Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
The Lonely Truth, Real Food, Second-Hand Smoke, and Hope
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: Aaron Escobar
Sometimes, knowing the truth can make you feel lonely and isolated.
Almost everyone who has switched to real food and grassfed meat knows what I mean. Nearly everyone you know eats factory food, and considers it normal. Most people accept what the media, the medical profession, the food industry, and conventional belief tell them about food. And when you reject factory food, you are often alone. People, especially family members, can get very angry at you, especially at social occasions when you will not eat what they eat. Or when you will not let your children eat the candy and other factory foods they want to give them. At the same time, they will be horrified that you actually eat saturated animal fat, plenty of real red meat, and butter. I have lost count of the times that friends and family members have claimed that my real food diet will cause all kinds of fatal diseases. Some of your friends and family may even consider you crazy.
In fact, the very fact of trying to eat only clean, wholesome food has been described as a mental disorder. See Eating Healthy Is a Mental Disorder? Nonsense.
It takes real courage to step out of the herd, to think for yourself, to learn and adopt a better way of eating. And it has consequences, both social and personal.
But take heart. Eventually, the truth that most people now reject will become accepted. The time will come when the truth about real food and grassfed meat will overcome the lies and biased studies that keep people eating factory food. But only if enough people stand strong and keep to their principles.
This is not a fantasy. I have had an experience where my “crazy†belief eventually became the conventional belief.
The Truth about Second-Hand Smoke
Second-hand smoke is tobacco smoke that you do not inhale from a cigarette or cigar, but inhale from the air. As a matter of common sense, tobacco smoke is tobacco smoke, and breathing it into your lungs will do harm, whether you get it from the air, or from a cigarette.
But many years ago, the tobacco companies funded studies that claimed that second-hand smoke was completely harmless. And these studies were accepted as absolute fact, by almost everybody.
When I was eleven years old, almost everybody believed that second-hand smoke was harmless because of the studies. But second-hand smoke made me choke and wheeze, I was more sensitive to it than most people. When I was exposed to it, and breathed it in, I hacked and coughed and could not control it. My parents were concerned the first time this happened, and took me to a doctor. The doctor told them that second-hand smoke could not possibly harm me, and that I was “faking it.†If only that was true. My parents believed anything any doctor told them. They got very angry at me, and threatened severe punishments if I did not “stop it.â€
Later that week, my father’s second-cousin, who had a PhD in something, visited our home. He started smoking, filling the air with second-hand smoke. I tried hard not to choke and cough, but my efforts failed. The PhD pronounced that my cough did not sound “real.†I said the smoke was choking me. He stated that studies proved conclusively that second-hand smoke had no effect on anyone, and that I must be faking it. He told my parents that I should see a psychiatrist. As far as my parents were concerned, that was the final word. After all, he was a PhD. They refused to listen to me, and I was severely punished.
Seeing the psychiatrist made things even worse. He insisted that the studies proved that second-hand smoke could not affect anyone, and that I was faking it for other reasons. Since I knew I was not faking anything, and that the smoke made me choke, I would not “confess,†which angered him. He finally told my parents that I would not cooperate and was defying him. Fortunately, psychotropic drugs were not routinely given to children at that time. However, my parents inflicted more punishments on me, but no amount of punishment could stop me from choking and coughing when I breathed second-hand smoke. My parents lost all respect for me, and treated me with contempt. We became adversaries, and I was very unhappy. I thought something was wrong with me, that I was a bad person. It terrified me to think that I might be faking it without even knowing it. At the age of eleven, I began to believe that I was crazy, to some degree. My schoolwork and social life suffered greatly, because I was not the same child.
When I became a young adult and made my own decisions, it suddenly hit me that I was the only one who could possibly know how tobacco smoke affected me. No matter what those studies found, they did not study me. I decided that what I experienced had to be real–for me.
I avoided tobacco smoke whenever I could, and breathed as shallowly as possible when I could not. On social occasions, I politely asked people not to smoke, telling them I was sensitive to it. Many people would agree to what I asked, and many would not. I lost a lot of potential friendships that way, but I stayed true to what I had learned from my own experience.
Over the years, many people who suffered from second-hand smoke came to realize that the studies were wrong. They organized and made their voices heard. They got the attention of some scientists, who began to reinvestigate the issue. These people held their ground and insisted that what they had was not a mental illness, but actual harm from second-hand smoke.
Many years later, the fact that second-hand smoke is almost as harmful as smoking was proved without doubt. All the biased studies paid for by the tobacco companies were wrong. Laws that restricted smoking were passed to protect people from this harmful second-hand smoke. I had been right, all along, even when I was an eleven-year-old boy.
The truth about second-hand smoke finally broke through the deception and biased studies, and became accepted.
The same will happen to the truth about real food. The sooner the better.
The Truth about Real Food Will Come Out
If you try to eat only real food, and to protect your family and children from factory food, you may feel alone. But you are not alone. There are more of us every day, and the movement is growing. Keep going with what you know is true, and do not be discouraged by the lack of knowledge of those around you. They have received a huge amount of propaganda designed to keep them eating factory food, and they get more of this propaganda every day.
And something wonderful is happening. The biotech industry financed a number of studies claiming that GMOs were harmless and the same as other food. This is the reason behind the fact that GMOs are not labeled. Yet an initiative that will require the labeling of foods containing GMOs is on the California ballot this November, and is still winning in the polls despite the massive marketing campaign against it that has been financed by Monsanto and other giants in the biotech and food industries. You can find out more about how to support Proposition 37 at: Yes on Prop 37.
I encourage you to politely and calmly continue to do your reasonable best to eat real food, and reject factory food, when possible. Eating real food is much better, and the fact that most people do not know this does not change the truth about food.
The more people who know about real food and spread the word, the sooner our truth will spread. And the day will come when everyone knows the truth about food. And that will be a great day for everyone except a few greedy corporations.
This post is part of Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.