My parents are all about diets. In their case, diets don't consist of excersice or point-counting. Instead, it just means that they obsess about various theories about nutrition. These obsessions take on a life of their own, so that any recognizable scientific basis for these theories has been twisted and skewed into a set of uncohesive dietary rules which end up clashing.
Of the two parents, my father takes the cake (ha!) for being the absolute king of obsession and deformation of views. That is to say, as my father is reading a passage out of The Schwarzbein Principle the meaning of the words changes in mid-processing and gets crushed within the squishy folds of my father's very demented brain.
Now, he has very good reason to start worrying about his health. This year he was diagnosed with diabetes. He also happens to bathe rarely and rides his motorcycle aggressively, probably not considering the physics of a fat man taking sharp turns very suddenly. In addition, my dad doesn't excersise. If he wants to go down to the garden from the back porch (approximately 400 yards) he will drive his tractor there.
He tells me how horrible carbohydrates are and that they will kill me if I eat them. Sugar is what killed his parents. "If only he'd known sooner, they would still be alive" he says.
Anti-carb diets are not new and definitely not discovered by my wannabe-genius father. The South Beach diet and the Atkins diet all claim that sugar and carbs are what make you fat/unhealthy.
My parents adopted a lot of ideas from Dr.Sczwartzbein and from a Polish Dr. Kwasznieski, who I actually visited several years ago in Czechoczinko where he has a practice.
Now, Kwasznieski and Sczwartzbein actually make a lot of reasonable claims. Over all they say that artifical and hydroginated fats are really bad for you, as are high amounts of sugar and carbs. All these things are not natural and are high in calories and chemicals, etc. They claim that you should eat healthy fats (nuts, fish, blah blah) and veggies and fruits, and above all, small portions. The important thing is to get a good balance of fiber and grains with healthy proteins, etc. Yeah, sounds pretty reasonable. Kwasznieski's diet is a little harder to wrap the mind around because he isn't so much about balancing a diet. He claims we need to cut out all carbs and sugars, including a lot of vegetables like carrots or even things like ketchup. He endorses eating a lot of fat, not necessarily meat. Just a lot of oils. Which feels disgusting even to type- anyway, I'm no expert on this I'm just summing it up. But he does say that nuts and berries are good for you and once again, eating small amounts is good.
Now, Kwasznieski and Sczwartzbein actually make a lot of reasonable claims. Over all they say that artifical and hydroginated fats are really bad for you, as are high amounts of sugar and carbs. All these things are not natural and are high in calories and chemicals, etc. They claim that you should eat healthy fats (nuts, fish, blah blah) and veggies and fruits, and above all, small portions. The important thing is to get a good balance of fiber and grains with healthy proteins, etc. Yeah, sounds pretty reasonable. Kwasznieski's diet is a little harder to wrap the mind around because he isn't so much about balancing a diet. He claims we need to cut out all carbs and sugars, including a lot of vegetables like carrots or even things like ketchup. He endorses eating a lot of fat, not necessarily meat. Just a lot of oils. Which feels disgusting even to type- anyway, I'm no expert on this I'm just summing it up. But he does say that nuts and berries are good for you and once again, eating small amounts is good.
My dad, however, loves to scramble any reasonable information to fit into his "the more the merry-er" formula. So instead of eating reasonable amounts and balancing your diet and not drinking artificial sweetner.... suddenly apples are poison and eating eight eggs for breakfast and shit tons of butter will CURE his diabetes. My father drinks about a carton of heavy whipping cream a week. He likes to call this diet (in Polish) "DIETA OPTYMALNA" Needless to say, if I don't get to the kitchen fast enough in the morning to prepare my own coffee, I get a cup of heavy whipping cream with a das
h of diluted coffee in it. One sip of that feels like eating icecream during a marathon run.
(milk was a bad choice)
My father also insists on adding lard to pretty much everything. He likes to tell me about the wonders of this diet only every SINGLE FUCKING DAY EVERYTIME I AM WITHIN EAR SHOT. I also love the way he accosts the employees at Sam's, librarians, neighbors, and random people in line at the grocery store about how they should eat. Recently, he informed a heavy woman at the library that she was fat and that he could help her by teaching her about his DIETA OPTIMALNA.
He was, of course, insulted when a letter arrived telling him he will get banned from the library if he talks to anyone that way again.
He loves, most of all, to tell me about it again and again.
This is nothing new of course, because both my parents love to talk at me and shove different food at me all while argueing with each other. And they wonder why I have stomach problems. I have become accustomed to nodding and picking through my food past the butter to salvage whatever normal food is still hiding in there.
Now, my mother, of course, is far more reasonable than my dad. She knows he's full of shit and a psycho but she has her food eccentricities which are equally obsessive. My mom is much better at understanding reasonable diets and limits and what "balanced" means. Her problem lies with picking up on trends too quickly and too enthusiastically.
All it takes for her is 1 article. I remember when she thought coconut oil was going to cure me of my polycystic ovarian syndrome and depression. When packing up my last apartment, I filled an entire box with vitamin bottles along with many herbal and "asian" supplements which always taste like unbrushed teeth. I've actually had my mom chase me around with a spoon of fish oil. I remember when she discovered noni juice just as she recently discovered (in an article) the WONDERS of pomegranate (which she cannot pronounce).
All it takes for her is 1 article. I remember when she thought coconut oil was going to cure me of my polycystic ovarian syndrome and depression. When packing up my last apartment, I filled an entire box with vitamin bottles along with many herbal and "asian" supplements which always taste like unbrushed teeth. I've actually had my mom chase me around with a spoon of fish oil. I remember when she discovered noni juice just as she recently discovered (in an article) the WONDERS of pomegranate (which she cannot pronounce).
As a matter of fact, today she read about the amazing truth about horseradish and its cancer-killing power. She also dragged me all around walmart to by Sobe Life water just to take a triumpant sip followed by a vehement "that's disgusting!"
My mother's obsessions are far more endearing than my father's but also wear me thin. The thing is, I'm sure there's some truth to a lot of the things my parents say but since I know how much they love to selectively choose what they want to believe, it's hard to trust them. Not to mention that throughout getting my psych degree, all we ever did was talk about research and statistics and how it always gets misread as "proving things". The purpose of research trials is merely to measure the relationship between X and Y. And whatever all those dieticians and researchers have discovered about things usually comes from a few trials on random subjects- usually without being able to control other factors. So essentially, all sorts of research doesn't mean anything. And what works for one person doesn't work for another. And for god's sake, eating lard daily isn't going to cure diabetes.
And so, my brief stay at my parent's house is over. I can't take the slabs of butter and the little piles of vitamins. Not to mention dietary obsessions are only one of my parents' eccentricities which I just cannot handle after 4 years of freedom from them.
moving out.
wish me luck.
