Western Diets, Food For Thought

>NPR aired a story last week about the impact our western diets are making on the world. Info about the story and article can be found here. The person being interviewed, Dr. Kevin Patterson, spoke of the alarming rise all over the world of Type 2 diabetes.

He said,

No country in the world has the resources to continue to treat diabetics the way that they’re being treated now, if the prevalence rates increase at the rates that they’re increasing for much longer,” he says. “I worked in Saipan, which is in the Marianas Island in the Pacific, and there, the dialysis population was increasing at about 18 percent a year, all as a consequence of diabetes and acculturation — exactly the same process as what’s going on with the Inuit.

When you look at the curves, it’s clear how unsustainable it is. In 20 or 30 years, everybody on that island will either be a dialysis patient or a dialysis nurse unless something fundamental is done about the rise in diabetes. That’s no less true in Canada and in Samoa and Hawaii, and even in Omaha and Toronto. We all have exactly the same problem when we plot out those curves.

What an awful future he projects! And he is probably right–cheap, easy to fix and serve food has just taken over. The heavy carb/sugar ratio in most of those foods pushes the insulin response to high gear which leads to excessive fat storage and both help create fertile ground for developing Type 2 diabetes. And these days, fewer are able to find the leisure to fix (and to grow) more healthy meals and then also to take the time to sit down and eat them, again with leisure.

I know I keep hitting this theme, but . . . we are just too busy. The real and important is constantly being exchanged for the less-real, the less important, the substitute that panders to laziness and the need to over-consume, rather than savor a smaller, and more flavorful amount, not just of food, but of work, play, things–we have too much of everything.

We are so used to being served huge amounts of food that we forget to just enjoy the piece. Did you know that a large tub of movie theater popcorn with butter topping just by itself has about 1500 calories? And a large soft drink to wash it down it contains another 500? Unfortunately, some compelling evidence suggests that diet drinks may stimulate the same insulin response that the regular ones do, and thus be adding to the type 2 diabetes risk.

I so often wonder what God does think of the way we have chemicalized and altered the wonderful things offered to us to eat in the beautiful mystery of creation. Perhaps when we get to heaven, we’ll discover all we lost by the exchange.

Western Diets, Food for Thought