Cancer.
It sucks.
It's preventable.
It's detectable.
It's too late.
Pick 3.
Cancer hit a little too close to home recently, the details I'll spare, but it really gets you thinking.
The Documentary Forks Over Knives trumpets the plant based diet solution which is FAR healthier than what you're eating now. "But Justin, bacon is awesome and vegan diets are extreme." I'll agree with the maker of Forks over Knives who reminds us that a million people this year will have a vein cut out of their leg and grafted onto their heart. Some would call that extreme.
Then we are finding that study after study of the things that have found their way into our everyday diets are killing us, just like we knew the were. This study reminds us that the soda we drink is not only eroding our teeth and intestines, but increases the risk of prostate cancer 40%. So if you drink a soda a day you go from a 1 in 6 chance to a 1 in 4 chance.
Congratulations, you're dead. Now with more cherry flavor.
I'm not eating a vegan diet. I had a salami and bacon sandwich for lunch today and is was magnificent, but I'm paying more attention to my diet. Local foods grown without needing engineered pesticides or exotic gasses to falsely ripen fruit from another hemisphere. Less soda, NEVER diet soda, less cheese and no milk.
Yes, I said no milk.
"What about calcium for strong bones Mr Smartypants?" Well, you'll never learn it in school but milk is actually TOO MUCH calcium, which leaches it from your bones, not adds to it. Common vegetables, which you're going to start eating more of, give you more calcium than the recommended allowance of bovine breast milk.
Oh, did you forget milk is actually intended for baby cows, not humans?
A serving of broccoli or bok choy has as much calcium as a glass of milk, so why even drink it?
Most of what we've been told about the food we eat is wrong, a distortion or an outright lie. Yes I still eat processed foods but not nearly as much as before. I still grab a burger at the drive through, but not nearly as much as before. I don't think I could ever go vegan, but if it came down to my life depending on it, I'd find a way.
I'm on my soap box hoping that someone, anyone will at least start paying more attention to their body and avoid the situation my friend is in. Some cancers can't be treated, by the time they're detected, by accident, no diet change known to man can reverse what has happened.
The title of this post asks how far you'll go to win. Will you cut out dairy? Meat? Eggs, fish, whatever it takes to get and stay healthy? Exercise more? Teach your children to eat healthy?
Or will you not take this chance and find yourself across from a white coat, getting the news that you have between 6 months and a year, that the cancer has spread, that it's about to take your last breath?
And how far would you go to end life on your terms, no the cancer's?
It's not just an old person's disease. It's not just losing your hair from the chemotherapy treatments (It's the "medicine", not the cancer that does that remember).
Walking dressed in pink or even wearing a kilt for a month, this is day to day shit you need to get dialed in before it's too late. Call me crazy or a granola munching tree hugger, I don't care, but skip the soda and milk for today...then do it again, you owe it to yourself.
It sucks.
It's preventable.
It's detectable.
It's too late.
Pick 3.
Cancer hit a little too close to home recently, the details I'll spare, but it really gets you thinking.
The Documentary Forks Over Knives trumpets the plant based diet solution which is FAR healthier than what you're eating now. "But Justin, bacon is awesome and vegan diets are extreme." I'll agree with the maker of Forks over Knives who reminds us that a million people this year will have a vein cut out of their leg and grafted onto their heart. Some would call that extreme.
Then we are finding that study after study of the things that have found their way into our everyday diets are killing us, just like we knew the were. This study reminds us that the soda we drink is not only eroding our teeth and intestines, but increases the risk of prostate cancer 40%. So if you drink a soda a day you go from a 1 in 6 chance to a 1 in 4 chance.
Congratulations, you're dead. Now with more cherry flavor.
I'm not eating a vegan diet. I had a salami and bacon sandwich for lunch today and is was magnificent, but I'm paying more attention to my diet. Local foods grown without needing engineered pesticides or exotic gasses to falsely ripen fruit from another hemisphere. Less soda, NEVER diet soda, less cheese and no milk.
Yes, I said no milk.
"What about calcium for strong bones Mr Smartypants?" Well, you'll never learn it in school but milk is actually TOO MUCH calcium, which leaches it from your bones, not adds to it. Common vegetables, which you're going to start eating more of, give you more calcium than the recommended allowance of bovine breast milk.
Oh, did you forget milk is actually intended for baby cows, not humans?
A serving of broccoli or bok choy has as much calcium as a glass of milk, so why even drink it?
Most of what we've been told about the food we eat is wrong, a distortion or an outright lie. Yes I still eat processed foods but not nearly as much as before. I still grab a burger at the drive through, but not nearly as much as before. I don't think I could ever go vegan, but if it came down to my life depending on it, I'd find a way.
I'm on my soap box hoping that someone, anyone will at least start paying more attention to their body and avoid the situation my friend is in. Some cancers can't be treated, by the time they're detected, by accident, no diet change known to man can reverse what has happened.
The title of this post asks how far you'll go to win. Will you cut out dairy? Meat? Eggs, fish, whatever it takes to get and stay healthy? Exercise more? Teach your children to eat healthy?
Or will you not take this chance and find yourself across from a white coat, getting the news that you have between 6 months and a year, that the cancer has spread, that it's about to take your last breath?
And how far would you go to end life on your terms, no the cancer's?
It's not just an old person's disease. It's not just losing your hair from the chemotherapy treatments (It's the "medicine", not the cancer that does that remember).
Walking dressed in pink or even wearing a kilt for a month, this is day to day shit you need to get dialed in before it's too late. Call me crazy or a granola munching tree hugger, I don't care, but skip the soda and milk for today...then do it again, you owe it to yourself.
Comments
1) You say milk is not good--but what if it's skim milk? Do you know if that has less calcium?
2) You mentioned fish--what's wrong with fish? I have heard salmon is quite good for you.
But I think your post illustrates something VERY interesting which is this: Even when we know the dangers, we still struggle to modify our eating habits! And I think that's just so true and so accurate.
I cut out fast food a long time ago, and ditched the soda. I don't drink as much milk (I used to have cereal daily), but I do eat things with milk in it or things made using milk (desserts, for example).
I think the bigger problem is also what they're NOT telling us. In California, people actually voted down the idea of knowing whether or not your food was genetically modified. People simply DIDN'T want to know! That's scary--people would rather just be ignorant, as opposed to knowing the risks and making informed decisions.
Great article by the way. Definitely got me thinking. Thanks for sharing.
Wild caught salmon is indeed healthier than other foods. I mention it because we can all take steps to be healthier.
Thanks for reading,
HM