Day 45 – Moral Fibre

“ The sun is shinin, In this rainy city
And the sun is shinin, Ooh isn’t a pity
That every year has it’s share of tears?
Every now and then it’s gotta rain“

~ Trooper

204.4 lbs

Caution ~ The opening 5 paragraphs may contain emo. Skip ahead for the skinny on fibre.

Getting close to the 200 lb. mark. With everything I know about how unhealthy this starvation diet is, and all the negative physical effects it’s having on me, it seems odd that I’m getting so proud of the weight I’m losing. Well, maybe not so odd. It would really suck if I was having all the restless nights, irritability, ultra-low blood pressure, headaches, etc. and not at least seeing a drop in body fat so others could see the result.

It’s sort of like I mentioned earlier about the media, but applies to people in general. The attitude is “You’re starving yourself? Call me when you’re a shrinkwrapped skeleton. Until then it’s just not that interesting.”

Another interesting side effect: since I began this project, 14 people have stopped talking to me. Some say it’s because they can’t watch me waste away, some mumble excuses of the timing being a coincidence and they just happened to decide I’m not a friend anymore, some say nothing at all, because they take the “not talking to” more seriously than the first two bunches.

So not only do I rarely leave the house now, fewer people come over. I could see how, if I were genuinely anorexic due to an emotional loss, this would set up a feedback loop that would reinforce it. Which becomes one of those JFK Jr. type death spirals I mentioned in a previous post.

But hey – think of it as spring cleaning… if people are there for the good times, but vanish for the not-so-stellar ones, they’re not so much friends as “happy-moments leeches”. Amirite?

Moving on…

Back when we roamed the savanna we ate about 1280 units of fibre per day. Today most North Americans eat just 14 units. Why? Fibre is intentionally removed from most of what we eat. Unfortunately, lack of fibre is known to lead to a whole hockey sock of complications, including being a key cause of appendicitis.

So why is it intentionally removed?

The US can’t sell goods anymore. No one wants American cars, except about half of the Americans. No one wants American computers; all the top electronics producers are in Germany or Asia. And so on.

But there’s one American product still purchased from the US. Food.

You see, when it comes to foreign policy the US is like a modern day British Empire. Keep countries divided and keep them dependent on you, and you maintain your clout. So the US provides “aid” to other countries. But when one of the things needed is food, they say “instead of giving you money, we’ll send you the food and add the retail value onto the amount you owe us”

What does this have to do with fibre? Removing fibre makes food far easier to process and extends its shelf life, making it easier to ship overseas and sit in storage for months.

But the USDA doesn’t have specific food made to sell overseas, they buy from regular US food producers. So the food producers are encouraged to reduce the fibre in their products. Which makes them taste like cardboard, so the producers add more high fructose corn syrup. The USDA, and corn industry, cheer all the way to the bank while you and I eat our way into an early grave.

This is why some people turn to the paleolithic diet. The logic is if we ate the way our savanna-roaming cave man ancestors did, we’ll be free of most  diseases of affluence, like stroke, ischemic heart disease, diabetes, obesity or hypertension. Seems logical. Maybe that’ll be my next diet project. Who knows.