Where are the Obese Hippies?

There is a health food store here in Nashville that I like to go to.  They sell some pretty “normal” things like organic meat and veggies and such.  They also sell all of the hard-core health foods like tofu, alfalfa sprouts, whole grains in bulk, every bean you can imagine.  This is what some of my patients refer to as “hippie food.”

Another reason I like going to this store is I like watching the “hippies” who shop there.  I’m talking real hippies, here.  Just wearing tie dyed clothes, long hair and sunglasses doesn’t cut it.  Real hippies try in every way to buck the system of Capitalism.  One major aspect of the Capitalist society is corporate agriculture.  Mass-produced, high fat, salty, overprocessed, genetically altered foods are a large part of corporate agriculture because these foods are easy to produce and have a long shelf life.

The “real” Hippies just don’t go for this.  For the most part, their diet consists of food grown locally on small farms.  Food grown locally on small farms is not cheap.  And last time I checked, very few Hippies are rich.  If nothing else, the cost factor limits how much they eat.  Plus, local small farms don’t produce trans-fats (that involves a chemistry lab), overly fatty meats,  and preservative-loaded sweets full of high-fructose corn syrup.  Therefore, there is a huge lack of OBESE HIPPIES!!

I’m not totally against corporate agriculture.  I’m not an anti-capitalist.  I am a proponent of full disclosure of the ingredients of the foods we eat.  I am a proponent of doing real research on these ingredients and finding out the health risks/benefits of them.  I am a huge proponent of using common sense with food!!  Eat some veggies!! If it’s full of chemicals, you probably shouldn’t eat it!!  Consume only the amount of energy (food) that you will use.  If you sit at a computer all day, you probably don’t need four pounds of food per day to meet your metabolic needs.

Enjoy a Snickers bar sometimes.  Drink a Coke with it.  For the most part, however just eat some lentils and hummus!