I started working for a non-profit that does meta-analysis on scientific studies concerning health and nutrition, consolidating information in order to understand how best to eat. Everyday I have my nose stuck in journals concerning cancer, heart disease, stroke, MS, liver disease, bowel infections, respiratory inflammation, kidney failure etc. And what I read scares the living **** out of me. I'm not afraid of dying, and thank jebus I've led a decent life. But the experiments, trials, and data presented in these journals concerning our risk of major population killers as it relates to diet is terrifying. So I stopped eating meat, eggs and dairy. It was the only choice. I fancy myself a man of logic and reason, and the evidence is overwhelming. Eating meat, eggs and dairy will kill you sooner and often in horrific ways, or if you do pull through, you'll have a disfiguring scar or heavy dose of radiation to prove it.
And so far, my life has been complete **** because of it. My hands down favorite foods, drinks and desserts are made from one of the four categories I refuse to eat. But it had to go. I don't want to develop a tumor or die of sudden cardiac arrest at age 50 just because I liked the taste of some foods. And exercise doesn't help. You can't eat what you want and dramatically reduce your risk. Study after study proves that diet is the major part of any health answer. Comparing marathon runners over 15 years who've ran over 50,000 miles in that period who at whatever they wanted have a third higher risk for heart disease, cancer, among other things than people not eating meat, eggs and dairy and walked only 20 minutes a day. So vigorous exercise isn't the only answer.
But now I get labeled as vegan which for some reason rubs me the wrong way. It's like being labeled hipster, or at least that's how it feels to me. It's irritating. Just because I changed my eating patterns I now belong to a huge group of people, who I know for a fact to be nice but sound like incredibly pretentious free-loving hippies. Why do I need a label? And if I do, why can't I just be called "Does not want to die early from sudden or extremely tortuous death"?
But the absolute worse part is how people react when finding out I'm....vegan. The quintessential response is confusion. The "wait...what? Really? You got to be kidding me" as if they don't believe me and find what I do to be insane. And before I ate this way, I did it too and now realize how offensive it is. So vegans I've encountered in the past, I'm sorry. But even worse is when people tease me by saying they're going to eat a whole salami or a t-bone steak in front of me. This doesn't offend me. Eat whatever the hell you like. It's your life. But what people don't understand is that while a whole salami and t-bone steak used to sound good to me, now they sound absolutely horrible. They don't really understand why I stopped in the first place. Living longer is great, but preventing sudden death is better.
I'm 27. I'm pretty much in the prime of my life. I'll never feel any healthier. Supposedly. I read a study the other day that said a majority of kids...fucking kids already have fatty streaks in their arteries. The same study showed that a majority of 18 year olds had arterial lesions in their heart. And further in the study, it said that a majority of middle 30 year olds already have hardened arteries. I'm 27 and I'm in the prime of my life, yet I've always been unhealthy. This made me incredibly angry. Another study deduced that millennials will be the first generation in the USA to die younger than their parents.
But probably the most fucked up part of it all is how the doctors, seriously acclaimed doctors that head major associations and organizations rarely give a ****. I remember reading one doctor say something to affect of "Well we know this stuff is bad. I mean, it's pretty much proven. But the change in diet is so severe that people would likely not accept it, so let's just not tell them." How incredibly condescending. I'll edit this when I can find the report, because this guy holds a position of major importance and his exact quote is honestly more ridiculous than what I've written.
So yeah, I'm pretty bummed. I'm bummed that I thought I was eating healthy for a majority of my life only to now realize my body hates me. I'm bummed that all the foods I love are terrible for me. I'm bummed that I have unwittingly increased my risk for many, many health related problems. I'm bummed that my mother and father didn't know this and that I have to teach them during a period of their life associated with the highest early death. I'm bummed I can't go to a fucking restaurant and have anything but a salad because eating to live is not as appropriate as living to eat. And finally, I'm bummed that I still post on this site trivial **** from my life.
Topic: life sucks then you die (Read 30453 times)
