It’s a Fact. Or is it?

Studies have proven that eating eggs contributes to heart disease. No, wait. Eggs are good for you and it’s a fact that eating cholesterol has no effect at all on blood cholesterol. Saturated fat is bad, studies show. No, that’s no longer accepted. Studies have proven that saturated fat is good. Trans fat is bad. Olive oil is good. No, hold on, there are no good oils. You should eat only whole food. Never eat anything from a package. Lose weight and be healthier by eating packaged foods delivered to your door. Confused yet? That’s not all.

Eating wheat is unhealthy and causes belly fat. No, eating bread is good for you; just look at the French. They eat bread AND butter and are slim and healthy as a rule. Forget that. You should eat according to your blood type. Nope. Only the paleo diet gives permanent results. But wait, there’s more.

You should never eat meat. Meat is the best source of protein. It goes on and on. On my shelf, I have books, complete with scientific studies proving their veracity, with titles such as Fit for Life; Eat Drink and be Healthy; The Maker’s Diet; The Flat Belly Diet; The Food Lovers Fat Loss System; The HCG Diet; Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight; The Abs Diet for Women; and Eat More, Lose More, among others. At the touch of a key or two, computer programs will count calories, carbs, or exercise hours. My emails are inundated with the latest proven study on what makes people fail to lose weight and/or live healthy lives. I have read these books and theories, and I’ve given many of them a trial run. I am not going to say that none of them work long term, but I am going to say that none of them have worked for me.

I’ve decided to give the whole thing up. I will eat as healthfully as I can from minimally processed foods, get exercise doing what I enjoy, and what happens, happens. If I am forever fluffy, so be it. If I suddenly turn slim, I figure it’s a gift from God and I promise to write no books saying this is how to go about it. Life suddenly got simpler.

Once I sorted that out, I started thinking about technology. Microwaves are a wonderful convenience. No, microwaves kill the enzymes in food, rendering them non-foods. Cell phones cause brain cancer, but, on the up side, I can aim them at my popcorn kernels and I have a snack to eat on the way to treatment. I could give up the microwave and just barbecue, but grilling makes food carcinogenic. Besides, I can’t invite anybody over to eat the barbecue because I have no land line and if I call on the cell phone, I might not live long enough for dinner.

So I’ll chew on some organic celery (everyone agrees vegetables are good, right?) and settle down to watch some television. No, that’s no good. New studies show that every hour spent watching television shortens the viewer’s life by 22 minutes. I could go for a swim, but then there are those reports about flesh-eating bacteria in the water. The pool then. No, the chlorine in that will kill me for sure.

Well, then I’ll just read a book. But wait, should I turn on the lights? What about the effect of the electrical wiring on the body’s own electrical system? I could go out for a jog, but that is hard on the bones and joints. Walking is good, though; everybody says so. Although I would have to breathe in the polluted air that isn’t being filtered through my air conditioning system. If I stay in the house in the dark, breathing the filtered air, I may be getting bacteria from the closed system. Can we say Legionnaire’s Disease?

I guess I better live in a mud and thatch dwelling and hunt, fish, and scavenge berries. But where? If I stay here, the heat or the hurricanes might do me in. There’s a water shortage in the West. Earthquakes are a factor on the west coast. On the eastern coast, there are still the hurricanes and the northeast has blizzards. The Midwest has tornadoes. Plus, all of these locations still have air pollution and nuclear power plants ready to make you glow in the dark. (Solves the reading light problem, though.)

Alaska, that’s the ticket. A homestead in Alaska. Of course, there are the six to nine dark, frigid months to contend with. Personally, I’m too old for that. I know. Wyoming or Montana. The air is cleaner and it’s not overpopulated. I’ll have stick to the areas with a water supply, so northwest Wyoming or western Montana. There are blizzards, of course, so I’ll have to be sure to have plenty of firewood and canned (not to be confused with packaged) food. If I have a log house with no electricity; eat exclusively what I grow, catch, or kill myself; and communicate only via the postal service, that should take care of everything. I can live a simple, healthy life.