I am seriously p'd off right now.
The Guardian published
an article written by Amelia Hill about orthorexia, an eating disorder that has become so common it has been separated from the general "ednos" group (eating disorders not otherwise recognized).
Mike Adams, "the Health Ranger", editor of "Natural News" reacted and wrote an article about this article naming it "
Choosing healthy foods now called a mental disorder"
Obviously a lot of people who choose healthy foods, a) haven't read the original article and b) believe what Mike Adams says in his article without any critical thinking, and Mike's rant was spread all over the internet, with people reacting on what Mike claims the article and the doctors say, not on what the article and the doctors ACTUALLY say.
I can understand that orthorexia is a real thing, just like anorexia.
I also recognize the different disorders, like eating disorders, phobias, panic anxiety, seasonal affective disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, I know they are "real" and a lot of people suffer because of them and have their lives seriously limited by these. I don't think psychopharmaca works on me, but I know several people who are helped by them, for example my husband who is VERY grateful for his little pink pills.
I am offended and upset by this person who dares to mock the people who are trying to help people with mental disorders. This person who claims mental disorders are just an invented term to enslave people. This person who says that having a mental disorder means you are insane; a mental patient, mentally unstable, weird, sick, abnormal, diseased, crazy...
I'm so angry I growl and spit as I sit here by my computer. I have a mental disorder. I'm not mentally unstable, abnormal, diseased or crazy. Who the F--- do you think you are, Mike?!
Human beings are omnivores. We have been created to be able to eat anything. Sure, some people cannot digest certain things, like milk sugar, but most can and do eat everything. There are plenty of people in the world who are perfectly fine with what ever diet they have. Eskimos are totally fine with their whole meat and fat diet, people in Japan eat differently from people in Mediterranean, and there are people who have lived more than 100 years in all these food cultures. I believe we are way too worried about food.
I know I feel best if I don't eat sugar and refined wheat and if I don't eat much fat, but base my food on animal proteins and vegetables. I know I binge on carbs with fat and salt, like 90% of the world's population. (Just see "
This is why you're fat") I'm especially weak for pastries, bread and pasta.
I know that slow food is better than fast food; that local food that has been allowed to grow in its own pace and been nourished and watered properly during the growth tastes better and has better nutritional value than mass produced imported crap.
Gene modifying food doesn't make the food "dangerous", but it reduces the crop diversity, and there are other, economical problems, which is why I am against gene modified crops in developing countries.
I am amazed by the miraculous properties of cereals, especially rye and oats; dairy products and eggs, and I don't think I will ever stop eating them.
I wish the farmers were treating dairy cows and hens well, and most of them are, because they are human beings who have been raised in farms, growing up with the animals, playing with the animals, learning to see the animals in a special way. I'm against meat factories and farm animal abuse, but I am also against Peta and the militant terrorist methods.
I would like to have a small farm of my own, with one milk cow, 5-10 sheep, some goats and hens, and bees, so that I would be 100% sure of that the animals are being treated well. I have absolutely nothing against meat, fish and poultry, and will probably be eating those things the rest of my life.
According to Mike there is only two ways of eating.
1) you avoid chemicals, dairy, soy and sugar, you avoid pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified ingredients like soy and sugar, organic, natural foods, "good" foods, healthy food, health food, living, natural foods, health-enhancing natural foods, living foods, healthy living foods, living foods
2) you eat junk food, processed junk foods laced with synthetic chemicals, institutional food that's all processed, dead and full of toxic chemicals, bad foods, Soylent Green, processed food, junk food, junk food, junk foods, MSG, aspartame, yeast extract, processed junk foods laced with toxic chemicals, dead, processed foods, with "designer chemicals like MSG", dead foods laced with synthetic chemicals, junk food, sugar, soy, MSG, aspartame, HFCS and other toxic chemicals
The people who eat according to option 1) "begin to awaken their minds and spirits. Over time, they begin to question the reality around them and they pursue more enlightened explorations of topics like community, nature, ethics, philosophy and the big picture of things that are happening in the world. They become "aware" and can start to see the very fabric of the Matrix, so to speak." They are "empowered, healthy, awakened", they have "a whole new perspective on the fabric of reality" and they are "free to think for themselves." They are "alive, aware and in control of your own life".
while the people who eat according to option 2) are "dumbed down and easy to control", have their minds messed with, their senses numbed, are "docile and quickly lose the ability to think for themselves. They go along with whatever they're told by the TV or those in apparent positions of authority, never questioning their actions or what's really happening in the world around them." They are ignorant and suggestible, blind consumers. "Dead foods turn off higher levels of awareness and keep people focused on whatever distractions you can feed their brains: Television, violence, fear, sports, sex and so on." They are zombies, "trapped in a fabricated reality where their life experiences are fabricated by consumer product companies who hijack their senses with designer chemicals that fool their brain into thinking they're eating real food", sleeping mental patients.
Frankly... I wonder if Mike actually has orthorexia. I know he's a religious fanatic, with "healthy, natural, living food" as God, and that makes him practically mentally ill.
All food we eat is "dead", Mike. Even if we didn't kill the food by cutting it down, chopping it into small pieces, by cooking it or what not, even if we didn't kill it by chewing it, our stomach acids would eventually kill it and turn it into nutrition. That's the point with eating. One's death is another's life. We'll feed someone else in the end too, even if it's just bacteria, insects and plants.
What I find somewhat tragicomic in this is:
Soy, soy milk and tofu, soy yogurt and soy protein is a HUGE part of healthy eating, if you ask the people who are spreading Mike's article, as if it said anything worth reading.
In the page where I met this, they give recipes for things like sugary jams and marmalades and canned meat. I don't think Mike considers that as "healthy living natural living good natural healthy living food".
Spadena House or Witch's House in Beverly Hills, California.
From "The Backyard Homestead" - 1/2 acre homestead :-D
I didn't know they are cob cottages. I thought they were brick houses. I cannot afford that, but cob can be made of... anything. *_* Which means, I can BUILD my own "English country cottage"!
Now, Finland is not England, we have the snowy winters and short summers of continental Northern countries, but I suppose this house would manage that too. It doesn't need to be big, we really don't need more than we have now, which is 60 square meters (about 650 Square feet). I have lived in a house without plumbing and it's not so bad. What IS a surprisingly serious problem to me is that my mother doesn't have the fiber optic line for internet. My husband would go crazy in two days. :-D (And so would I ;-))
bicycle phone booth