COMMENTARY

MILT THOMAS

As I sit out on my back porch in the North Carolina mountains and inhale the view, cool air and most of all, the change of scenery, I find it difficult to think about everyday issues like FPL, AAF, hospital crises and red shirts. Instead, my mind drifts to otherwise trivial thoughts like for instance, food teetotalers.

Let me explain.  I know many ex-smokers who are quick to spread the non-smoking gospel as though they acquired it through divine intervention, or exercise addicts who extol the runner’s high, then tell about their latest knee and hip replacements. Now, I never smoked (or like Clinton, I never inhaled) and I don’t exercise, so listening to folks going on ad nausem about the virtues of not smoking or exercising, tends to set my mind adrift as it is right now. What does get to me though, is what I call food teetotalers.

I love food, especially new foods and drinks I haven’t tried. I’m the first to visit a remote African village and share a local meal of manioc, Mopani worms or Chibuku, a beer made from sorghum. I figured out a while ago that whatever I eat, my stomach only recognizes three things – proteins, carbohydrates and fats. The real problem is my selective brain, trained to accept only those items on my mother’s food pyramid.

One way to trick your brain is to hold your breath when trying something you are conditioned not to like. It is difficult to taste anything when you hold your breath or when you have a stuffy nose. So, now I can eat just about anything eaten by humans around the world (as long as they don’t offer me seconds).

Back to the subject, if I drink a Coke or eat a tasty slice of salami, I don’t need a lecture from someone telling me how bad those things are for my body even though they admit they used to enjoy eating and drinking the same things. That’s a food teetotaler.

Humans were vegetarians in the distant past, but the species survived, prospered, and advanced only when we started eating meat. Not just prime rib mind you, but essentially road kill, leftovers from more dangerous predators. Granted, they only lived to 21, but it wasn’t because of what they ate as much as what ate them.

Today, we go to great lengths sanitizing and sterilizing everything we put in our mouths, but our body developed its immune and digestive systems eating road kill. In fact, some people still do it.

I’m one of those anything-in-moderation-is-okay people. Wouldn’t you get bored eating the same thing every day? Well, imagine how your digestive tract feels? It is ready for any new food adventure that reawakens those skills it took thousands of generations to perfect.

I don’t have anything against organic foods. I’m sure they are fine. But I buy the standard, lower cost fertilizer-enabled and genetically modified variety, giving my digestive tract a challenge. My great grandparents ate organic back when the average life expectancy was 45. I am already well past that age and probably when I die, I won’t need to be embalmed with all those chemicals in my body. Besides,  I prefer to eat cheaper groceries and use the money I saved to buy a pound of beef jerky.

I know some people will probably be turned off by what I say, and who knows, if I ever have something go wrong with my body, I may have to give up my no exercise, no diet, anything goes regimen and change my ways. But I won’t be telling everybody what they should or should not eat, how many miles to walk every day, the evils of smoking or any other guidelines for a healthy lifestyle. So, please don’t tell me either, especially when I’m sitting here on my cool porch, looking out at the beautiful scenery and drinking my chibuku.