SAD Diet Will Collapse the Economic System as We Know It

Observations when the senses are the sharpest

The first days after returning back into the city after a long hike are very saturated with impressions. Like this time – I’ve been out hiking for the most part of last 3 weeks. Surrounded by nature, often with no amenities available for days. After about a week, one gets in gear with circadian rhyme by getting up at sunrise and going to sleep at sunset and being on the move pretty much the rest of time. Breathing fresh mountain air all day long, surrounded by nature (with all its aromas, sounds, pleasures and potential dangers) one gets very aware of all the nuances.

Say, you’re walking for hours without meeting any other hiker. Then, suddenly, a group of 4 people   walk by. Close to nearby village, on Saturday. Weekend hikers. They often move fast with energy from a high carb meal not that long ago. All covered in sunscreen (I see toxic sludge). But worst of all, and it’s often the case, there’s a noticeable chemical smell from some shampoo they have have used in hotel or from detergent used to wash clothes. Something what is hardly noticeable in city environment is very much an intense sensation on mountain path.

Now, at the end of long hike, with all the senses fine-tuned to capture all nuances, augmented by chronic calories deficit and the perception baseline reset to the cleanest of environment, the most natural water from streams and, generally, low-carb natural food (local cheeses, meat, cooked eggs) – one arrives in a big city.

Ability of observation and cravings for all kinds of food (bad stuff included) is very high the first couple of days, then it fades. This time it was not different.

So, what were my observations and what happened to me this time. The observations painted very sad picture about the collective health. And I lapsed on bad stuff for a couple of days – without expecting SO bad consequences.

As to observations, the usual but worse than ever. (1) In middle income neighbourhood, 90% of people are overweight and/or visibly sick. All of them have available good and free (or low-cost) healthcare (that’s Spain) – that makes me think that it’s just a matter of time when the current ‘healthcare system’ will collapse There is no way any system can sustain so many unhealthy people in long term. On positive note, if health-and-lifestyle-wise the urban picture looks like a scene from the movie Idiocracy, this does not seem to reflect on intellectual capacities. Those fat and sick people generally are very educated, think clearly and draw very intelligent conclusions on many subjects, as well as emotional intelligence is high. There’s no doubt those fat and sick people can be productive in the knowledge economy. That’s encouraging, but, anyway, the economic reality of Big Food and Big Pharma skimming society will catch up. Everyone’s eating outright dangerous ‘food’ – huge amounts of bread (made of glyphosate-laden grains), sugary things and all of it freely loaded with seed oils. That’s very convenient for Big Food, that’s profitable for the sellers, but that’s expensive for the society as the costs (curing the symptoms) are externalised to public healthcare system – which instead is fleeced by Big Pharma. Business-wise the system works fine at the moment but at some point it will break as it will not be able to handle externalised costs. As it stands now, nobody seems to care – being fat is normalised, government taxes business to death but manages to cover the costs … everyone seem to be happy and want more of the same thing.

(2) One is bombarded with offers of addictive, sugary ‘food’ on literally every step – bakeries and cafes selling nothing but some grain-and-sugar based ‘food’. Most of bakeries, cafés and restaurants do not serve even a single piece of food what can be considered healthy. Ice cream shops on every corner – with plenty of enthusiastic customers. KFC and McDonald’s and the like ads impossible not to see when walking around the city. At the same time, good food is very difficult to come by and it’s expensive. Like clean jamón costing €150/kg and almost impossible to find a restaurant serving good grilled meat.

What happened to me? I’m generally immune to horrible ‘food’ like donuts, croissants, pizza or ice cream etc. It’s been months since I’ve had anything of that. When out hiking I prioritised protein and had no grains, sugar or seed oils. During moments of exhausting I had massive cravings for carbs – but successfully repositioned the conditioning for carbs to unsweetened greek yoghurt with blueberries. Those carbs work for me well, even if consumed in big quantifies. But now in the city. Surrounded by bad ‘food’, bombarded by junk food ads on every step … and, the worst of all factors – social situations. I’ve been out hiking, I’ve shed like 5 kg of body weight – how bad can it be to get some junk food and have beer or wine in a social situation.

So, one day I got a KFC meal – well, switched potatoes for salad and got the hamburger with the most meat. Calorie-wise on that day I was still in calories deficit. But that meal triggered something very bad – cravings for more. More bad ‘food’, beer and smoking. Had beer and wine in social situations. Smoked a few cigars. The next day the same. Except that instead of KFC it was McDonald’s and this second time the potatoes were not skipped, and ice cream was added. The feeling after was horrible. I was immediately sleepy, with brain fog and generally felt awful. The survival mode was turned on – a state of mind where no productive activity is possible and creativity drops to zero. What’s worse – that state continued the next day. Given that I was walking a lot right after that McDonald’s meal, I expected the bad symptoms to last maybe a couple of hours and would an extra detox session later to clean out the toxins. But it took me two days to cancel out those bad symptoms, pull myself out of survival mode and not before experiencing some very bad episode of depressive mood and neurotic form factors. That was terrible. From just 2 junk meals over 2 days.

I’m not touching any junk food anytime soon. The effect is so much worse than I could imagine or remember from old times. Yet, there’s no lack of customers in junk food joints. There are people who obviously eat there every day. Even worse – they go there with children who get conditioned to eating junk food (that’s how they will remember time together with family). I’m opting out of being fat and sick, even if majority of people opt in. I don’t know their motivation why.

I have before my eyes an image from those two days when senses are sharp. A clinically obese young woman with a baby in a pram comes out of an apartment building. When on the street, the first thing she does is to unwrap a squared white bread toast sandwich from aluminium foil and take a big bite. Hopeless. The system will collapse. It’s unsustainable – the vicious spiral is fattier, sicker, more expensive to treat … SAD [Standard American Diet] is omnipresent, including in the Mediterranean — Spain, and that diet is leading Europe to an economic crash.