plans” in the 70s and 80s that promoted this silly suggestion. They claimed fruit would “rot in your gut” if eaten after a meal. Granted, we would all benefit from eating more fruit, but essentially telling a person that’s all they can eat and when to eat it is not beneficial. The nutritional value of a piece of fruit is the same whether it's eaten on an empty stomach or after a meal.  If someone is trying to lose weight then yeah, eat the fruit first to fill some space in your stomach before your meal. Unfortunately there are a lot of crazy diet gurus out there who have given fruit a bad rap and made it "diet food".  Fruit used to be just food.  Sadly, not everyone sees it that way these days.

Actually, eating fruits after a meal is really good for you. You get scrubbing fiber that keeps everything inside squeaky clean and you satisfy your post meal sweet tooth.  Diabetics can actually calm the effect fruit has on spiking their blood sugar levels by ingesting it as part of a meal.  Since fructose is not absorbed as rapidly as sucrose or glucose, it has much less effect on blood sugar levels and insulin (also why I recommend agave nectar to diabetics over sugar or even honey).
Last night I saw a Sonic commercial claiming “…we are now serving real ice cream…” As opposed to what?! What the hell was in their “ice cream” previously?!?
I actually tried to research this and all I found was a statement from Sonic's chairman and chief executive, J. Clifford Hudson, “The new ice cream ... is richer, it is thicker, it is creamier than our current soft serve, which is what we have to call it because that is what it has been; a non-ice cream, lower-fat dairy product.”
Well, by all means, get the artery-clogging shit in there because that’s what Americans need!

Statements like Mr. Hudson’s make us feel like the crap we eat is okay and that it’s actually “good for us”. Making fruits, vegetables, beans and grains “diet foods” and giving the notion that they’re only needed if you want to rid yourself of a few pounds. In actuality these choices are not “diet” food, it’s just FOOD. Food from the earth that we’re killing by making and eating mass-produced CRAP!

It makes me kind of confused when people look at something I’m eating and say, “I should be eating healthy like you…” Okay. Then. Do. It.  I very rarely think about “eating healthy” (another handy vegan perk!).  I just eat.  My moral commitment dictates my food choices; these choices just happen to be plant-based and (pause for effect) healthy.

It’s simple as this: Put good stuff in, get good stuff out!

Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn!  You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak!  Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay.              ~ George Bernard Shaw