Health, wealth and happiness.

Uh-oh! Another title with three items.

The Three Stooges in 1938's Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb. L to R: Moe Howard, Curly Howard, Larry Fine

Which of the three things in the title is the most important?

I run a health blog, so you don't need to be a rocket scientist to guess my opinion. Health. As I mentioned in "The Diet Debacle" debacle, you are what you eat i.e. if you eat/drink rubbish, you get a rubbish body. Therefore, what people eat/drink is important in order to maximise their health.

Should "food" manufacturers (whose prime objective is to maximise their profits) have the right to unduly influence people's food choices (which results in them experiencing deteriorating health) by using cunning marketing methods? I say "No".

Should "food" manufacturers have the right to unduly influence politicians into subsidising the raw ingredients of their "food" by bribery lobbying? I say "No".

It's been argued that "food" manufacturers should have the right to free speech. I disagree, as the motives of a "food" manufacturer are completely different from the motives of an individual.

I'm not arguing for a ban on the marketing of non-food items or stopping government subsidies for non-food items. Am I really asking so much?

The above are moot points, as "food" manufacturers and governments are very powerful, and nobody wants to give up power. Therefore, nothing much will change unless you people out there can persuade other people to do what you are doing by leading by example, and so on. If enough people stop buying "food" (and I'm using quotes deliberately, as a lot of "food" isn't fit for pig-swill, let alone human consumption) and start buying, cooking & eating real food, some "food" manufacturers might experience such a large drop in profits that they go out of business.

So, when & where did it all go wrong?

No, I'm not talking about Demand Five! I'm talking about us, modern man & woman. We have improved hygiene, clean water & food, modern medicine, anti-biotics, anti-virals etc. We should be enjoying good health and vitality into our nineties. We're not, though. Degenerative diseases like Type 2 Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease, Cancer, Dementia, IBS etc are afflicting increasing numbers of people (including youngsters) and are even starting to reduce our longevity statistics. Why?

On one side of the fence are the anti-animal fat brigade who claim that animal fats are the cause of all our health problems and that we should all be eating more vegetable fats and reducing our cholesterol.

On the other side of the fence are the anti-carb brigade who claim that carbohydrates are the cause of all our health problems and that we should all be eating less carbohydrates and increasing our fat consumption.

I'm sure you can guess where I am. I have the splinters to prove it!

In 1911, hydrogenated vegetable oil (Crisco) entered the marketplace. So, in 1911, fat turned bad! See The rise and fall of Crisco.

Interestingly, rates of Coronary Heart Disease started to rise from 1920, 9 years later. Co-incidence?

Our genes may have not changed much in the last few hundred thousand years, but our lifestyles certainly have. We now live mostly sedentary lives (which makes our muscles less sensitive to insulin). We now live and work mostly indoors (which makes us deficient in Vitamin D).

We now don't eat much oily fish. Our vegetables contain much less omega-3 fat than they used to (to make them stay fresh for longer). Our meat now contains much more omega-6 and much less omega-3 fat than it used to (due to feeding animals on grains). These changes make us deficient in omega-3 fat (which makes our muscles less sensitive to insulin).

We now eat loads of refined carbohydrate (which causes unstable blood glucose & insulin levels) and loads of processed foods (which makes us deficient in Magnesium and fibre/fiber).

As a result of all of the above changes, we have many modern diseases. We can't blame it on one factor only. So, what can we do? Here's one suggestion....



























Good health!