Freedom is something that must be constantly defended, because it is not a natural state. Ever since man has existed, we have tried to exert power over our fellows, and force them to work toward our ends. Sadly, most of the ancient wonders of the world were built with forced labor, and up until very recently, slavery was not only acceptable, but common practice. We are very fortunate to live in a country in which we are free to choose the course of our lives.
By now, you might be wondering how this all ties in to a health and wellness blog. Good question. There is one crucial point that most of us never think of with regard to freedom. Just because we can do something, does not mean that we should, or that it is best for us. Besides having unprecedented legal and social freedoms, Americans (and residents of other industrialized countries) also have culinary freedom which has never been experienced on the planet before.
To realize this point, you need to look no further than the cookout you will likely attend this afternoon. Represented at your Memorial Day cookout will likely be hamburgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, potato salad, potato chips, corn, fruit salad, watermelon, cantaloupe, beer, soft drinks, green beans, deviled eggs, cupcakes, cookies, and countless other foods. Before eating today, let's think for just a minute on what foods will be represented in the average American backyard today:
Beef Chicken Pork
Potatoes Eggs Corn
Mayonnaise Bananas Grapes
Watermelon Cantaloupe Sugar
Beans Milk Wheat
Rice Soybeans Pineapple
This list is far from inclusive, but it gives you the basic idea. As important as how many foods we have access to is how easily we can obtain them. Unlike our caveman ancestors, we don't have to forage and hunt in order to obtain the foods we eat. All we have to do is go to the grocery store, and we see all of the foods above and more sitting on the shelves. Cavemen would never have been able to match either the quantity or variety of food that we have at our fingertips. The foods above come from all over the world, from Europe to America to tropical islands in the middle of the pacific ocean.
It is wonderful that we have access to all of these foods, in quantities that ensure most people don't have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. It is also somewhat ironic that this freedom is slowly killing us. In the past fifty years, we have been getting larger and larger and larger. Two-thirds of all Americans are now either overweight or obese. Infectious diseases like pneumonia, which used to be the biggest killers of people, have been supplanted with diseases of lifestyle like heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes. Mounting evidence in the past 20 years has shown that some foods, particularly meat, milk, and eggs, are directly related to the diseases which now kill us in epidemic proportions.
I, like all of you, dear readers, am extremely grateful for the men and women who died to allow us to live free of oppression and slavery, and to pursue our dreams. I shudder to consider what those men and women would think if they were to see how we are slowly killing ourselves. I have never served in the military. The fight I participate in is not for our freedom, but for our health. This Memorial Day, I would like to humbly suggest that we try to honor the memory of those who served by trying to take care of our bodies, and using some of our freedom to not choose some of the foods which cause us so much harm.
Happy Memorial Day,
M. Jacob Ott, M.D.
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