Food and Health
Due to my recalcitrant back, I’ve had a lot of time recently to do serious research on the link between food and overall health. What I’ve found was both surprising and somewhat disturbing. For example, low fat milk is touted as helping to blast fat and build lean muscle, but many people are lactose-intolerant and therefore cannot digest it properly. Nuts are an excellent source of essential fatty acids, but they are nutritionally dense, and therefore avoided like the plague for people looking to lose weight. Milk thistle is purported to have medicinal qualities for the liver, but people who take blood thinners (like me) are advised to stay away from it because it has been shown to cause adverse effects in people who take Wafarin.
What’s a fellow to do? Everything’s good for you, but nothing’s good for you. Carrots are supposed to improve one’s eyesight, but eating too many can cause a buildup of Vitamin A and that can be toxic for you. Leafy green vegetables (spinach, kale, broccoli) are loaded with Vitamin K, but people with deep vein thrombosis (read blood clots) have to limit their intake because Vitamin K is a coagulant. Eggs are a complete protein, but an abundance in one’s diet may increase the likelihood of cholesterol. It’s enough to make you want to spit.
The only safe thing to do (it seems) is to subsist entirely on a diet of rice, beans, brown bread and purified water. In other words, join a monastery and become a monk.
Until next time, keep lifting the heavy iron.
