I heard a wonderful story this past weekend at a conference. A businessman in health, wellness, and optimal aging product sales told a story about how, as the youngest of six kids his mother had an assembly line for dinner. One evening she was making hamburgers. She was cooking the patties on an open pan. The grease was popping and dripping as the hamburgers cooked. As each child walked by to receive their burger from the pan onto their bun, it finally came to him. The last hamburger was lifted out of the pan and the grease popped onto Mom’s hand. She dropped the hamburger onto the floor. Their dog ran up to grab the burger off the floor and his Mom yelled “Don’t let the dog get the burger! The grease is bad for him!”
The three most important things that prevent disease are Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Yep. That’s it. Done. What else is there to talk about? I have written about this many times before. And I will continue to write about it for as long as I am able to write. Eating to prevent disease. I treat disease well. In the beginning of my medical career starting with medical school that was ALL I was taught, to treat disease. I know disease well.
Disease will always happen. You can eat perfectly for who you are, you can limit the habits that contribute to disease such as not smoking, light alcohol use, wearing sunscreen, and you can exercise consistently. But disease will continually happen. Disease can be trauma. If you got in a car accident and had to go to the hospital where would you rather be in your health? Optimal or already in a diseased state? Overweight or at your ideal weight? Prepared to heal fast or set up for a longer hospital stay and acquire more disease?
What you eat and how you eat does only two things. It either feeds disease or prevents it. Period. All else is detail. Detail in what types of foods and how you prepare them to prevent disease or to feed it. If each individual thought this way every time they made their diet choices our country’s obesity rate would not be climbing as rapidly as it is. Our country’s per capita spending for health care would not be the single biggest contributor to our debt and deficit. Your life would be better. Period.
