Diets and life in general

The purpose of eating is to be healthy.

Ummm...something about those statements, undeniable facts published somewhere in some peer-reviewed
reliable source of bio-scientific information, just doesn't sit right with me. Food, health,
eventual evacuation: I've never been able to tie them together convincingly. Sunday we had raw
oysters on the half-shell, Fruit de Mers, that is to say lobster, cockles, mussels, shrimp, and
clams, plus a variety of very fresh veggies, a soft goat's cheese and a blue sheep's cheese,
persimmons, all accompanied by Pinot Grigio. How many calories? How much protein and carbs? Don't
tell me this is eventually going to go down the toilet. I'm incredulous.

that lovey-dovey stuff has anything to do with a baby a whole nine months later. It's just too
far-fetched.

Once rss convinces me of the food-health-etcetera connection, we can start working on the other
stuff, but I hope that day never arrives.

Ruth Kazez

rtk left this mess on Fri, 14 Nov 2003 19:57:35 GMT for The Way to clean up:
>
>The purpose of eating is to be healthy.

>
>Ummm...something about those statements, undeniable facts published somewhere in some peer-reviewed
>reliable source of bio-scientific information, just doesn't sit right with me. Food, health,
>eventual evacuation: I've never been able to tie them together convincingly. Sunday we had raw
>oysters on the half-shell, Fruit de Mers, that is to say lobster, cockles, mussels, shrimp, and
>clams, plus a variety of very fresh veggies, a soft goat's cheese and a blue sheep's cheese,
>persimmons, all accompanied by Pinot Grigio. How many calories? How much protein and carbs? Don't
>tell me this is eventually going to go down the toilet. I'm incredulous.

The only other alternative is into a pine box six feet under. Perhaps you might exhale some of it.

>that lovey-dovey stuff has anything to do with a baby a whole nine months later. It's just too
>far-fetched.
>

I *could* give you a hands-on demonstration...

Tao te Carl "It takes a village to have an idiot." - Carl (c) 2003

(Kudos to Cap'n Jim Wyatt for this link) BEFORE you ask a dumb-ass question
here...http://www.speakeasy.org/~neilco/bart.gif

Poetically stated, but I sense just a bit of critical scorn. I think that what's been going on has
been largely a discussion between a group of people who have already bought into the idea that diet
is related to health (and there is certainly ample evidence in the real world all around us which
indicates that this is probably true, even without reading a single peer-reviewed paper).

We've been discussing the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to health through
diet. We haven't (on these recent threads) been critiquing people who haven't jumped onto any diet
bandwagon at all.

But, since you raise the issue, let me be the first to take offense. I wrote earlier about how
precious and personal is one's diet. "Insult my diet, and you insult my person" applies to more
people than not.

Implicit in your account is the concept that a diet which disregards heath concerns is more
interesting, delicious, innovative, satisfying, etc. etc. than one which is based around health
concerns. The thought of eating soft goat's cheese and blue sheep's cheese (or American cheese or
cheddar cheese or Jack cheese or Swiss cheese or any of the ten thousand varieties of European high
fat cheeses makes me gag, rather than drool...I hate the sensation of fat coating the roof of my
mouth and sticking there, the way that saturated and trans fats are prone to do). I've eaten 3 hour
banquets in Japan with course after course of pickeled and salted vegetables and roots, seasoned
with exotic vingegars, with clear soups (not miso) with strange tastes, and oily, real "fishy"
fishes and fish parts, pickled "innards" of sweet fish, etc. that the Japanese consider to be
ambrosia, which is beautiful to look at and interesting (if not exactly ambrosia-like) for a
westerner to taste at first bite. None of it with more than a trivial amount of fat and quite
"Pritikin," other than the high salt. We at home make what I consider to be very high quality
gourmand cuisine by getting a basic idea from a recipe, and then modifying (and often improving) it
in a way which makes it more healthful (and usually more tasty to our palates).

I guess that I'm arguing two points here. Firstly, what constitutes great food obviously varies with
the palate of the eater. Secondly, great food can also be healthy food.

Third point, isn't it wonderful that probably the most universally enjoyed freedom, world-wide, is
the freedom to be able to eat whatever you are able to aquire?

I'm tempted to add in a comparison about the relative ease of aquiring food vs aquiring your second
example, and how that may contribute to modern-day anthropomorphics in Western societies, but I
think I'll let it go.

- Larry

Okay, I'll take my tongue out of my cheek even though it's more comfortable there than elsewhere.
Yes, health concerns, if not primary in my choice of food, certainly occupy a prominent second
place. I do pay attention to the very latest, definitive, absolutes about what is considered
healthful. Luckily, if I take a bit of info here and a bit of info there at the Great Diet
Smorgasbord, I come away with what is probably very good for me. Those cheeses are eaten in micro
quanities that would shock a Velveeta gourmand, but the texture of fat appeals to
me. So do all the Japanese pickles. Actually I enjoy just about everything if I can get it before
it sees a machine, box, styrofoam, or any of the other horrors inflicted on nature's best by
our machine age. It is an age that brings the toys so dear to my heart, but is fatal to good
food. However, even with an attentive eye on the results of theory and research in the quite
new science of nutrition, if it should be discovered that junk food is the next new great diet
and is even guaranteed to lower my cholesterol, I will eshew it. (There was a potential pun
left untouched by this in-cheek tongue, regrettably)

Larry, please tell me that at home you make a gourmet, not gourmand, cuisine.

Ruth Kazez

>Larry said: We at home make what I consider to be very high quality
gourmand cuisine by .......

>Larry also said: I'm tempted to add in a comparison about the relative
ease of aquiring food vs aquiring your second example, and how that may contribute to modern-day
anthropomorphics in Western societies, but I think I'll let it go.

Aw, c'mon. Ruth

However, my original note did voice my opinion accurately. To approach the table with thoughts of
calories and vitamins uppermost in mind, to enter the pool primarily to expend those calories or
increase heart rates, to hike solely for health, to have procreation uppermost in mind when
hopping into bed, to think Me and My Body rather than the lovely dinner, the beautiful forest, the
magnificent significant Other - all that is what I seriously object to when the focus of attention
becomes so self-centered. Not anyone's choice of diet. Even junk food has its place. Baseball
games are for hot dogs, not Japanese pickles. My Sunday afternoon visit to Barnes and Noble
includes cappucino and chocolate cheese cake. Back to nutritionists' advice, everything I have
read recently about red wine, coffee, and chocolate, I take totally seriously. I have increased
all three in my *diet.*

Ruth Kazez

I reread Larry's note. One paragragh popped out an hit me in the eye:

>We've been discussing the advantages and disadvantages of different
approaches to health through diet. We haven't (on these recent threads) been critiquing people who
haven't jumped onto any diet bandwagon at all.

Yes, that's true. This has been a discussion about a subject of interest to those who have been
discussing it. (Duh) And I jumped in and dissed the interest itself, much as if I had intruded on
rss to tell everyone I didn't like swimming. It was inappropriate.

Ruth K

> >>Larry, please tell me that at home you make a gourmet, not gourmand,
> cuisine.<<
>
> Your wish is my command. gourmet, it is. -- Spelled that way, if not
always
> cooked that way (but that's the whole fun of not using recipes; you never
know
> how it's going to turn out)

Recipes? We don't need no stinkin' recipes!

Pat in TX

rtk wrote:
> information, just doesn't sit right with me. Food, health, eventual evacuation: I've never been
> able to tie them together convincingly.

Ah, but your instincts are very very much tied to what is healthy. It's our environment
which is throwing you off. If you were living on a forest somewhere, foraging for roots
every morning, and chasing down things smaller than you every afternoon, then something fat
and salty would be the best thing for you. It would give you strength and health compared to
not eathing. Any cholesterolly side effects are minor details compared to that.

I'm not a fan of "DaKitty", and she obviously pissed
>> off Ruth.

Also, DaKitty did not piss me off. I'm not so easily piss-offable and she only defended herself
against what she perceived to my outing of her. But as said in previous note, I didn't publish any
information at all and I'm not offended by what would have been reasonable had it been true.

Whew.

Ruth K