Aw LAWD!
I’m Whole Food Plant Based Lifestyle Woke and the message I have for haters and crabs who view me (a vegan) as somehow confused because of my dietary choice, it’s not me it’s you. Your defense is of a preponderance of evidence that link the Standard American Diet (referred as SAD for this point on) to a litany of chronic diseases that ‘you have’ currently or ‘will have’ the longer you stick with status quo. Highly processed foods, animal products, and minimal whole plant foods, nuts and seeds is what comprise the SAD. I’m saying, “Aw Lawd!” SAD is probably the worst dietary lifestyle on the planet! Compared to a Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) diet which I choose, using the below graph, would be like 60% or more vegetables, fruits, beans and legumes, 10% nuts and seeds, 28% whole grains, and 2% or less processed foods. So, who’s confused?
“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
― Voltaire
Please Show Some Humility!
Prior to my shift, I consumed the SAD. So, I can judge SAD from my own personal knowledge and experience. Myself, family, and friends were loving SAD, but simultaneously being maimed, sometimes slowly, and killed through adherence.
Nonetheless, the arrogance and indifference some Americans have towards people that point this out and see it for what is is repugnant. They seem to rebuke us (oh lowly vegan) only from the standpoint that this is what everyone else does so this must be right point of view. To this I say, “show some damn humility!” Especially, to those of you that have already been debilitated as a result of an arrogant adherence to SAD.
The nerve of you to put the SAD on some high pedestal and think it is sensible for others to emulate. Please! This can only be possible in a world where people live with alternative facts. If we are talking facts concerning health and wellness, Americans are some of the fattest and sickest people in all the world. And it’s only getting worse.
Give Up SAD
It is so bad, health professionals here are promoting Americans to emulate a Mediterranean diet. From political point of view, Republican politicians, rightly so, are trying to dodge having the government on the hook for healthcare for its citizens because they know how expensive and unsustainable this SAD model is. They helped make it happen. That diet is simply F’d up!
Our politicians cannot offer socialized healthcare that is affordable if the SAD is at its core. The cost for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. that Americans suffer from is too expensive. Particularly, if they will continue to cater to your “freedom” instead of “prevention”. The aforementioned diseases are preventable with WFPB lifestyle.
So, if it’s something vegans need to change, it’s in how to craft a message that reach you SAD conformist and reach you soon. Time is of the essence and if we can’t somehow get through, our government and companies pandering to you will potentially destroy the planet before you are humbled.
You may think you have grounds to put on airs because this is how a majority of people in America eat; however, there are dire consequences to our collective choices if we rebuff an optimal alternative. That being a WFPB lifestyle.
I believe vegans realize the connectedness we share and that helping you shift to that perspective brings us that much closer to saving ourselves and the planet. The choice of what you put in your mouth not only impacts your health, but the health and sustainability of the planet.
The Story of Crabs/Haters
Since switching my diet, I’ve had the experience of crabs/haters that wish you good luck, but the tone is, we’ll see how long that last before you are right back ‘here’ with us. And ‘here’ with us means saddled with high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetics, cancer, and on and on. I guess it’s more comforting to feel connected by the SAD chronic conditions than to be an outsider to it.
Frankly, as I became woke to the fact that ‘we’, the American people, are being sold a bill of goods by adhering to SAD, I opted for the proven nutrition of WFPB lifestyle. Even the so-called model of health is not spared in this deception. The WFPB lifestyle I follow has been proven by Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn to prevent and reverse the #1 killer of Americans, which is heart disease.
The crabs/haters love and relate to you when you are in their ‘here’, but their ‘here’ is not were I want to be for reasons I’m expressing here. Howard Lyman said of this lifestyle, “… it’s not all good. There are bad things associated with the hallelujah diet. You gotta attend a whole lot more funerals than your friends …” By the time the crabs/haters realize they should be focused of trying to fix themselves instead of showing disdain for me, it may be too late. Aw Lawd, I feel like Jesus in the moment where he says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”. It really is sad.
The Story of Dreams Short Lived
This hearkens me to my dad who worked hard and provided for us his whole life. Now he’s retired. He was once living the life I think he envisioned for himself at this stage in his life. However, his health turned for the worse. I think a number of factors contributed to this; namely, a hereditary heart condition, coupled with SAD, stress, smoking, and drinking. Prior to falling ill, he bought several acres of land in Mississippi and built a house on it. For a while, he did exactly what he loved which was being outdoors, growing food, hunting, doing DIY projects, and being around friends and family.
Now, he is mostly confined to the house because he doesn’t have the energy and stamina that a strong healthy heart provides. An analogy I use is if your body was a bank, if you don’t deposit money (good nutrition) into it today and then go to it in the future to make a withdrawal, it’s going be like your account is overdrawn or you have insufficient funds. The bottom line, you best think and do today what is going to benefit you tomorrow.
The Story of Ramifications for Your Choices
Here’s a scenario becoming much more common and often the family is not prepared. Take for example, my mother and uncle-in-law. Should you think that your personal health and how well you take care of yourself were in a vacuum, you’d be wrong. Your bad choices can become others choices or lack thereof. My mother and uncle-in-law both have had major stroke which has left them paralyzed on one side. Now, they cannot care for themselves and their children unexpectedly get called to task to handle this responsibility. The life my wife and I thought we’d be sharing is not at all what we expected to happen. The emotion you feel is like in the prime of your life, it is being stolen away from you. Sometimes, your dreams and aspirations become short lived as well.
Not only is it emotionally taxing, it’s time intensive, and it’s financially taxing as well. In this case, they didn’t have Long Term Care (LTC) insurance to mitigate some of the expense nor responsibility. Options are limited to what state and federal assistance can provide and you becoming a full-time care-giver. While at my house, my wife mentioned to my mother-in-law that I was vegan, to which she responded, “Aw Lawd!”
Failure to Draw The SAD & Disease Association
The tone of the reply bugged me and was an impetus for me writing this blog. It was as if I had somehow gone astray. I had betrayed the diet which I was raised on. Yet, the reality my wife and I, and her cousins, are living is where 50 year old parents need to be cared for by their children. The SAD is known to contribute to circulatory blockage of the arteries to important organs in the body like the heart and brain.
The surprising, and at the same time troubling, thing was that even from this debilitated condition, people do not draw the association that what they chose to put in their body had anything to do with their current condition. Instead, it’s the person(s) adopting a WFPB diet that is confused?! This is the arrogance I stated earlier that is simply repugnant.
There are examples of people both in the US and abroad, in blue zones, that are living long healthy lives. However, they don’t adhere to SAD, but instead follow a mostly plant based lifestyle. Their food is their medicine.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
― Hippocrates
The Story of Cycle Not Ending In Near Future
Finally is a conversation where it gives me hope and insight. At work, I overhead another employee speaking on phone saying to person on other end, “John Doe told me he don’t eat meat…” To that statement, he laughed because he is a meat-eater. Although, I didn’t think it was funny because there is a high probability that he and people who think like him are going to be in the position my dad or in-laws are in, or dead prematurely. This type of ignorance and arrogance is what keeps churning out new victims in this vicious cycle. Statistics from the World Health Organization show chronic diseases only getting worse sooner and sooner in our lives.
No wonder Republicans are so opposed to socialized healthcare. They see citizen who feel they’re entitled to healthcare coverage no matter what they do. Despite the fact it’s their own dietary choices that are contributory to their chronic condition(s). All while feeling they have to take no active role in ‘preventing’ these chronic condition(s) that are well within their power to do so. Instead, the mentality is give me a pill or surgery to fix this.
Humility In Action
I believe the difference between me and a stupid arrogant ass Americans is I have some humility. Humility to look out and within and steady examine myself. To do better when I know better based not on alternative facts, but where the truth seems to lie.
In case my wife or I are hit with a chronic condition, I have LTC. I’ve add this contingency so as not be a complete burden on my wife, family, or society that I hadn’t paid it forward. How about you? In addition, I have life insurance on myself should I die prematurely. How about you? I actively exercise my body though my diet was lacking. As I was seeking optimal health, to align my diet, I came to realize that a WFPB lifestyle is the best to serve this purpose. How about you? These choices together are a culmination of humility in action. Arrogant mofo aught to try this because it would produce a whole lot better world for all of us.
In Closing
I can own the choices I’ve made and I humbly believe that the deposits I make today will serve me well when I look to make theoretical withdrawals tomorrow. I’m hopeful that you find in yourselves the humility to see the crisis we’re facing from the stories above. In addition, see how important it is that you reject SAD and adopt a WFPB diet for yourself and also for those whom you love. Finally, at some point, I hope people afflicted by SAD diseases will recognize the association diet plays. Furthermore, if their reply to a convert to WFPB lifestyle becomes, “Praise the Lawd, instead of an Aw Lawd”, then we’re truly making progress. The difference can mean a better world for all humans!
