A Diet Drama

(This is a transcript of the podcast with the same name which you can find on all major podcast platforms. If you prefer to read, stay here 🙂 )

There are two parts in this podcast. First – a few tips and tricks on how to interact with this endangered group of species which are Gemini. And then we are going to talk about something much more serious, a DIET!! 

First of all, tips and tricks.

I told you in one of my previous podcasts why it is not a good idea to have an ARGUMENT with Gemini and now I’m going to tell you why it is a good idea to have a DISCUSSION with Gemini. You know, when you come to the shop and you see two pieces of chicken for the price of one? A special offer? When you discuss something with Gemini this is what you get. This offer is always on because inside every Gemini you will find two different people and two different sets of opinions. You will have one person who will give you a dry, logical and reasonable point of view on the subject, and another person will give you an emotional and intuitive point of view. So, you are getting a special offer.

Now, there are a few little things to keep in mind while dealing with Gemini.

Asking for advice or direction is a bad idea, because you are not going to get one answer. You’re going to get two, and most likely those answers will contradict each other. Imagine that you followed one advice and it ended up in tears. What will you do? Well. We live in such a nice and understanding society, we’re so kind to each other that the first thing we do when something doesn’t go right, we look for somebody to blame. And with Gemini it never works. We cannot stand blame, accusations, judgment or criticism of any sort.

Now imagine that you DID follow our advice and everything went peachy. In this case you can keep your praise and glory for yourself, because we do not need acknowledgment. We don’t need to hear things like, ‘Oh, good boy, well done!’, we don’t care. Now, there’s one thing we never do. We never say, ‘Oh, I told you so’.. for two reasons. First of all, why would you say so? I mean, it’s in the past, it’s already happened, so there’s nothing you can do. You see, we don’t live in the past and the bad thing is that we don’t learn from the past. Unfortunately, we don’t live in the future as well. We don’t prepare for the future. We live in the moment, right in the middle between the past and the future. We’re pretty happy to be in the middle, and we don’t care about anything else.

The last thing. If you are in a relationship with Gemini, be that a friendship, business partnership or romantic relationship, one thing you should never ever do. Do not guilt trip Gemini. If for some reason you decide to end your relationship this is a way to go, just try a little guilt tripping, it will be over fast and most likely there will be no way back. Very dramatic.

This is the end of the first part and now we are going back to our main subject. 

A DIET.

We are smart and we are clever. We know that what we eat has an enormous effect on our health. And we all heard this phrase, ‘You are what you eat’. You can find this phrase in practically every language on the planet. I did a little research trying to find out who was the first modern person to come up with this particular phrase, and that’s what I found.

In 1824, one medically inclined Frenchman Brillette Savarin wrote a book called… I will try to read it now. ‘Meditation de Gastronomie Transcendante….

No? Okay, sorry. I shall not attempt to sound French anymore. I promise I will stick with English, mistakes and all. Do not judge harshly.

Back to the book.

Brillette Savarin wrote, ‘Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are’. But of course, being a Frenchman, he made it all overly dramatic and very philosophical.

It is a little bit too complex for us simple beings and it didn’t really make any impact on the society at the time. And also, French are quite picky about their food anyway, so it  went largely unnoticed. As usual, it was up to our American friends to make everything clear and simple. Masters of simplicity, those Americans. They love compressing the complex matters into one-liners and slogans like, ‘Build the wall, Drain the swamp, Lock her up’, and such nonsense. So the phrase, ‘You are what you eat’ in English, first appeared in 1930s in the food advert in the US newspaper, Bridgeport Telegraph. It said, ‘90% of all diseases known to men are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat’.

Bravo, Americans. Bravo! Simple and straight to the point. Even though this land of free and eternally confused is full of humanoids the size of an elephant, and most of the stuff they eat wouldn’t even be considered food in a civilized society, at least they got the concept right.

We are talking about the modern times of course, but the old people knew about the importance of food much more than we do. I will tell you an interesting and highly educational story about the British missionary who visited a particular tribe in Southwest Africa in the 16th century. He wasn’t just any missionary, he was a scientist, he was an anthropologist, he spoke four or five languages, so he was a very well educated missionary. He was trying to convert this tribe into Catholicism and eventually fell in love with the naive, childlike natives. He spent many months living with the tribe, making drawings of the activities, recording their stories, legends, songs, writing about their food, customs and so on. He came back to England and published a book which was received very well and was highly successful. The next year he came back, he brought souvenirs and presents to everyone in the tribe, and him and the chief of the tribe became the best of friends. The chief told him once that they believed that you become what you eat. For example, in order to become a leader, he had to kill and eat a lion, and because a lion is fearless, strong and clever, by eating the lion’s heart, he became fearless, strong and clever himself. Also, this tribe was always fighting with the neighbours, and they believed that by capturing and eating the best enemy warriors, they would become as brave and powerful as those warriors themselves.

A beautiful story, this!

The chief liked the missionary very much, he admired his skill and wisdom, and in order to become wise and skilled himself, he ate the missionary.

So apparently, somewhere in Southwest Africa there used to be a tribe chief who spoke four or five languages and was quite proficient in anthropology. Well, we are civilized people, we have rules in our society, so unfortunately we are not allowed to eat people we like to learn from.

Imagine the possibilities if it was allowed. My students wouldn’t have to pay for the lessons, they wouldn’t have to spend hours and hours practicing, they could just invite me to a barbecue, whack me on the head, cook me with some garlic and onion and voila, you have 39 little geniuses running around.

I wish I ate my English teacher 40 years ago so I wouldn’t have to look at the dictionary every half an hour.

As we cannot eat each other, we get our food in the supermarkets and as you know the choice is huge. So how do we know what is good for us and what’s not? I’ll let you in a little secret. Do you remember in the beginning of this podcast I said that we are clever and smart and well educated?

Don’t believe anything I say. We are not. We have no idea. We are happily chewing on our McDonald’s nuggets and KFC mutated chicken followed by toxic fries and Coca Cola, which is pure sugar. No, we are not smart. In saying so, there are some individuals who mostly belong to the earner part of the society who have few euros to spare and are concerned about their health. And so, there is a demand for a diet. And where is demand, there is a supply. And not a week has gone by without yet another life-changing diet presented by yet another nutritionist with five or six degrees from Harvard or Cambridge… or so they say. Usually I try to stay away from the father Google and the Big brother’s beady eye watching my bathroom activities and counting how many socks I bought in the last year. But I did spend few hours surfing the Internet trying to find origins of the phrase, ‘You are what you eat’. And so this entity, which was watching me searching various websites, decided that I am a someone in need of nutritional advice. And right now I’m being bombarded by the offers of those revolutionary diets on a regular basis. You wouldn’t believe what is on offer right now. Here’s just a few of those gems I received in the last two weeks. 

The Tapeworm Diet, the Cotton Ball Diet, the Sleeping Beauty Diet, the Vision Diet, the Cigarette Diet….. (Actually, I rather like this one). The Ice Diet, the Prayer Diet. Whoa!!!!

They all have a solid scientific and medical explanation and basis, and they all are supposed to transform your body and spirit in a ways you wouldn’t even dreamed of. And you know what? As I mentioned earlier, we are not smart. So all those diets have a serious following. Thousands!!!

There’s one little detail to consider. A dietitian is a regulated term in most countries but nutritionist is not, which means anyone can get out there with his so called New Diet, call himself a nutritionist and start selling books and courses without any legal obligations and with no responsibility whatsoever if anything goes wrong.

I’ll give you one good example.

There is a dude in Leeds, Bradford, UK. He is not a doctor. He is a failed musician. A bass player, I’m afraid. He is a chancer. A clever one. He came up with the brilliant new diet which is called a ‘BBB Diet’. Bread, Beans and Bacon.

He’s selling the book in which he calls himself a ‘Pedigree Nutritionist’ and in which he explains how those three components contain every single protein, vitamin, and mineral your body needs to function. I’m not a doctor but I’ve been around and that’s what I can say about this ‘diet’.

Beans. Baked beans are high in sugar and salt. They contain modified corn starch, and the interior lining of bean cans contain the chemical called BPA which increases obesity and reduces fertility.

Bread contains gluten, a lot of additives and has no nutrients whatsoever.

Bacon contains preservatives and nitrates which are linked to the breast, bowel and prostate cancer. Also, combining proteins and carbohydrates is one of the reasons we are carrying kilograms of undigested toxic waste in our guts for years and years. This is probably the single worst diet you could ever have. And this dude is selling his book for 20 pounds Sterling. The guy is a genius! Well, he’s a criminal, but to be honest it’s not entirely his responsibility because the system allows it and people fall for it. So why not? The problem is that this area is not regulated properly. Anyone can get out there and declare himself a guru, an expert, presenting something new and revolutionary. And as I said, this guy is smart. By now he probably made enough money to buy a house in the South of France. There are thousands of poor sods who fall for this rubbish. And how can you blame them? Most of those diets are presented in a very convincing manner. Those guys are not doctors. They are businessmen selling us their product, so they know how to market. And because marketing is based on a primitive psychology, it works. Now, imagine this. You’ve been sent a link to the website with a new diet. You open it up and you see two photographs. One on the left is called ‘Before’, and one on the right is called ‘After’. On the left you see someone who looks like an elephant with the bad skin, no teeth and no hair. On the right picture, you see Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie.

Got you!!!

There is a picture of this ‘Nutritionist’ who looks like your favourite uncle and who has seven degrees. He offers you a recipe for his new ‘Wonder Shake’ which will transform you into a love machine. You have 25 reviews from the leading dietologists and you have reviews from the clients, the lucky ones, obviously written by the same person because they all make the same mistakes…..like I do. It sounds like this, ‘I was overweight, I couldn’t breathe, I smelled like a skunk, girls didn’t like me and my wife left me with her yoga instructor. I lost my job, my kids hated me and I started to listen to the ‘Spice Girls’. My life was over. And then I discovered this new and revolutionary Wonder Shake recipe which only cost me 499 dollars.

Now, look at me!!! My skin is great, I have full head of hair and I have 48 teeth. I weight 50 kilograms, girls want me and men want to be like me. I got a job as a manager in a big company, I bought a new Mercedes and tomorrow I am going to have a dinner with Claudia Schiffer. Or maybe I won’t. I’m too busy planning my holidays in Maldives with my new 18 years old girlfriend. Yep…..So. What do you do? Of course you fall for this rubbish. Especially as you have a customary ‘Money back guarantee’ promise. What do you have to lose except of your pound of flesh? Huh?

So, you grab your credit card and fill out the order form. You tremble with anticipation for a week, then you receive this booklet and start your new life.. Fast forward. Four weeks later. You look in the mirror. You still look like an elephant, you still have a horrible skin, your kids still hate you, your wife is spending too much time with her yoga instructor and there are no letters from Claudia Schiffer in your letterbox. You get angry and start calling this helpline number to get your money back, only to discover that it connects you to an Indian call centre, so you are charged 50 euros every time you dial the number and another 50 for every minute you are waiting for someone to answer. Which will never happen, by the way.

After 5 days of trying to reach the creator of this ‘Wonder Shake’ and spending 500 euros in phone bills, you eventually realise that you have been duped. Again. So, you count your losses and go back to your TV, pizza and beer routine. Till the next ad for a new and revolutionary diet which will pretty much guarantee that you will sleep with Angelina Jolie in one month time. Why? Because she is one of the followers of this diet and actually she looks like she does because of this diet. This secret recipe was discovered by the archaeologist in Tibet. He brought this scroll home and published the book which was immediately banned in 15 countries because it would render all doctors on the planet useless. Soon he got a visit from the KGB, or CIA, or Mossad agents who wanted this scroll for themselves, but he stayed true and didn’t tell them where it was hidden. They tortured him, they removed his spleen, cut out his ears, one eye and one leg, but he didn’t tell them anything. Few years later after his death, his daughter received a letter from her deceased one legged father which said something like this, ‘My dear, it is up to you now to save humanity. The scroll is safely hidden in my rectum. Get it out and give it to the world.’

And….. so she did, and you are the lucky one! There are only seventeen people on the planet who were chosen to receive this priceless information and it is yours for a modest amount of 499euros. And by the way, you only have 3 minutes and 45 seconds to make up your mind before it’s given to someone else. So, what do you do? Really? Yep. You reach for your credit card. Again.

Now. Enough with the criticism. Let’s talk business. How would you like to lose 50 kilograms, 20 years and go on a date with Brad Pitt? For the small amount of just 199 euros you can receive the new and revolutionary book of ancient recipes from my grandmother.

Naaaaa. Just joking.

Let’s get serious….

You don’t have to spend a penny on any of those ridiculous ‘diets’. You see, we love everything new and revolutionary but the truth is that even those good diets which give you a good advice…. you know, they are called ‘new’, but everything ‘new’ is usually well forgotten ‘old’. Old healers got it covered thousands of years ago. Also, they knew something else we’ve conveniently forgotten.

Our bodies have built-in self-healing mechanisms. To be healthy, all we have to do is not to get in a way of those processes. We have to eat right, go to bed and out of bed with the sun, avoid stress, meditate, not to poison ourselves and not to listen to democrats. That’s it.

That’s easy to say, I know. It’s practically impossible to live like this for the majority of the people. Also, old healers didn’t have to deal with chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics and Spice Girls. Now, everything we consume is contaminated in some way. There’s not much we can do about that. So, let’s see what it is we CAN do.

There’s something you might find interesting.

First of all. There is no single diet which will suit everyone.

According to Ayurveda – the oldest healing system on the planet, there are three main body types, or ‘Doshas’. Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Each type has different metabolism, different reaction to proteins, carbs, spices, liquids and needs a different type and quantity of food. I am not going into the details. If you want you can easily find information about the Dosha balancing diet online, there are hundreds of sites with transcripts and it’s available for everyone. Ayurveda will have a most comprehensive information and advice on all of it.

So. Body types. That’s just one reason against a unified diet.

What is good for one person is bad for another. We all have different metabolism, different health conditions and different genetics. We were born in different geographic zones. 

By the way, the geography, climate is a huge factor. If you live in Irkutsk in the Far North, where you routinely get – 50C during the winter, your diet should be high calories, high energy diet which absolutely must include animal proteins, organs, uncooked fat, and lots of it.

If you live in Greece, being a vegetarian is no problem. If you live in the far North and for some bizarre reason decide to become a vegetarian, it’s like trying to organise a ‘Pride’ parade in Sudan, or Yemen. A bad idea.

Now, there’s another bad idea….this madness about losing weight.

Before you even start thinking about any of those weight loss diets,  you have to find out why you are overweight. Is it because you have a Jewish mother who feeds you 7 times a day? Is it because you are a lazy slob who eats junk food full of sugar, processed meat, wheat and spends 20 hours a day sitting on a couch, drinking coke and watching TV. Or is it because you have an underlying condition? What if your thyroid gland doesn’t produce enough hormones? What if you have a high cortisol level or hormonal imbalance? What if your oestrogen levels affect your metabolism? This ‘weight loss wonder diet’ could kill you. And you know what? No one will be held responsible.

It will be your own doing.

Also, it’s a good idea to stick to the body type we were born with. If you were born chunky, this is your natural body type. You can’t change it without damaging yourself. You shouldn’t mess with your DNA, your cells, chromosomes, genes. If you were born a skinny git like me, the worst thing you can do to yourself is to start a diet to gain weight. It’s unnatural and it’ll damage your health, it’ll mess up your hormones and metabolism.

Let’s not screw with the mother nature. We should stay the way we were born. It’s in only in this demented world ruled by democrats you can change whatever you want,  cut off your penis and declare yourself a female… or a crocodile, if you feel you know, crocodilish….With total disregard of biology, anatomy and a basic science. In a real world it’s better remain the way we were born. You’ll live longer. Any artificial changes will damage your physical and mental health.

There are very few common rules which we can follow without spending our money on something ‘New and Revolutionary’.

Try to stay organic if possible. You’ll still be eating chemicals, antibiotics, pesticides and microplastics, but not as much as you would if you’re shopping in your local supermarket.

Don’t drink during or after your food. The digestive process starts in your mouth and it has few stages in order to completely break down your food. By drinking you are interrupting this process and your food is not being properly digested.

Never combine carbs and proteins – they require two different processes to break down, acidic and alkaline. Your meat is digested within 4-5 hours, your carbs are digested within 8-9 hours but if you combine, it takes 12-15 hours and results in undigested deposits in your guts which stay there for years producing toxins which slowly poison your heart, liver and kidneys. It’s like putting petrol and diesel in the same engine. I did it once while riding home from Germany. I was dead tired. I stopped in Wales. I was so tired I didn’t even notice that I put diesel in my motorbike so I ended up with 50/50 petrol and diesel. It’s only because my BMW1200GS is the best engineered and best built bike on a planet I was able to ride for another 120 miles. Then it died and I had to call a tow truck to bring me to my Irish BMW garage. I was called an idiot by the track driver and all mechanics in my garage and you know what? It was well deserved. So. Don’t combine carbs and proteins.

What else? Avoid sugar at any costs.

If you are serious about the food and your health, just go and get yourself the copy of the Ayurveda. There are detailed instructions on what to eat, how to eat, which combinations are healthy and which combinations will turn you into the average American.. Naaaaah. Just joking.

Americans.. You are all right. You gave the world Muddy Waters, BB King, Frank Zappa, Harley Davidson and a Hammond Organ. You gave us Brad Pitt who singlehandedly won the WW2. You also discovered the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, thank you for saving the world by the way. Well, yeah, you can be a bit loud, and you do eat a lot, but not for a long now. The dollar is going to collapse, you are going to learn how to eat your own fingernails and this winter we all are going to starve and freeze to death. So.

On this positive note,

I’d like to thank you all for listening. If you want to support me, which you should, you can do that by visiting ‘Patreon’. Search for my name or the ‘World according to Gemini’ and become a proud supporter of one slightly aged, lonely and eternally confused Gemini.

All the best!