Part 12 of my interview with a very healthy octogenarian:
Q: One of the things that you have alluded to is the idea that if your body is not working as hard to digest food, that means it’s probably got more energy to continue to fortify your immune system. And I know we haven’t really mentioned that before, but the immune system plays a big role in how you are able to basically fight off disease. Is this true?
A: If your body has got the energy to continue to use that energy for your immune system, then your likelihood of fighting off diseases is probably better because you’ve got the right energy going into the right spots inside the body.
Q: If you’re not sick, if you’re – you know, maybe you’re still on this, you know, the standard American diet, and you’re a little older but, you know, you think that Well, I’d like to lose a few pounds and I’d like to be preventative in nature, if someone were take on the kind of regimen and style – lifestyle and diet you just talked about, is it sort of okay to cheat once in a while or, you know, tell me how that would work out, whether you’re not yet either sick or you’re not sick. If you’re not sick, is there a little room for a cheat once in a while? Or if you’re sick, what should you be doing?
A: A lot of people ask that same question of themselves. Because they – they – for some reason or other, see, we are bombarded by the media and by the hard sell of the supermarkets in and for the American diet. And so therefore, it’s difficult for people not to want to eat the things that are really not good for them. And everything is white sugar today, and sugar is a real serious problem for those people that have – that are sick. But for those people who are, you know, you say in your 40s and your 50s, that’s the time when a lot of them, if they have been, you know, moderate – a lot of people learn young that you don’t need to eat all the time and that you don’t need to be obese.
And life can be good. But for those people who are, like you say, in that age category and they would like to lose a little weight, then I say this kind of lifestyle – they don’t start this kind of lifestyle and they don’t stop eating the standard American diet that we’ve discussed, of meat and potatoes and dairy products, they’re going to be sick. That’s been proven over and over. And they’ve – the nutritionists in this country have proven that you will be sick.
And so, for those people that want to change, then this is an easy time because they – they can just start choosing and start drinking smoothie and eating plant foods. And I would say to them Eat some meat, but you’ve got to be very careful. Even the – the nutritionists today, and the medical doctors, who really don’t do a lot in nutrition, will tell you that Well, just cut down. Well, that can be done, but some people, you see, can’t. It’s very difficult for them to cut down.
And, of course, one of the things that we didn’t discuss at all today so far, is that we know now that no smoking is a very serious thing. You must quit smoking because more and more they know that smoking is a very serious problem, and all kinds of diseases result from smoking. And so that’s one of the things that people have to do, they just have to quit smoking.
The other thing that they can do, if they can’t quit eating meat altogether, lots of nutritionists are saying Well, eat just the white meat, or eat chicken. And so on and so forth. But again, if you’re eating chicken that’s commercially produced and they’re not being fed – they’re not range chickens, for instance, they’re chickens that – as you know, you’ve heard where they keep them in cages and they just feed them and they don’t allow them to move primarily because they want to fatten up fast for the market.
Q: I’ve read somewhere that eating chicken is even worse than red meat, in terms of fat content and just because of that very fact that, they’re not exercised chickens. So if they’re running around, although some people will buy because it says on the package cage-free or ran around- does that make a difference?
A: People on the Standard American Diet (SAD) will eat animals that have been fed certain organic plant food and what have you, and they think that this is solving their problem by eating organic chicken, so to speak. If you’re not sick, there is the likelihood that if you don’t cut back on your meat and dairy consumption and that your propensity or probability of getting sick down the road as you age, is going to get higher and higher. So if you can start at a younger age, in terms of making some choices about diet, exercise and how you’re eating, it’s certainly going to help you.
Q: Let me ask you this because you mentioned smoking as, you know, one of the vices that you definitely had to stop. How about alcohol; how does alcohol play into the whole scenario?
A: I’m not opposed to alcohol in moderation. I have gone through my life and used alcohol moderately and I’ve never had a difficulty, so from my standpoint, I cannot disagree with alcohol. However, after reading many authors and people who have done double-blind studies, every time I hear of a study, I look and see who paid for the study. And that gives a kind of a good idea of what the result’s going to be as to who paid for the study.
