May 19, 2012

Good health is the single gravest threat to our national economy

FruitsVegs

Imagine this:

All Americans, every man, woman and child have left their self-destructive food habits behind and are now settled in on a mostly vegan regimen, much like the one outlined in, say, Fuhrman’s Eat to Live.

As a consequence, gone is obesity, gone is overweight, gone is the host of afflictions and illnesses attendant to those conditions, including digestive problems, skin problems, allergies, asthma, you name it; gone are all those disorders that a healthy body is quite capable of handling on its own, given the correct resource of nutritious food.

Imagine this, and imagine the colossal—and I used this word in its most impressive meaning—ramifications this would have on our economy. Imagine the effect this would have the following industries:

The $50-100 billion a year diet industry—no more, sad to see it go. The $800 billion a year meat industry—on the brink of extinction for lack of customers.

The $115 billion a year fast food industry—stranded and customer-less. Floundering, too, is the 6.7 Billion gallons a year beer industry.

The $4.5 billion a year skin-care industry is in despair over the naturally healthy skin that Americans insist on fostering. Oh, and the $20 billion a year candy industry, last seen packing things up and heading out of Dodge.

The $100 billion a year dairy industry—in serious trouble, to say the least.

The $40 billion a year non-alcoholic beverage—ditto.

The $200 billion a year auto industry, while not dead, is having a serious problem with healthier people insisting to walk or bicycle their way around.

And, oh, yes, the $2 trillion a year medical industry is on the rocks. People just aren’t getting sick enough—a travesty. Also in rough water is the $500 billion a year health insurance industry—another travesty.

Other industries are also in trouble, among them the fashion industry, people care less and less about how they look and more and more about how they feel. The entertainment industry is trying to solve the problem of how to keep these health nuts on the couch, or in the theaters, when they’d rather want to be out hiking, walking, rafting, sailing.

Oh, and advertising, pretty much belly up or at least drastically down-scaled. And feeling healthy, and moving about, people don’t seem to be as depressed these days, a terrible blow to the mental health industry.

The list does go on and on and toward the inevitable conclusion: a healthy America would kill the economy.

Therefore, I want it known that it is our patriotic duty, as Americans, to remain shackled to the low-nutrient/hi-calorie and fat glob that we are wallowing in right now.

To do, or even think, otherwise would, frankly, be un-American.

The Sweetest Kiss (Eddi’s Song)

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Eddi is of course Eddi Reader, in my view one of the nicest voices ever to grace the Earth.

I stumbled upon her by mistake, more or less. In a used record store in Pasadena, California. Some of you will know the place: Pooh-Bah’s, at its original location.

This odd looking candy-floss consuming girl on this odd looking CD sleeve: Candyfloss and Medicine, it said.

I’ll take it, I said.

And have I never regretted it. Cooler singers seldom arise.

Years later, it was through her that I then discovered 1 Giant Leap, who recorded her for both of their releases, “1 Giant Leap” and “What About Me?”

Sometimes listening to her I fall in love the same way I’d fall in love with Virginia Woolf when I read her sometimes, as with some ancient and wise one to turn to and curl up against for safety, for comfort, for understanding.

And in one of those curled up moments, I wrote this tribute to Eddi.

Ulf Wolf

PS. To view the video of this song, click the picture, or click here.

PPS. I have set up a YouTube channel for my song(poem)s named VargenUlf (it means “Ulf the Wolf” in Swedish), which you can find here.