We are labeled as wierd, different, strange, health nuts, and every other negative label society can find for us.
Eating a incredible tasting green smoothie with wild blueberries, bananas, kale, and flax seeds for breakfast is bizarre or boring. If someone eats bacon and sausage for breakfast then they are accepted as normal.
If it is not socially acceptable to boycott foods that destroy our arteries then I want to be on the fringe. I want to be like Tim Van Order. He didn't do any exercise for 18 years. A knee injury in high school and asthma stopped him from pursuing his professional athletic career.
Then he adopted a raw vegan diet and became one of the best mountain runners in the country in one year. He did this after 18 years of a sedentary lifestyle at the age of 37.
If we take care of our bodies and our arteries age means nothing. We can become ageless. Being "normal" in America is why we have kids on The Biggest Loser that are over 450 lbs.
Everyone told Jack Lalanne that he was going to die young from exercising so much. Doctors believed he was destroying his body. At 95 years old he still exercises for 2 hours a day and according to his book, Live Young Forever, he hasn't had a sick day in 60 years.
My role models aren't "normal" and this is awesome. I look up to the vegan fire fighters from Engine 2 fire house in Austin, Texas. I look up to people who aren't obsessed with "protein", but are obsessed with getting the most out of life.
Do the food companies that have spent our entire lives trying to brain wash us care about us? Is it too much to suspect that they benefit from treating healthy people like "misfits" more than the most obese country in the history of human kind?
I listen to that song by Michael Jackson, "They Don't Really Care About Us." and I know it is so very true. These big companies don't care about us. More people die of heart disease every day than died in the 9-11 terrorist attacks and no one is even bothering to tell anyone about doctors reversing heart disease like Dr. McDougall and Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn.
Our own media used Michael Jackson to keep us distracted for years. That whole time doctors were reversing diseases like multiple sclerosis, heart disease, diabetes, and many other health problems and our media just wanted to focus on celebrities.
During that time of distraction and misinformation my uncle died of a heart attack at the age of 37, a boss of mine died at 44 years of age, and a teacher died at 38 years of age of a heart attack.
We live in the richest country in the world and many people can't even expect to live to be 40 years old because our food is so deadly and toxic.
My own mother was more alarmed when I became a vegan than when I started smoking. Thank God I stopped destroying my body. It was difficult, because that is the cool thing to do.
Some day it will be seen as a positive thing when people decide to take responsibility for their health and eat healthier meals and exercise regularly.
Tim Van Orden - www.runningraw.com
