I’ve always had a rather experimental attitude toward food and health.  I was brought up in a medical family and was surrounded by medical textbooks most of my teen years. Although I never went into the profession myself, I did develop a strong interest in self-medicating, which became obsessive after I dropped my health insurance coverage.

I’ve tried weight-loss regimes of all kinds (I tend to lose and gain the same 15 pounds) and I’ve gone through exercise regimes calculated to drive everyone around me batty.

There was the “eat for your blood type” diet (B’s are omnivorous); the Body for Life diet (remember that? lots of protein and portion sizes that fit into your palm, upper body and lower body work-outs on alternate days); the all-white diet (rice, eggnog, potatoes, bread, yoghurt – yes, there was a diet like that); the no-white diet (no rice, no potatoes, no bread); the 7 color diet (some blue, some purple, some red, some green, some yellow, some orange, some white); the cabbage soup diet; the water-melon diet….the low, low calorie diet (aka the starve-yourself diet)….. and the starve-one-day-and-binge-as- much-you-like -the-next-day diet (that was fun).

Then there were the exercises. There was my isometric phase, when unsuspecting friends would come in to find me staring off into space, knees akimbo, palms jammed hard against the walls of the corridor.  “Are you stuck?” they’d ask, and then retreat, confused, not wanting to look insensitive and wondering if this was some bizarre Indian ritual they’d interrupted.

There was the ballet dancer phase, when I’d plie, jete, and frappe as I cooked or waited for the laundry machine. The fun part of that was that I got to listen to my favorite Pavarotti arias endlessly, full blast, while I let go with amateur choreography. Fortunately, the neighbors are gay, so they probably enjoyed the show. Otherwise, someone would have reported me, I’m sure.

But enough. You get the picture. I’m a health faddist. A bit of a crank.

And I believe I’m healthier for it.  When I led a “normal” life I usually found myself getting sick, especially when I’d had a lot of stress, as I’ve had in the last couple of years.

Anyway, recently, I took stock and decided no more normal for me.  It’s back to vegetables, water, sunflower seeds, and supplements. Starting a couple of weeks back, I started taking extra doses of all the vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, and also started a regime I’ve tried before but never kept up –  apple cider vinegar mixed into water during the day, and a spoonful of blackstrap molasses at night. In addition, I’ve taken to chewing black pepper and ginger on and off during the day whenever I have a hankering for something to munch. This is a brainwave on my part. I figure both of these things are good for you, so using them to stifle hunger-pangs has to be a good idea.  5-6 pepper corns does it for me, since they can be quite hot. But they do take away your appetite for sweets and I’m told they speed up your metabolism. For a night-cap, I’m trying warm water, with ginger, lime, and a splash of whiskey, since I read that it might actually be better for you than red wine.

So far so good. Some aches and pains have disappeared. My skin looks much brighter. I’m in a better mood most of the time and have more energy. I’ll report back here in two weeks to tell you what else has got better (or worse). These things have to be done carefully. I used apple cider vinegar a couple of years ago as a skin lotion and my skin broke out instead of looking better.  But mishaps are good too, because they help you realize your body isn’t fragile and can bounce back from a problem. Being healthy is an ongoing chemistry and biology experiment.  And meanwhile, you’ve learned what makes you function best. And that’s what staying healthy should be about.

But for most people it isn’t. They think health is only about not being sick. Or curing yourself of diseases.

This is a paltry conception of health. Health shouldn’t be only about curing disease. It should be about abundant life, about increasing strength and living to the fullest capacity. Not being sick is the very minimal. It’s what one should take for granted.

But because of our uncritical acquiescence in the institutionalization of our health by the state, we’ve settled for the lowest possible standard of health. We’ve settled for something we call health-care, which is delivered by ever more complex intermediaries to us. That’s our focus and our goal. We’re completely wrapped up in it.  And in the whole infrastructure of insurance and medicine and research and bureaucracy that is part of it.

There’s nothing wrong with being interested in the institutions of health care. But the interest should be secondary. If we had our priorities right, we’d spend much more time taking care of our own health first.

That was one of several points made by Ivan Illich, the iconoclastic priest and libertarian theorist of social ecology and human autonomy in his book, “Limits to Medicine: The Expropriation of Health”(Marion Boyars, July 1 2000), as well as in other works.

“Let us look at the conditions of our households and communities, not at the quality of “health care” delivery; health is not a deliverable commodity and care does not come out of a system.

I demand certain liberties for those who would celebrate living rather than preserve “life”:

• the liberty to declare myself sick;
• the liberty to refuse any and all medical treatment at any time;
• the liberty to take any drug or treatment of my own choosing; the
  liberty to be treated by the person of my choice, that is, by
  anyone in the community who feels called to the practice of
  healing, whether that person be an acupuncturist, a homeopathic
  physician, a neurosurgeon, an astrologer, a witch doctor, or
  someone else;
• the liberty to die without diagnosis.
  

I do not believe that countries need a national ‘health’ policy, something given to their citizens. Rather, the latter need the courageous virtue to face certain truths:

• we will never eliminate pain;
• we will not cure all disorders;
• we will certainly die.

Therefore, as sensible creatures, we must face the fact that the pursuit of health may be a sickening disorder. There are no scientific, technological solutions. There is the daily task of accepting the fragility and contingency of the human situation. There are reasonable limits which must be placed on conventional ‘health’ care. We urgently need to define anew what duties belong to us as persons, what pertains to our communities, what we relinquish to the state.

Yes, we suffer pain, we become ill, we die. But we also hope, laugh, celebrate; we know the joy of caring for one another; often we are healed and we recover by many means. We do not have to pursue the path of the flattening out of human experience.

I invite all to shift their gaze, their thoughts, from worrying about health care to cultivating the art of living. And, today, with equal importance, to the art of suffering, the art of dying.” –

—    Brave New Biocracy: Health Care from Womb to Tomb – 1994