My grandfather lived to be 90 years old and spent most of his life eating whatever he wanted. He, too, worked hard even well into his 80s. He was a tall, lean farmer, about 6’4″, 210 pounds, even when he was older. He was also a dedicated carnivore.
The food police will tell you that it’s a recipe for disaster, right?
Grandpa ate 3 or 4 eggs, some sausage or steak, and some bread for breakfast every day. He also had meat for lunch AND dinner along with some good vegetables. He loved fruit tarts, homemade chocolate ice cream and butter. He didn’t really like cake, although he ate chocolate chip cookies.
We use milk straight from the cow, separate the cream and whole milk for the family to use, and feed the pigs skim milk.
Grandpa raised chickens, eggs, pigs, and Black Angus cattle. They were all humanely raised, never given hormones and only given antibiotics when they went to batch feed at the Chicago market. The hormones in meat are especially harmful for consumption.
So what went wrong with our diets from time to time if not saturated fat and beef?
The short answer is sugar. People eat large amounts of sugar compared to what they used to eat.
But these days we eat sugar all day, every day.
What’s wrong with sugar? The human body was never designed to consume and process large amounts of sugar. In fact, sugar, unlike protein and even fat, is not necessary for human health.
So look for the things your body really needs, and truck drivers are no different. You need protein, some fat, and the good nutrients of complex carbohydrates, like whole fruits and vegetables. Anything refined, like refined flour and white-colored sugar, loses most of its nutrients in the refining process, so it’s not worth eating. The potatoes (my personal favourite) are also pretty useless.
Did you know that everything we eat that we don’t burn immediately is stored as fat in the body? Yes, everything, including low-fat and sugar-free cookies, meats, vegetables, and fruits, will end up in your belly and/or love handles.
What can you do?
It’s quite easy actually. Skip the soft drinks. They are loaded with sugar in its worst form, high fructose corn syrup. Many health gurus think it is the time bomb causing the diabetes epidemic in the United States. Soda can also make you drowsy when the sugar wears off, which is not good if you’re on the go.
Drink coffee instead. It has more antioxidants than OJ.
Then start eating real food. Skip desserts and pancakes made with refined flour and sugar in all forms.
Did you know that prepared foods like spaghetti sauce often contain sugar? If a food comes in a can or box, it probably has some sugar in it and who knows what kind of condoms, even if it’s a tasty food. These types of foods can be a real problem for people with diabetes, and they won’t do the rest of us any good either.
Instead, the actual food is simply prepared.
Eat good lean meats and eggs raised without hormones or antibiotics. You want grass-fed beef. (Anyway, whose dumb idea was it to feed cattle feed made from cattle? Cattle are supposed to eat grass. That way, no one gets mad cow disease. I bet some bean counters they thought so).
You can also do well by eating good vegetables and fruits as close to the plant or tree as possible.
Take some eggs. Many nutritionists think that eggs are the perfect protein wrapped in a convenient package around a yolk packed with great nutrients. Do they have cholesterol? Yes. Is it what accumulates in your blood? No. That cholesterol comes from your liver, especially if you overeat. Many more health problems are related to overeating and sweets.
Grandpa wore his suits for 50 years. How many of us can say that?