The Hypocrisy of "Eating/Being Healthy": Tobacco, Alcohol, Junk Food and Meat

After all, there has been countless solid studies - and just plain common sense in today's age - that smoking cigarettes as a normal, every day activity is just plain stupid.

If we shame others for eating meat and processed food and all that comes with it (moral, environmental, health), despite the human body actually having a good mechanisms to re-calibrate itself to fight off the long term effects of said food, it's a double standard to allow smoking to go into the shadows and live care free. 

If actresses are concerned about their health, so they eat "healthy" and go to the gym weekly, it's amusing that they suck up nicotine like it wasn't a health hazard. Did they forget? Probably not. Do they care? Probably not. It's their Oreo cooke, but if we're being honest give me the processed Oreo cookie over a cigarette get to together. You'd think out all of the activities that are deemed unhealthy smoking would be the first one to be avoided but no. 

If we're going to talk about "being healthy" then we have to acknowledge that alcoholic drinks - wine, beer and whiskey are "soft" drugs, which can do more damage to your body than, say, eating a pop tart every other month. The difference is how alcoholic drinks are viewed within modern society versus junk food and meat. 

Let's be honest: cigarettes, despite its old depiction of those who smoke being sexy, are ultimately seen as skeevy. Usually those who smoke tend to be lower-middle class if not working high stress jobs (corporate world, restaurant industry). The need to smoke isn't born out of a vacuum; it's usually learned - either a parent or friend or coworker did so they pick up the habit. There are of course cases were models smoke in order to keep their weight, which oddly enough is a bizarre of living life, but it's. more of a turn off of smoking a casual cigarette "just because." Smoke makes your clothes smell, it makes your mouth smell and you heck aren't healthier afterwards. At least with the Oreos I can brush my teeth and exercise.  

So, what can we eat?

It's been said eggs are bad.

It's been said sugar is bad. Okay, how about artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Stevia? Bad also.

It's been said olive oil is bad, so move to coconut oil.

It's been said tofu is bad.

It's been said all-purpose white flour is bad. Move to brown everything.

What if I want to make a cookie when using these standards? Diabetic cookies taste no where near as good as traditional cookies that use butter, or some sort of fat, and sugar. Let's face it, as American Test Kitchen bluntly admits, that it's about "health", not taste. One probably has to trick oneself into believing that diabetic cookies damn fucking good.

Don't name your kids after yourself.

In a situation where I thought I chose the doctor of my choice, I was met with disappointment a few weeks later. I reviewed several doctors in my area that were within my network - saw one that I liked and sent in my choice.

The first issue was that he was named after his father who is also a doctor in the same state and area. Instead of choosing Jr. I chose Sr. I was initially upset, but thought that is wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I was wrong again.  I looked up Sr.'s reviews and they weren't good; they were the opposite of his son's.

The second issue was when I called my doctor's office to make an appointment. The receptionist asked who my doctor was, I gave him his name, and said to wait for a moment. She came back and replied that he wasn't accepting any new patients. Okay, why the fuck would the system assign me a doctor that wasn't accepting new patients? I was later given over to a nurse practitioner since my issue - getting an immunization sheet field out - wasn't an actual medical appointment that was serious.

It's a good thing I can change my doctor (and do much better research on my part) every month with my plan.

Did it ever occur to Sr. that maybe, just maybe, there might be some mix-up between him and his son? Add that they're in the same profession and the same area. For a doctor he definitely did not analyze this predicament. Or  maybe he did and did not care.

I shall pray.

I will admit, I'm not much of a prayer. It escapes my memory if my parents said to me, as I seen on television on more conservative tv shows, "Remember to say your prayers," as I got into bed. I pray during mass and try my best to find meaning and reverence in the words I speak, but outside of church? Disastrous. I just never got into the habit.

I bring prayer up because I just learned that a choir member of mine, right at this very moment, is having brain surgery because of a possible blood clot due to a mild concussion. She's an elderly, mid 70s I presume. She hit her head on the microwave door (the ones above the stove) and she was found in her bathroom today unconscious by her son. Her grown children were trying to call her but she wasn't answering, and she being a widow they worried. If all goes well, I and the others in her life will know whether or not her son got to her on time.

My heart is a little heavy, a little achy and tears are forming in my eyes as I write this. Maybe this could be the sign that my prayer habit is to finally come to existence. Either way, an unfortunate "wake up call" (no pun).

Hail Mary, full of grace.
Our Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, 

Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen. 

UPDATE as of March 7th: Just a few hours ago her children unplugged her from the machine. She was in coma due to the injury to the head (1/3) and was being monitored closely. The wake will be in a couple of days followed by a possible Saturday burial.

RIP Eleanor.

White People + Health

This post isn't meant to be racist or insensitive. Okay, I know what I'll say is insensitive but I don't care.

White rice has been perplexing health nuts for numerous years. Since it's considered a grain and in the health nut world that "too paranoid for their own good" white people reside in, I can't help but think to myself that this is the typical "I lived in Asia for a year and now I'm an expert on the culture" types or the "the data says there's a correlation so it must be true" types that annoy me. This stuff deserves to be laughed it. They deserve to be laughed at. These people probably run marathons, would greatly prefer to send their child to a "non-lily white" school for the sake of (ethnic) diversity and are probably - to get political - liberal if not left-leaning libertarian. 

Here's  some advice that I didn't think of after mauling over "scientific" studies: Eat a balance diet. If you make bread, no matter if it's white or brown, make it homemade. Yes, you're using flour. Bakers use flour. The French bakers use flour that you think are "totally sophisticated" after you take an instagram of your pastry filled with Nutella, and I bet if they didn't they'd go out of business. This "flour is bad," to my current knowledge, hasn't swept Europe.

As a person who eats rice I will say rice is my "friend." Flour as well since I bake every now and then. I also eat meat, eggs and beans. Heck, I don't drink coffee and coffee is said to make you live longer. I don't care. I never was raised on coffee and just because some health nut says to drink it doesn't mean I'll bow down to his "enlightenment."

The paranoid health nut - proof that the internet can either make you an idiot or, in rare cases, more knowledgeable. Don't confuse the latter with the former.