...for what I'm about to say. We're back on the subject of food. I had a conversation with a fellow blogger the other day and the topic moved towards diet. As some of you may know, I have rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disease for which there is no known cure and plenty of desperate patients looking for a quick fix. I've tried pretty much everything out there: glucosamine regimens, the raw diet, starvation, strange Chinese herbal medicine, cheap drugs, expensive drugs, positive thinking, exercise, no exercise, vinegar...
It's kind of sad, but starvation is, next to expensive drugs, the best thing. I feel pretty good when I fast. But it's obviously not a long-term solution! However, it does make one think. If not eating has an effect, it seems like, contrary to the claims of Western medicine, that diet really does affect our health and impact our diseases.
In Brazil, I have the luxury of being able to cook for my husband and myself with fresh ingredients. I know farmers here use pesticides too, and milk cows are still given the growth hormone, but most of the veggies are blissfully free of the waxy slick on the outside and are in season. If a product isn't in season, you pretty much have to forget about wanting to use it. As many products are fresh, they lack the ubiquitous Western preservatives, and none of the canned or boxed things I purchase use high-fructose corn syrup (including the occasional soda).
Returning to the USA is great for the inexpensive shopping stock-up sprees and the time spent with family. It is most assuredly not good for my health. Even when I try to eat "healthy". My weight fluctuates, my joints hurt and things just don't go well. Could it be the genetically modified weirdness? The excess hormones in our food? The preservatives? The fake sweeteners, fat replacers? The corn in everything??? Other bloggers have commented on this phenomenon, for example here, and I concur.
I make no excuses for using bacon, butter, whole eggs, sausage, real sugar, cream and liberal amounts of olive oil when I cook. (I just got my cholesterol back and it's quite good! Thanks, Dad, for your genes!) We eat small portion sizes (or try to!) and when it won't affect the flavor, I cut back on the fatty things or trim the sugar a bit. My "diet" kind of goes like this: if you want it, you have to make it. I think twice about chocolate if I know I'm going to be sweating in front of a hot oven in 95F degree heat! And it's funny, because I'm thinner than I've ever really been in my life, while eating almost everything I want. In moderation. And my body and my RA seems to thank me for it.
But...
I do have to get off the couch and go to the gym. I don't think this would work if I didn't go lift weights a couple of times a week! The trade-off, though, is worth it. The freedom to indulge in wine, cheese and chocolate before bed? Yes, please.
5 comments:
Wonderful thought-provoking post! I've been wrestling with this concept myself after watching a few disturbing documentaries about the food industry in the states.
It's certainly made me think twice about all the foods I've so easily made my go-to meals.
Interesting insight, and I do agree that our diet affects our health more than we would readily admit in the US.
But, it still doesn't explain why I had juvenile RA at 3 years old- I really couldn't have had THAT many preservatives in my diet with the home-made and home-grown foods mom made.
And it doesn't explain why mine went into remission, because i eat CRAP- good-tasting, but laden in preservatives and extra non-healthy things and it hasn't come back.
Keep investigating for other reasons behind RA!
Catherine: Thank you. Food and industry is a scary connection for me. Having grown up in a farming community and watching small town farmers who care about their animals and land being forced to do it as a hobby instead of a living, I wonder how well the factory mentality really serves us, our communities or our world.
Ellen: Both are auto-immune/auto-inflammatory, however, and the auto means that something in our body (or that our body is exposed to) is making us sick. If I figured out what triggered immune responses like that, I'd be a billionaire. Want to contribute to my research?! :) I think JRA is classified separately from RA because it really is a different disease...as unlike RA, patients like yourself find it just disappears as they age.
Look online for a seed catalog from Schumway's ... it makes for interesting reading. There are all kinds of foods that people used to grow for themselves and their animals, and now we just buy it off the shelf without thinking.
I bought chicken the other day that had a label specifically telling me the food was hormone and steroid free, as required by the USDA. It's sad that they had to clarify that. I'm going to see if Jess wants to help butcher chickens next time ... you probably want a video of that !!
Love, Mom
makes sense that if you use "real food" you'll do better. Or so it seems to me. It's all the crap that we've "made up" that really is bad...
I think when you make your own food, it's just got to be better....but it is time-consuming, and so folks don't.
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