No Longer Evitable

Evitable is one of those words that you just do not see in print very much.  Inevitable, its antonym, is commonly used and is familiar to most people; inevitable, of course, meaning NOT capable of being avoided.  And so it is that my SO and I have come to the inevitable fork in the road that many find themselves in regarding diet, exercise, and the dreaded cholesterol readings. I have flirted with high cholesterol for years, escaping the pharmaceutical fall-back by the skin on my chinny-chin-chin, but now both of us are facing the inevitable words from our physician, "This is your last chance.  Get it down in three months, or else!" 

We went through the predictable refrigerator purge just a few hours ago and so now the effort begins in earnest, with no more do-overs.  Fortunately my personal cookbook-library is full of cookbooks on how to cook without this and that ingredient.  Unfortunately, the medical, health, and dietetic communities are not united in what helps to create higher-than-desired cholesterol readings.  Some experts argue that it is fats yet other experts argue that it is carbohydrates and then there is the pharmaceutical industry who would like us to believe that a pill or two can solve the entire problem.

Not too long ago I came across an article that listed some of the more, modern bizarre diets that have been promoted throughout the last four-or-so decades.  Here are some examples that I can remember:

•  pineapple diet
•  grapefruit diet
•  air diet (No kidding.  You get to put whatever you want on a spoon or a fork and bring it to your lips but you cannot put the food in your mouth.)
• sandwich diet  (You can eat anything you can put between two loaves of bread, but nothing else.)
• baby food diet
• morning-banana-and-glass-of-warm-water diet

As you can see, there is no shortage of creativity when it comes to diets.  Personally, I believe that if we would just erase the word diet from our vocabularies and replace it with some word that has warm, fuzzy meaning for the eater, then changing how we eat would not be nearly the traumatic experience as it so often is. 

For now, we are trying to avoid the rush to consume only water and beans, both of which can be problematic when out in public, or, at least anywhere other than home.  I guess the good news from a water and beans diet is that we wouldn't be hard to find in a crowd......or anywhere else, for that matter.  

Ancora imparo