Day twenty-seven (I think): Today is mild rant day, after
reading about Therese Kerr, the mother of model Miranda Kerr, and her eating
regime. Even conceding that she is motivated to take good care of her health
(she suffered from tumours on her spleen 14 years ago), her daily eating regime
is definitely one for the wealthy and pretentious.
She eats everything organic of course, and this itself is
not a bad thing considering the additives to food. However she doesn’t eat
homegrown organic vegetables but homemade kefir (I’ll bet not made by her), a
green smoothie, and various other pretentious git foods. Then you get to where
she drinks ‘reverse osmosis water’. This means that the water is pushed through
a thin membrane to wash away contaminants, wasting up to 85% of the water. In a
country where the water is heavily contaminated this would be necessary, but
this woman is Australian. The tap water in Australia is clean and drinkable. If
she wants to remove the fluoride and other chemicals she can use a specialized filter
that does not waste so much of a precious resource.
It’s privileged thinking, it’s ‘me’ thinking. Pete Evans,
one of the presenters on the Australian television show ‘My Kitchen Rules’ is
an advocate of the fad Paleo diet. This diet is supposed to be the same as that
eaten by our ancient ancestors, and therefore healthier. Pete of course is
pushing the diet because he is making bucket loads of money from selling it to
a public who would be better off simply eating sensibly. He made headlines not
long ago by talking about activated almonds. Apparently you can only get the
full benefit of the vitamins in almonds by activating them first, which
requires soaking them for 12 hours and then drying them. Call me cynical but I
can’t see our ancestors diligently collecting and soaking almonds before
sitting down to enjoy the enhanced nutritional value – if indeed almonds were
even around then.
There is little scientific evidence to show that the paleo
diet is even accurate. It is generally agreed that humankind back then simply
ate whatever they could find (which makes complete sense to me). All of these fad
diets and foods are just the modern version of snake oil. While some of them
have some nutritional value, on the whole it’s just marketing designed to
fleece you of your money. Companies rush to sell merchandise and food branded
to fit in with the latest fad. Paleo snacks, paleo water filters, paleo flour -
really? Ancient man made flour like this? Seriously, if you want to have real
paleo flour you’d be eating flat bread filled with grit, husks and bits of
hair.
The general public will always be gullible about products or
diets that will make you look younger/beautiful/wrinkle free/live longer/get
thinner/look like a supermodel. What bugs me the most about this fake health
industry is the amount of money it generates. I buy large bottles of water here
for my everyday use, because the tap water is full of chemicals and
contaminants and is bad for the stomach and kidneys. However the poor can’t
afford bottled water. They have to drink the tap water, or the water delivered
by trucks, or straight from the Nile. They aren’t worried about reverse osmosis
water – even though they are the very people who should be drinking it. Not
Therese Kerr.
The poor aren’t precious about their diet either. Like paleo
man, they eat what they can find. They eat what is available and what they can
afford. They aren’t worried about activating their almonds, they probably don’t
get any almonds. The imbalance between the poor of the world and the wealthy
pretentious gits with too much time on their hands infuriates me. My
grandmother used to tell me to stop worrying about myself and think of others.
If these twits spent even half the time thinking about others that they spend
staring into a mirror or their bank accounts, imagine the difference to the
world.
Imagine a world where the wealthy and privileged give back.
Imagine a world where, instead of looking for ways to fleece the population of
their money, the wealthy looked for ways to help the poor and destitute improve
their lives. Imagine a world where instead of coming up with ridiculous fad
diets, ways were found to feed the starving. It wouldn’t take much to change
the world, just a rethink. If we all stopped thinking only of ourselves, and
started thinking of others, humankind would become what we’ve always had the
potential to become. We would care for others, be compassionate and giving. We
would know that an obsession with looks and possessions leads to a sad empty
life. This world would be unrecognizable to any passing alien that has in the
past shaken its head at our greed and selfishness. The older I get, the more
foolishness I see, the more I empathise with the John Lennon song Imagine.
Rant over.
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