This is kind of easy for me as I have always been the sort of person who prefers to swim against the current.  For example,  in high school I railed against wearing the school uniform.  Being this kind of person has had its benefits and costs over the years.   When it comes to food in 2014 though,  I am definetly in the right place!

Being normal in relation to what you eat in Australia in 2014, means you will end up sick and overweight or alternatively, just sick and not overweight.   It is normal in Australia to be overweight or obese.  Over 60% of South Australians, the state where I live in Australia,  are in that category.   Normal is just what most people in any environment/culture do,  so by that measure it is normal to be overweight.   It is normal to take a tablet everyday, supposedly for your health: either a prescription drug or alternative medicine tablet such as  vitamins.   This is despite the fact that the prescription drug often is only ameliorating symptons or risk factors for disease not addressing the cause of the problem, which is the food we eat.  Consequently we go on causing the problem three times per day,  365 days per year.   Taking vitamins is irresponsibly promoted by ex-sports stars in advertisements,  even though they have found in studies to be a waste of money or bad for our health.

People are overweight and/or sick because they are eating normally, just like everyone else.  This overweight thing and accompanying problems like metabolic syndrome and diabetes epidemics have happened in the last 30 years.  So,  what is now normal, that wasn’t 30 years ago?   What would it be good for your health to rebel against, to take an abnormal stance on?  Well, this list would be a good start.

• eat no takeaway food, even the so called ‘healthy’ options-leave the fat, oil and sugar behind
• avoid most of the aisles in the supermarket.  You know the ones with the chips, soft drinks, sauces, processed meals and so on- leave the fat, oil and sugar behind.   Rule of thumb: don’t eat anything that comes from a factory
• leave the chicken.  The chicken we eat today is very different from the chicken we ate thirty years ago.  Todays chicken  has much more fat in it(yes even skinless chicken is high in fat) due to factory farming and fast growth of chickens by growth hormones, anti-biotics and genetics.
• leave the fish-this means leave the mercury and the PCB’s (carcinogenic compounds from plastic) as the sea is the ruibbish dump of the world
• cook without oil
• ignore the latest fad, to improve your health whether it is coconut oil, fish oil or your balance of omega3 to omega 6 fatty acids or whatever-leave the oil alone and just eat fresh and unprocessed whole food

Be abnormal and:

• eat fresh food
• prepare and cook it yourself
• don’t snack on poison like biscuits, chocolate
• don’t be fooled by ‘information’ that comes out telling us that the things we love are in fact health foods!  Things like chocolate and alcohol
• leave the processed meat, which means leaving the nitrosamines which are carcinogenic
• when you are at a function or gathering where food is provided see the food provided as poison, as that is what it will be.  It is something that will provide an ‘insult’ to your body and your body will have to detox from.
• see an apple as a treat
• enjoy food and the sense of well being we get physically from putting good fuel in to the body and the sense of well being we get psychologically, that we haven’t participated with cruelty and death by eating animals and animal products. (pay attention to the next slaughterhouse truck that passes you on the road).

As we embrace being abnormal, we embrace life, having the energy to live.  Living life normally in the environment and culture we are in at present, is living a life of gradual decline and decay-extended periods of sickness and disability.   Take a look around at your friends, family, workmates and people you see in social situations and see how healthy and vibrant they are or how chronically ill and disabled they are.

It is only recently normal to spend the last 20- 30 years of our life, chronically ill, disabled and taking multiple medications.  Some people will try and convince you, we are in this state as we are living longer  now and somehow it is a bonus to be in the decrepit state we find ourselves.   They will argue that previously in human history, people lived short and brutish lives.  This is not true.  The advent of agriculture actually decreased life expectancy for a period of time, as farming animals brought diseases to humans and reliance on crops and being sedentary brought food shortages.  The industrial revolution made things worse with overcrowding and rivers of sewerage.    People did live to old ages in hunter gatherer societies.

I have argued in previous blogs that our genetics are not our destiny, as the environment we subject our genes to,  greatly affects the expression of our genes, affecting very directly our health.    It is also true to say, that our genetic heritage is out of sync with the environment of our current culture.  In simple terms we weren’t designed to eat junk,  processed food, high in  fat and sugar, be physically inactive and face few physical stresses and spend hours/day in front of screens of various kinds.  We were designed to be physically very active, be out in the sun, eat fresh whole foods and get lots of sleep.

In a nutshell, this is why if we are normal we will be sick.   Embrace abnormality!