Eggs are bad for you.
This will be the first (out of doubtless many) health-related posts. From the start I want to make one thing clear, I don’t consider myself an expert on health. I consider myself an expert on my health.
We have to drop the idea that there is such thing as ‘health’ that applies generally. I’m not necessarily talking about medicinal or clinical health here – I’m sure we’re all glad there are cancer doctors out there. No, my subject is more along the lines of nutrition. But since the word ‘health’ is tossed around so readily, it’s there that I will keep my focus set.
If there is an ‘objective’ health, it is obviously socially and historically determined. Even if one could be proved, or some Idea could be found floating around the ether, how would someone then prove that the good for one is the good for another? Also, in health matters we typically rely on oversimplified quantitative measurements masquerading as qualitative ones. If your BMI is too high, then you are unhealthy, simple as that.
Eggs are good for you. Eat more eggs!
Once I joined a gym and I was told, as a vegetarian, how unhealthy my diet was (Trust me kids, it’s not). I asked the trainer what he ate, and he told me ‘skinless chicken breast’ for just about every meal – seventeen times a day or something ridiculous like that. For him, the protein content was the only adequate measure of health. When I mentioned the amount of chemicals that are pumped into chickens to give him his ready supply of muscle chow, I might as well have been speaking Klingon to him; he quickly changed the subject to push-ups.
I’m sure his reaction would have been similar if I would have mentioned the deplorable conditions his protein source par excellence is raised in. But I digress.
Now, I don’t want to make this post a vegetarian polemic. I’m about as militantly vegetarian as I am militantly pro-Nickelback. However, having been a vegetarian for years, I have had to deal with two dubious health-related statements:
1) Vegetarians are more healthy than carnivores.
2) Vegetarians are less healthy than carnivores.
Obviously, each argument hinges on a definition of healthy. My grandpa was healthy and lived a long healthy life – he ate meat every day (except for ‘ethic’ night where he would try that exotic collation known as ‘pasta’). My father is also a healthy man who also eats meat every day. On the other side of the aisle, I’m sure we all know vegetarians who survive on poutine and Pepsi.
Eggs should be eaten…but only moderately.
And of course in our society, healthy is synonymous with ‘skinny’. This is not only an historical anachronism; it is also patently absurd. Being skinny does not mean you are healthier; it means you are skinnier. In our culture obesity is a grievous offence, and yet just about every part of supersized and sedentary society makes us fat. Somewhere between the Second and Third Day, God created Absurdity.
It’s true, people look at me and see a skinny guy with tanned skin and say “you are so healthy”. Well let me tell you something kids: I’ve smoked more cigarettes in the past 10 years than many people will see in a lifetime. I swizzle the booze like Prohibition’s lurking right around the corner. And since I still haven’t ruled out a political future, I’ll keep the other substances in which I occasionally partake to myself.
Obviously all of the above are bad for body, despite being soooooooo good for the soul. So I ask you, am I still healthy?
Eggs are good for you, but only EggCo Brand Organic Eggs with Alpha-7 Enzyme Action! Try some today!
A good starting definition of healthy should be that which is good for the individual or organism. It’s problematic to be sure, but it’s a start. It should be up to the individual to decide what is healthy – for them. But as in so many other matters, individuals are quite content to let others think for them. I don’t remember the source for the life of me, but I do recall reading that Kant once said part of being enlightened is knowing that a doctor shouldn’t tell you what health is.
You are what you eat, kids. Of course, you are also what you smoke, drink, and generally just do. Meditate on what healthy means to you. If you’re old and have great skin, that’s really wonderful and we’re all happy for you. It’s just too bad to get there you had to avoid smiling for 60 years. Ask yourself, is being puritanical about health worth the opportunity cost of life?
My advice – unsolicited though it may be – is to eat what you want, to do what you want. Just don’t be surprised at the end of the day when you look like you do.
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