A HEALTHY DIET

Kathy Freston (Alternet 10/08/09)has been researching health odds regarding diabetes. "One out of every two of us will get cancer or heart disease, and one out of every three children born after the year 2000 will be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. These are devastating diseases, certainly to those who are burdened by them, but also to a health care system that is struggling to keep up."

Strategies for healthy living are often written and posted everywhere, which I find quite amusing. Some speak the way my mother taught cooking. "Add flour until it feels right." Naturally, the novice would have no idea what it is supposed to feel like when it is right. Actually, she might have said (which I would have understood), "Add flour and keep kneading until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and no longer sticks to your fingers." An experienced cook with realize when the dough begins to elasticize.

Under a bold caption for 'Big Picture Strategies for Healthy Living, it starts with, at least, an equally meaningless sentence. "Eat enough calories but not too many." My body believes the emails that tell me chocolate is a vegetable and that there are no calories in alcohol. It knows no boundaries, having been brought up in the clean plate club.

Another dilemma is believing, "Eat a wide variety of food" A few years ago I did just that. For dinner I ate every brand of potato chip on the supermarket shelves. All that did was raise my cholesterol. Joke #3 on the list was "Keep portions moderate." I think only true Yankees can do that and keep their L L Bean look. We Mediterraneans believe that moderate can only be determined if there are left overs on the table at the end of a meal and everyone waddles away from the table.

Joke #4: Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. To shop and store this in your own home requires turning your whole house into a huge kitchen with more than one refrigerator and freezer...even if you live alone. Silly #5 presumes to know something I have never even told my body. "Drink more water" I prefer the rule of 'drink as much water as keeps my thirst quenched and doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night for a pit stop'. Another ridiculous edict (#6) is: Limit sugary foods, salt, and refined-grain products. Of course no one ever indicates limit to what point? If I drink lots of water as said in #5, will it wash away the excess of calories I've ingested of sugar, salt and refined grain?

Another tells me to: "Listen to your body" That can be quite embarrassing because my body, like my personality is noisy, never shy, and non-secretive. It holds nothing back. When hungry my stomach is as vocal as a Gospel service on Sunday. My flatulence is not a description of being lithe but goes off into the area of swamp gas zephyrs.

At last, here's one tailored just for me. "Eat early, eat often" This is easy and I have actually improved on it. I just don't eat often...I've upped it to one continuous meal. No one can say I don't work at being healthy!