“I’m eating so much healthier today,” is a common refrain heard when we discuss our eating habits among friends and acquaintances.
Are we? I get suspicious when fully a fourth of the “natural foods” ─ what a term ─ section of my local supermarket (owned by an enormous national chain) displays shelf after shelf of packaged supplements and vitamins. Plus the also national and enormous “natural and organic and otherwise” grocer across the street devotes more space to supplements and vitamins than anything else, save perhaps the “ready to eat” delicatessen section and ─ arguably ─ produce. Don’t get me started on the “cleansing” products. Somebody’s buying this stuff. I’m beginning to wonder if “eating healthier” isn’t just an excuse to dine at Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin, etc. as long as we swallow vast quantities of lycopene, ginko, etc.
In last week’s newspaper there was an announcement that another national “lower cost” natural and organic and otherwise grocer is opening up a couple of blocks away. I’ll check this grocer out, but I’m not “excited,” expecting instead to find yet again those long stretches of supplement aisles. I’m not anti-supplement, mind you. My skin does not appreciate winter’s lack of sun and moisture, so Lucy has me on Vitamin D and Omega-3. Plus, I ingest medically-prescribed grams of niacin each day (thank you science for niacinamide). And I know women, especially, can always use a little additional calcium. I pray some of you will tell me you get enough calcium, thank you very much, without having to ingest a pill.
I just wonder if perhaps we have succumbed to a pill mentality when a good diet would suffice, say, ala Nathan Pritikin. Of course Pritikin died at the relatively young age of 70, and recalling him I chuckle because I seem to remember him bragging on perhaps “60 Minutes” about his life-extending dietary habits. He seemed to have a more reasoned approach ─ anything in moderation ─ to diet than others such as Robert ─ “no noodles for you” ─ Atkins. Of course, when I say “anything,” I mean anything of reasonable nutritional value without the salts and fats our 21st Century bodies somehow can’t seem to live without. Maybe Pritikin is one reason why I’m such a fan of Michael Pollan and the farmers he wrote about in “Omnivore’s Dilemma.”
Complain and thou shalt receive.
Last May, I Backpedaled about clothes irons, particularly about Mom’s ancient GE that ironed the family wardrobe for years. This past Christmas, I received as a gift from an old friend, in its original box, a General Electric “Steam & Dry Iron,” Cat. No. 93F50X, 120 Volts, 1100 Watts, AC Only, 3 Pounds, and built in Bridgeport, (not China, amazingly) Connecticut, USA. I plugged it in, and I’d be damned, the thing began to heat. The cord is haphazardly taped in places with adhesive tape, but I’ll repair that with electrician’s tape. Tomorrow, I’ll fill it with distilled water and try it on a week’s worth of shirts. Bet you won’t be able to tell any difference between a cotton button-down ironed on the ancient GE and a cotton spread ironed on the new Kenmore. Thank you, LuAnn for appeasing the iron devils that haunt my soul.
