Ah, it's true, I'm kind of a nutty guy. I have tried to be nuttier more now than ever before, and it seems that my belief in being nutty has been statistically proven to engender longer life with fewer long term degenerative diseases that plague modern man. Or at least, modern Western man that consumes the SAD (Standard American Diet) Now, there is proof that the simple life is better for you. It appears that a whole bunch of doctors (well at least people with initials after their names) published a new report in the rather prestigious New England Journal of Medicine about how eating nuts, daily, helps you to become a healthier, more long lived and freer from degenerative diseases than people that don't eat nuts. (NEJM article)
When I was but a youth, my mother always bought and had around for the holidays, a big bowl of nuts in the shell. Sort of a holiday decoration I guess. And always there was a nutcracker set with them on the coffee table and it was a great source of amusement for her to watch as her children would attempt to overcome the forces that Mother Nature uses to keep her generous bounty away from the prying hands of rambunctious youths. As I grew in years and lost the wisdom and common sense that usually declines in the lives of most humans achieving puberty as they embark on their personal existences; I left behind the enjoyment we found in the efforts to crack and remove the wondrous nut meats.
Lately though, I have tried to forgo the ingestion of those items on my lists of things to avoid that I write about here on my blog (Don't put that in your mouth) and I have gone back to eating tree nuts frequently. And a week and a half ago, there is actual scientific evidence that we ALL should be doing just that. This report is fascinating. With huge numbers of people involved in the study (76,464 women and 42,498 men) over the period of 1980 to 2010, the statistical findings point to a very exciting health benefit of eating nuts every day. The actual conclusion is simple, the frequency of nut consumption was inversely associated with total and "cause-specific" mortality, independent of other predictors of death. Basically this means that for subjects that ate nuts at least seven times per week during the trial period, the rates of mortality due to heart disease, cancer and respiratory diseases, were statistically less. Actually, significantly less. As nut consumption diminished, the mortality rates increased.
I'm not sure what this means to those that have taken on the responsibility of controlling our food supply. Yep, the good ol' FDA. To this day, the FDA does not in anyway accept the concept that diet controls health. And I don't mean that all diseases can be cured via diet, there are certain specific genetic diseases that have no connection. However the overwhelming majority of health problems in America ARE a direct result of the SAD. The FDA philosophy is simple, and has been stated and restated many times over the years; No Vitamin, Mineral or Food has the ability to cure any disease. Science knows this to be incorrect (think scurvy, beriberi, etc.) but the rulers of the FDA that operate at the whim of giant agribusinesses refuse to accept that. Instead, when any chemical manufacturer submits a report about a specific chemical additive to be added to the huge and growing list of chemical additives that are now added to processed foods (modern meat is included) and the report shows a low possibility that that one chemical might be okay at low doses, the chemical is approved for use. However the American diet includes that chemical, and hundreds, probably even thousands of low dose exposures to a myriad of chemical additives. No one eats just one.
For me, I rarely eat processed foods or modern meat. I eat raw, fermented and fresh, organic when I can afford it, and I eat a lot of nuts. And for me, it seems to be working. My long term degenerative problems (that were in all actuality caused by modern medicine) seem to not be getting much worse. I like nuts. I am in fact, a nutty kind of guy, and now there is confirmation for me, and all Americans, to be nutty.
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