I’m an Omnivore

“If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”
-Rumored to have been said by L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer and founder of Scientology.

You could say the same thing about starting your own diet. Dieting is a billion-dollar industry, but there’s no reason that you can’t be a part of it all. Now, you too can jump on the yo-yo dieting bandwagon! In fact, I’m doing it right now. I’m going to tell you how to create your own diet without actually knowing a thing about food.

Making Millions the Easy Way
All you’ll need to get started is the following:

• A degree from a diploma mill ensuring your credibility.
• A cheesy infomercial proving guaranteed success.
• Pseudo-scientific research.
• A set of confusing and impossible dietary guidelines.

Don’t know where to start? That’s the easiest part. Did you think the low-carbohydrate dieting fad is new? The results of William Banting’s low carbohydrate diet were published in 1863! All you have to do is rehash old diets. I’ll admit that the diet I want to try isn’t exactly groundbreaking. As far as I know, a similar approach to eating has been named the “caveman”, “Paleolithic”, or “Stone Age” diet. And of course, all those diets were just stolen from cavemen in the first place. None of these diets sound too appetizing though, do they? That’s why you need a catchy title. You’re almost done. You might be wondering: what if my diet doesn’t work, how will it fit everyone’s needs, or what’s a good synonym for emaciated? The beauty of the dieting industry is that your financial success can be found in the failure of the masses. If people actually become healthy and self reliant, than they won’t continue to buy weight loss products…

I hope you’re here because you’re genuinely interested in your own health, so I think it’s time to close the sarcasm tag. The truth is that you can create your own diet and it doesn’t have to be positioned to make money. I’d wager to say that you already have. Excluding a time when a spoon-plane flew into the mouth hangar, you’ve been living on a diet for your entire life. How? By choosing what you eat and what you don’t eat. It starts simply with what you don’t like. Those things get thrown out of the diet real fast. Then you might have heard that some things aren’t too great for you and you make an attempt to eat less of them. Then a lot of people start following commercial diets. What’s wrong with these? They might not work for everyone; people have different needs. They aren’t necessarily based on health, most only on weight loss. They are likely based on biased research funded by the most powerful industries in America. And most importantly, there’s no reason for you to have faith in these plans, except for testimonials which are explicitly labeled “not typical.” I’m not claiming that a diet couldn’t be created or that one doesn’t already exist that somehow avoids all of these problems, but that it’s unlikely and there’s no real way for you to know as much. So since you have already been creating and partaking in a diet for most of your life, there’s no reason that you can’t start consciously creating one that actually works for you.

Curiosity
The first step is to actually care about your health and be curious about food. You have to want to find out what’s good for you and why, instead of just listening to someone else’s opinion. This website started with a simple curiosity: are dairy products necessary for humans?

How did I form that question in the first place? Well, I had seen websites on the negative effects of dairy. I had even heard my orthodontist mention that he thought milk was terrible. A favorite blogger of mine commented on his enormous energy gain after going from vegetarian to vegan. I wasn’t exactly convinced at this point. Don’t get me wrong. I used to make omelettes with milk, sprinkle on feta cheese, and sometimes even throw sour cream on there too. You can see I like dairy. On the other hand, I like donuts, cakes, pies, cheesecake, and 1000 calorie gourmet coffees. I know you wouldn’t disagree with me on the nutritional value of those items. So I had this idea in my head and I continued to ponder the role of dairy in our diet.

Drop Some Knowledge
I mean that totally in the gangster rap sense and not the literal one. I assume most people have taken classes that told them a lot about nutrition. That’s good stuff for the most part, but you can probably guess that I don’t agree with everything out there. I recently took an aerobics class that covered nutrition in addition to exercise. We went over different food groups, macro nutrients, and daily requirements. The teacher would describe the pros and cons of each food. When she got to dairy, she said that it was high in fat and that you should get 1-3 servings a day. I was left thinking “well, what are the benefits?” If you pay attention, you’ll probably notice things that just don’t add up. My suggestion is to read articles and listen to what the experts have to say, but don’t stop there. You can even examine current diets, but do your own investigating and never take anything at face value. Usually, there are good ideas attached to bad ideas. You’re the only one that can sort that out.

Finally, a word on scientific research. I’m of the following opinion: science- it works, bitches. However, it is a gradual process that builds up evidence towards theories that can be revised. Ultimately, this works, but does each new study hold the undeniable truth for what you should do as an individual? This blog is considerably more about self experimentation. It is fast, has noticeable results, and is always relevant to you as a person. I’ll continue in Part II, where you start making the real decisions about your new diet.