In May of this year I decided to make some drastic changes in my eating habits. I was going to eat healthier, and, in doing so, it would enable me to lose the 25 pounds, or so, that I wanted to lose (and I did it!).

Health nut!

Health nut!

My friends and relatives may not have said it, at least not to me, but I believe they were thinking it amongst themselves.

“Bob has become a health nut. He’s going on some “fad” diet.” A fad diet. I had become a food faddist.

It is incredible that people who eat a junk food diet constitute the norm, while I, whose diet now resembles those of my grand parents, am labeled as food faddist or eating in an abnormal way.

Let’s see, my food faddist diet consist of a variety of fresh, wholesome fruit throughout the morning, which acts as my ‘all-morning’ breakfast. I say throughout the morning as this enables me to maintain a level blood sugar. (The natural sugar of fruit is usable by the body in a positive way, and it does not contain empty calories).

Lunchtime has become my major feast of the day. I refer to it as the “dead foods”, or anything that is cooked. Dinner is a huge salad with oil and lemon as my dressing. (Or Bragg’s liquid amino). Snacks include popcorn, freshly made apple juice (with lemon) carrot juice (with celery) or dried fruit.

The ‘sensible diet’ that is considered the norm is most anything made by Betty Crocker, Kellogg, Campbell, Hostess, Jello, Nabisco…you get the idea. This ‘sensible diet’ is promoted from birth. Sugar is a major ingredient in baby food desserts. Then come the artificially flavored and colored breakfast cereals, loaded with sugar, followed by soda pop, hot dogs, and an afternoon candy bar for energy until dinnertime. Meat marbled with fat, and alcoholic beverages have dominated the diets of many, especially the middle aged. And, of course, white bread and margarine is standard fare throughout life.

This ‘sensible diet’---high in fat, sugar, cholesterol, and refined grains---is, in my opinion, the prescription for illness; it can contribute to obesity, tooth decay, heart disease, intestinal cancer, and diabetes. And these diseases are, in fact, America’s major health problems today. So if any diet should be considered faddist, it is the ‘sensible one’. This far out diet---almost 20 percent refined sugar and 45 percent fat---is new to human experience and foreign to all other animal life.

 I enjoy my ‘fad diet’, but especially, I like the way I look (I have lost my belly), I have energy throughout the day, and I feel better about myself.

Do I ever deviate from this way of eating? Of course I do. Whenever we are with friends or relatives I eat what is served, which is usually cooked foods. In that case I have my usual dinner salad for lunch instead, it’s that easy.