Friday 7 March 2014

Is it because I is...



We are what we eat. Diets, fads and super foods. 

Because this post is about sensitivity, people's feelings and the choices that we make that other people will ultimately judge us upon. The following people should stop reading here: Vegetarians, fans of Disney, the French, JZ (the one with the Nkandla crib), Daisy the cow, lovers of digestives and my mother. 




Time for change, at least for a bit. 

Spring is here and that means it is time to out with the old. It is also the start of Lent. Symbolically people nowadays try to give up such gentle vices like chocolate digestives or beer for the period of Lent. In the Orthodox tradition one has to give up eating certain foods and the list gets prescriptively stricter the closer you get to Easter. Whilst I like the idea of a gradual weaning process, the habits are not lasting and at the end of it all you eat an entire (inside and out) lamb over two days. So you are right back where you started, in need of another detox. 
Greek Easter, lamb
Preparing the lamb for Easter. Innards first and
 then the roast the next day. 


I have been wondering what sort of changes I could make to my eating habits. What changes would make a meaningful difference? What would make me healthier and could possibly better me as a runner? A tall order, but there is no shortage of advice out there to help you, some are pure snake oil, others too selective, some emotional, some that have just been done before and are now repackaged as new and improved.

On the dietary spectrum, athletes are probably the most neurotic and are also usually amongst the earliest of adopters with any new diet. Californians follow closely behind. The more we research about what not to eat there is the converse proliferation of choices of how to eat out there. Hi-Lo, Vegetarian, Mediterranean, vegan, anything but sugar, Paleo, Atkins, 5:2 fasting, slow carb diets, or Prof. Tim Noakes' full-on-full-fat gravy boat. The list goes on and on. What path does one follow? I can see the merits in each one, but do I have to just pick one to find my dietary salvation? A new study reported in The Guardian explains that a high fat and high protein diet generously provides with you a fourfold chance of cancer or diabetes if you are under 65. Oddly if you make it past this watershed age, the same diet cuts your risk of dying of cancer by 60% and if not cancer, everything else by 28%. I also read about a four-day ice-cream detox...but diabetes just sprang to mind and I stopped reading. 

Mention to someone that you do such-and-such for a living or even that  do a particular sport for pleasure, people immediately jump to conclusions. People like to say they don't but they do - a profiling begins almost immediately and you are fitted into a preconceived pattern. It gets even worse when you tell people what you eat or if you really want to go down a dark alley with no hope of return, state unequivocally what your eating beliefs are. 


You are what you say you eat. Or don't eat. 

I am a huge fan of the bovine. I love steak, and if I were ever to be given an opportunity of requesting my final meal I would unhesitatingly request a thick slab of its rump, briefly scorched and lain upon my plate. So if I am what I eat then clearly I am not a very nice person. But then, on the other hand I feel profoundly sorry for all animals aquatic that end up on people's plates. Somehow being trapped and then scooped up and then dumped on a deck somewhere to suffocate seems unpleasant and a little fishcist. Frozen octopodes, calamari or hacked up tuna fill me with guilt. Quite why minced beef doesn't warrant a second thought is not clear and not something I wish to explore further here. David Attenborough and the Blue Planet documentary probably has a lot to answer for though. I absolutely have no qualms about poultry either. As absurd as all this sounds, it could be worse - I could be French. They as a nation have practically eaten every animal that has ever walked, galloped, bounced, flapped or slithered across this earth. 
  
Perhaps now that I am older I can sort of see that being a vegetarian is the most sentient life friendly option out there. On a cerebral level it makes the most sense. It is enlightened, you are taking responsibility for your eating habits and with the power of being at the top of the food chain can to make a respectful decision regarding everything else that so desperately tries to avoid ending up next to some fries and a bit of garnishing. It is an occupation of the moral high ground. But perhaps the most difficult part of adapting to this lifestyle change, aside from contemplating a world without bacon, is vegetarians. They are the Jehovah's Witnesses of eaters. Even if you wanted to believe in what they had to say you still just can't bring yourself to let them in the door. Just the mere thought of being congratulated by one of them for making the right choice will make you go right back to Daisy the cow followed by Bambi's grandchildren for dessert. Forget about the more orthodox of the set; vegans, or the other sub-cults: ovo-vegetarians or lacto-vegetarians or ovo-lacto-vegetarians. I am sure there are even more derivatives. 

In ultra-running circles there is now a Vegan only trail run in Wales. You don't have to be a vegan to be able to enter, though you do need to commit to the vegan lifestyle for the day. Now I hadn't really thought it would make a huge difference and they have said they will be offering vegan 'bacon' and 'sausages'. Fine. I don't mind doing that for a day. But if something were to happen up there and a vegan sausage was my last meal I would be most upset. It also means that I would have to think about what I eat very carefully. Do I really need to worry in a race whether my gel may have some bits of some unfortunate cane rat that got scooped up by a combine harvester or if I should be suspicious about why the bonding agent in my jelly beans is just so jelly like? If this sounds ridiculous, the innocent world of beer is tainted too with animal substances - which completely ruins what was a seemingly simple and innocent self-congratulatory pleasure. I only know this because of a website called Barnivore. It is a blacklist of sorts detailing which beers are fraught with little bits of animal inside. It just means that the whole thing becomes too much work if all you want is a guilt free cold one after surviving a day of vegan sausages. 

Vegetarians also tend to look like vegetarians, quite why wild and errant facial hair or a skin allergy to anything that is not hemp or reconstituted plastic bag seems to be a price they have to pay is beyond me. Scott Jurek seems to be the only one who is actually getting younger and younger. Perhaps I'll think about having what he's having. 

Meanwhile, In the other hemisphere though, Professor Tim Noakes might actually receive a Sainthood, if only South Africa's constitution will allow it. His book, Real Meal Revolution is whipping up fans and detractors in equal measures. Stranger things have happened and unlikely individuals can go on to great things that you would never have dreamed possible in a country with a constitution.

For years South Africans have been forerunners in the high-protein-high-fat diet. 
The principle is the same. Although 
nowadays men have grown soft and 
 braai with gas. Photo courtesy of a
 lazy mate (Thanks Norm).
Special occasions involving rugby or just about every day that isn't a weekday, and even those days are not safe either, meat is grilled on an open flame. Despite being world leaders in clogged arteries we still can't stop. Now Dr Tim has come along and said it is okay, we were on the right track all along with just a few minor tweaks required. Now there are few academics that have researched and influenced athletics more positively than Tim, and I am not going to go into the intricacies of how you need to balance the high fatein diet. But I have had more than enough family members clutch their chests and collapse to be a tad weary of it all. Strangely as a family we prefer to do this chest clutching in airports. It is hard to discern which is more dangerous for a my clan - an airport or too much red meat, but on this occasion I am not blaming lost luggage. 


When in Rome

One of my absolute favourite things about Greece is its food. I have lived in both Vancouver and London, and besides both cities boasting an above average annual rainfall they also offer a varied and worldly cuisine. Yet nothing has been as good or as tasty as the food I have encountered in Greece. The Mediterranean diet is famed for its sensibility, varied and natural foods. Unfortunately modern Greeks now eat far more junk food and far more meat than they ever used to which is why they don't live to 170 any more. Greek children have the second fastest expanding waistlines in the world and whilst obvious modern changes to the diet are blamed, it really just goes to show how dangerous Greek mothers are if they go unchecked. There is no such thing as a child that says it's too full. 

In its purest form, the paleo Mediterranean is really nothing special. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Everything is eaten, moderation and freshly grown produce are its cornerstones. Legumes are welcome, olive oil applied liberally.


Who knew lentils would taste so good?

Home made pita


I have never quite enjoyed food like this before. There is a darker side too with its feast days, quite how many lambs and goats are eaten at Easter or how severely the octopodes population is dented on Ash Monday or at the star of Lent is enough to make the quantities consumed during Oktoberfest seem miserly. I have never eaten less red meat than I have now and neither have I eaten more good fats that I have now. Processed foods are a rarity and most vegetables are locally grown. Perhaps I am at a good place right now with my eating. It has everything good from every diet. It doesn't occupy the moral high ground (sorry Daisy) but you also don't have to consume massive amounts Daisy either. 

So perhaps I am happy with where I am. It may look like a cop-out or that I lack commitment or that I am cherry picking or even just hedging my bets trying to avoid the cardiac arrest bullet with my name on it. In closing, perhaps Gaury Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories puts it best - It is really just a system of personal beliefs and untested hypotheses, given a veneer of scientific respectability, when in actual fact it’s more like a religion – replete with irrational fanatics, money-making frauds and devout lemming-like followers. 

Regardless, while I try navigate what sensible changes to make, maybe all I'll do to make the world a better place is just give up chocolate digestives and animal enriched beer this Lent. 


Tough sacrifices to make



Credit is due to my wife, who is responsible for most of the good things in my life. She is a firm believer in the adage that 'to have a happy marriage one must have a good wife who is a bad cook'. It is for this reason that my red meat consumption has dropped so dramatically. 


1 comment:

  1. Just splendid dear boy! I too am amazed by how Dr Tim managed to write a meat & wors recipe book which all South Africans have purchased and placed in their bookshelves next to Long Walk to Freedom.

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