(and, there's "sad...")

SAD and SAD are both acronyms, obviously. One (doesn't matter which one) refers to Seasonal Affective Disorder (which is what people Outside call what we call "Cabin Fever.") It occurs in people who are deprived of sufficient daylight. The body's production of serotonin falls, and the individual becomes sad, moody, negative, eats without hunger, is easily bored, and has poor sleep. In extreme cases, it can lead to fights, even murder or suicide. Not good. Just going to a large window and looking at the sky for a minute or two every day can make a noticeable difference in mood and behavior.

The other SAD (doesn't matter which one this one is, either) refers to the "Standard American Diet." Now, the Standard American Diet may sound like it is the optimum diet for American consumers. And it may sound as if the government has given it the official stamp of approval. The truth looks more like this:

                                     

Even though the government really isn't in the nutrition business, it has some resident busybodies in the Wealthy Hellfare Department who seem to think it is their job to watch what we all eat. Unfortunately, they have all taken large lobbying gratuities from the major "food" manufacturers, so the appearance of the FDA's official pyramid looks more like the above illustration than what a real nutritious diet should look like.

When I was a kid in school, there was no such thing as a "food pyramid." There were seven (yes, seven) basic food groups. Meats, fish, breads and grains, fruits, vegetables, fats, and dairy. That got condensed by the do-gooders into five basic groups, then lumped together into the fatal pyramid the medical industry insists is "a healty diet." (Aside from the grammatical problems with that statement, the fact that manufactured items make up the huge majority of items in the Standard American Diet means, "healthy" is hardly the proper descriptor.)

Of course, the medical industry/food manufacturers/pharmaceutical manufacturers don't want anyone to know that the rise in heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure, alzheimer's, and stroke is virtually identical to the rise in the use of the modern "Standard American Diet." Coincidence? I think not... ;o) Of course it's not a coincidence. Simple cause-and-effect: Eat poisons, be poisoned. Simple.

Just because the test rats don't die immediately from the ersatz diet doesn't mean the fake food is safe for humans to eat for the rest of their lives. Take a look at the shelves of the grocery store next time you are in there, and see how much shelf space is taken up by items that are manufactured from beginning to end. The problem is, humans are still made the old-fashioned way, and the old-fashioned diet is still necessary. Like original manufacturer's parts for your great old "Muscle Car," we need to be eating the things that made grandma and grandpa tougher than old boots and live to ripe old ages.

Years ago, our parents and grandparents ate wholesome, natural diets loaded with animal fats: butter, cream, lard, tallow, and all variations in between. They ate foods that could be identified as "living" at a specific time, just before being consumed. They didn't drop dead from heart failure, complications of diabetes, hypertension, or cancer. They were killed off by accidents and/or infectious disease and old age. It's probably safe to say that it wasn't their diet that killed them in those days.

Then, along came margarine, the first "created food" in the great decline in American health. Margarine was a nasty, oleaginous greasy white paste made from denatured vegetable oils, that came packaged with a little pellet or packet of food coloring to make it yellow. The consumer put the goo into the mixing bowl, broke the pellet, and squidged the stuff around together with hands or electric mixer until the color was evenly distributed. And, although high-fructose corn syrup hadn't been invented yet, it was on the way, bringing even more metabolic misery to be added to the disruption of the natural balance of fatty acids in the human diet. The REAL, correct "pyramid" should look more like this:

                                     

I know...there's not a Ho-Ho or a Ding-Dong in sight. Not a can of Vault, a bottle of Mountain Dew, cup of Starbucks, or a single bag of Fritos anything. No flour-based, high-fructose corn syrup loaded anythings. No pancakes, not a single slice of Wonder Bread or Kraft American Singles. No soy. Look at the bottom pyramid and understand that long before we made fritters, we ate critters. Humans are NOT vegetarians. No matter what. 

Someone made the comment after reading this on The Halfbaked Sourdough blogspot  that there is also no mention in this triangle of any grain-based foods.  THAT'S THE IDEA!  This pyramid illustrates a Paleolithic diet, and nobody has been able to improve on in since man first took his pointed stick and poked a hole in the ground and dropped a seed in there.  Grain-heavy diets are always destructive to one degree or another, and the modern SAD is a perfect illustration of this.  Grains can be used occasionally for "side dishes," but the human gut was never made to digest foods made of grains, and it most certainly was not engineered to digest the denatured and chemicalized grain foods that dominate the modern American diet.  My opinion stands.

The two SAD's? They could even be related. In fact, the reality is that they are connected in many ways. The deficiencies in the second SAD make the miseries of the first SAD more or less inevitable.

Maybe that's why it feels so much better when we are suffering from the first kind to stuff our faces with the second kind. SAD is SAD is sad...