The 300-year-old diet: You're gonna need to be healthy for the hard times ahead

While off touring scenic downtown San Jose recently, I visited its massive new steel-and-glass public library -- which now looks down from on high upon the campus of San Jose State University. From up on the library's eighth floor, the university's venerable old tower and quad were virtually dwarfed beneath me -- but in a good way. Then I went off to visit the world-renowned San Jose Tech Museum and a really nice Egyptian mummy collection at the Rosicrucian Museum -- but they were both closed on Mondays.

Then the world-famous Winchester Mystery House came next, where I auditioned for the role of Sarah Winchester in their upcoming Halloween fright night production. The directors said that they liked me a lot for the part. However, since I will be off camping at Lake Louise during their main rehearsal period, I may miss my big chance. Rats. The script called for Sarah to hold a seance and call people back from the dead. That would have been perfect! I get along really well with dead people -- and they get along fairly well with me too.

And while driving around San Jose, I also listened to a book-on-tape on my old-skool cassette player that featured Dr. Andrew Weill expounding on how to eat healthy. "Modern processed food is bad for you and when they invented white flour, which has the same high glycemic index as sugar, our health started going downhill," Weill stated -- or words to that effect. So right there on Santa Clara Street, right across from the historic Saint Claire Hotel, I got the brainstorm to invent my own special diet -- consisting of non-processed foods. I call it the 300-year-old diet.

"Does that mean that everything you eat has to be 300 years old?" you might ask. Not exactly. Everything that you eat must have been around 300 years ago. Nothing processed allowed. Except maybe for ale. And bread. But only if the flour is stone-ground -- preferably by peasants or Isaac Newton or Peter the Great or, hopefully, elves.

The thing that is so satisfying about my new 300-year-old diet is that you can just imagine yourself in a palace somewhere, with an ear of corn in one hand and a huge turkey leg in the other. They DID have corn back then, right? A diet is so much more easy to stick with if it captures your imagination.

Also ice cream was invented by the Arabs back in the 12th century. Whew!

Okay. Assuming that we all start eating according to the 300-year-old diet and we all get healthy as we can be. Top of our form. And then what? Then we can use all our new-found health to be prepared for the hard times ahead. And there WILL be hard times ahead. In their quest for cheap labor, the oligarchs and corporatists who run America will certainly see to that. But we need to see to our own health and fitness right now -- so that we too will be able to survive and even, hopefully, actually start fighting for our rights.

No one ever survived hard times while living on junk food.

PS: Someone just told me about something called the Paleolithic Diet http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101611.html. Ha! My diet is better. Those fools didn't have ice cream.

PPS: Meanwhile, back home in Berkeley, I ate sweet potatoes, lamb chops and string beans, and listened to a rap song about King Middle School's edible schoolyard -- which is definitely on the 300-year-old diet! http://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/08/08/dj-dave-u-not-berkeley-enough/

PPPS: To celebrate Labor Day this year, we went off to the movies and saw "The Help". And I'm here to tell you -- that movie is also about the future of the heartless exploitation of labor as well as just its past.

If American corporatists have their way, it will soon be US raising their children and mopping their floors and not being allowed to use their toilets -- no matter what the color of our skin. http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-help/51988/trailers.

Here is journalist David Glenn Cox's bloody history of heroic American working men and women and Labor Day and of all the people who died fighting for unions. I dare you to read it and not weep: http://www.leftistreview.com/2011/09/04/the-real-history-of-labor-day/davidcox/ “Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.” – Samuel Gompers.

But no one ever seems to want to fight for their union rights these days -- and submissively lets all our best jobs get outsourced or sent overseas. "Me? Try to protect our economic rights so that the fat cats don't trample all over us? No way! That's too Old Skool." So. Then. Let them eat junk food.

*********************************************************
*********************************************************

Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238806637&sr=1-2

****

"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!" You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters



"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds." You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

****

I just got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!