Let’s Eat What We Want: It’s Doomsday

Someone posted this in a Facebook group I’m in recently.

It’s a comment I’ve heard countless times: “Life is short, so eat what makes you happy,” showing the guy’s photo of a “fried bologna sandwich.”

In what follows, I will decimate the dumb arguments that (a) this is “happiness”; (b) “life is short,” and that (c) eating this means you’ll die quickly and painlessly but your life will be full of joy.

(In fact, I’ll deal with C right now: no, you’ll create years of misery, and rob yourself of joy. That’s the Cliff’s Notes.)

As brief as that statement is (and popular)--

–“Life’s short, so eat whatever you want”--

–it’s got some complete falsehoods in it begging for rebuttal.

Here’s three major issues with that popular belief:

1. Life isn’t actually short–it’s long. Humans actually are incredibly resilient.

I flew to another state last year for the funeral of a family member I loved, who was morbidly obese for 60 of her more than 80 years.

60 years is a LONG time to have little to no quality of life.

I hope you think about that again: this close family member of mine spent 60 YEARS in a bed or chair.

I know more people than I can count who eat a terrible diet and are obese, almost entirely house-bound, and have zero pleasure or even activity left in their life.

Except for some version of a fried-bologna sandwich.

So my argument for why to consider giving up the fried-bologna lifestyle is that it robs you of all of life’s OTHER pleasures.

You’re aware by now of how many toxins (over 8 MILLION approved by governments of the Western world) are in our food, air, water, and products.

Many people in the US now live to 80+ (since Medicine is really good at keeping you alive in crises) while eating a diet devoid of fiber and nutrients, that cause their body struggle and misery–

–instead of nourishment, fun, and chasing our dreams.

So, because life actually is long, and because what you eat today (a) affects how you feel all day, (b) affects how you’ll feel tomorrow, too, and (c) determines whether you’re accumulating disease diagnoses or living your best life–

–I hope you’ll examine the logic of this social-media post.

Too many of our Americans living to 80 spend literally decades immobile, and unable to travel or enjoy retirement. And instead spending most of their money and time on their medical problems.

John and I have 3 parents in their early 80’s, and 1 parent in her 70’s. Most conversations are about their miserable health conditions.

They’re bored and lonely, three of them cannot remember whatever you told them 10 minutes ago, and their plight reminds me that my choices today will dictate what life looks like in my 60’s, 70’s and beyond.

2. I don’t think people are actually happier due to eating fried bologna, bread, and french fries.

They may have 10 minutes or so of pleasure, but then they have to face hours or days of lower mood; slower and even painful digestion; and less energy literally for days.

As the body overworks to process food that bogs every cell down. This is “happiness?” If so, I think we’ve lost track of what happiness ever was.

I would even argue our food choices cause years of misery, not hours–if this is a choice representative of the overall diet.

(And sometimes we pay a price even if it’s just occasional. Have you ever been eating a healthy diet, were feeling great–and made one really bad choice, and been sorry? I have.

Our detoxers tell us this all the time. How after 26 days of feeling better than they have in decades, and they’ve flushed their liver and gallbladder and kidneys and they’re feeling amazing–

–they treated themselves to a hamburger and shake at the end–and their body, mind and spirit told them very loudly how they felt about it!)

If we think the 10 minutes it takes to eat a bologna sandwich is “happiness,” we have to consider the 2 hours or 10 hours, at a minimum, that it negatively impacts us.

If we’ve made choices like that countless times, we may no longer be accurately tracking cause and consequence. Because feeling lousy has become your “new normal.”

We can make choices but we can’t choose the consequences.

I remember Rogan about 20 years ago saying on his show, “Dude, mix in a salad!” with regard to how the American diet was degenerating. (Into meals like this.)

I know the Carnivore and Keto diets are popular, and they’ve been here before by other names, and will come again after falling from favor as more and more studies in the media remind people how bad they are and always will be for human beings.

Because many of the “experts” endorse focusing on protein, and focusing on fat–who doesn’t want to hear that a burger and cheese diet is a good one?--these fad diets reinvent themselves with new names every 15 years and validate and endorse eating things like fried bologna.

(Proteins, fats and carbohydrates are all necessary and useful in the diet. And virtually all whole foods have all three. It’s the QUALITY of our foods–proteins, fats, and carbs–we should focus on, but mostly people miss that part.)

What Makes You Happy?

If it’s a [fried bologna sandwich] [swap that out with the worst thing making a regular appearance in your diet] that makes you happy, let me ask:

Do you think if you could replace all the decisions to eat a [fried bologna sandwich] in your past with a quart of green smoothie or a giant salad:

Would you look different? Would you feel different?

And would that make you infinitely happier than fried bologna does?

I don’t want to make you feel guilty about the past. I want to paint a vision of how fast you could change your present and your future.

I want to make the case that what makes us happy is spending quantity and quality time doing fun and memorable things with those we love.

Seriously, since moving to Florida, John and I place bets about whether the friends we make plans with will bail, saying they feel like crap. We ALWAYS have a “Plan B,” because literally most of our friends cancel literally half the time on average. And often, it’s our friends’ plans, not ours!

What makes us happy are the pursuits of hobbies, sports, travel, learning, and more.

And a diet of fried bologna sandwiches actually prevents all those things. It happens so gradually, our slowing down and being unable to participate in life like we could if we were healthier.

When we eat fried meat and white bread and french fries dunked in flavored corn syrup:

We sleep in, we’re sluggish, we don’t feel well, our mental health is affected, and we snap at those we love.

3. You can be just as happy eating healthy foods.

Like the gentleman who posted this “eat fried bologna sandwiches, life is short,” in my late 20’s:

I had the idea that if I gave up my ice-cream, hamburger and fries, Diet-Coke diet, that I would be giving up happiness, to gain health.

Nothing could be more false. After giving up hamburgers, I totally forgot about them after a while, and now the smell of a BBQ weirdly doesn’t make me salivate.

I became very ill, from my poor diet, and some pharmaceutical products made me go from sick to sicker, starting in my late 20’s.

It took me years to realize that although I’d given up pretty much all the staples of my 20’s, to get my health back, I was much happier–not less.

And, I never could have predicted this part: I also enjoyed my food just as much. There was a bit of a learning curve.

Talk to the healthiest eater you know. Ask them: did you become less happy, or more happy, when you shifted away from the Standard American Diet, to a healthy diet?

You let me know if a single one says they gave up happiness, for health. You actually get both.

Life is actually long. Even with the quality of our food being so poor, people live on average to nearly 80. And we all make a choice now and then for a “guilty pleasure.”

But when these are rare occurrences and you eat an organic, whole-foods diet 95% - 100% of the time, of course you’re healthier–but you’re also much happier.

Sick people aren’t happy people.

I spent a lot of my earlier life trying to eat healthier, but using some kind of junk food as a “reward” to motivate myself. Or soothe myself.

I really had to challenge the growing awareness that I am better than a mouse in a cage pushing a pellet for gratification! To realize that I could reward myself in other, non-destructive ways.

I don’t write this to shame anyone about their diet. I’m not perfect, myself. It’s easy to look at this post, and think, “Well, I’m doing fine, because a bologna sandwich isn’t something that I’d eat.”

But it’s just an example, and our vice might be a different one.

I write about this because sometimes a fact I’ve read, or a perspective, changes my life for the better. I’d much rather offer a little inspiration.

In a landscape where few talk about the basics of nutrition that leads to health and happiness any more. Our diet fads ignore tens of thousands of published studies.

And where everyone wants to claim health is found in a package, bag, supplement, or fad diet:

Somebody should be the voice of reason and remind and ground us in the basics.

Greens, vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.

That’s the crux of the diet that got me well 30 years ago. I did a short, free video class about it for you.

If you’d like to see this article in video form, here it is

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