Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead Review

I am trying to brainwash myself into healthy eating by watching a lot of videos, reading books, and listening to audio. My Texas Sister recommended Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead to me so I had to watch it or risk having her bring it up every time we talk and being frustrated that I hadn't seen it.

I liked the cartoons. I liked Dr Joel Fuhrman. I liked the ideas. I was annoyed by Joe Cross. I could hardly stand to watch when he did his "man on the street" bits. Mostly he was just making people feel bad about their health and eating habits. You cannot affect change by making people feel bad. And when nearly everyone he spoke to said, "It's my own fault..." I literally shouted, "No, it's not!" To just let that slip by and ignore the fact that our society, our culture promotes the kind of diet that makes you obese, that you get 100 times more messages to eat unhealthily than healthily, to ignore the scheming of the food conglomerates (who all employ behavioral scientists and psychologists to undermine your efforts, by the way) is irresponsible. To change how you eat, let alone radically change how you eat, is a sisyphean task. You pretty much have to restructure your life, become immune to criticism, learn how to tune out media, and fundamentally change how you think. And there is little to no support for that. So allowing people to blame themselves, and not telling them these truths and how to overcome them, is not empowering them. It is exploitation.

That being said, I kept wondering why the Netflix description said "two men whose bodies have been trashed by steroids, obesity and illness..." when I only saw Joe Cross. Then they played Phil Staples' phone message and I choked up. How brave he was to reach out; how desperate he must have been. From that moment, about halfway through the film, I was hooked.

Personally, I don't think I would do a long term juice fast because I am afraid I will go back to unhealthy eating after. If I can eat mostly micronutrient dense food and become accustomed to it, then maybe I will try it for a week or so. I should say I did juice fast for 11 days once and I did go back to eating unhealthily immediately after. So that experience colors my perception. I really want to create a foundation and routine and have that in place before doing any fasting. I do believe fasting is beneficial and healing. And I am trying to consume vegetable juices regularly.

To sum up, I'm glad I watched this movie, I'm glad Joe Cross made it, and it is inspiring. I hope people who watch it seek out more information about Dr Joel Fuhrman and others who promote healthy plant-based diets.

Serving at a Retreat

This past February, I served at a retreat at our Buddhist center. It's the second time this I've done this. I purchase and prepare the food, cook, serve and wash up as much as possible. We are a small group, and about a dozen retreatants attended. The main practice is Nyung Ne, which involves chanting prayers and mantras and lots of prostrations. Prostrations are very good physical exercise and involve all of the muscles of the body. It's important not to overdo it at a retreat.

Since we take one day vows, 24hr precepts, we don't eat food with meat, eggs, onion or garlic and we abstain from eating after the midday meal. It is an extremely beneficial practice I try to do at home from time to time, and so have a little experience with the food preparation. I'm still working out the kinks of my standby retreat menu. I try to serve dishes that can be prepared ahead so that I can participate as much as possible in the retreat myself. My teacher told us that the food shouldn't be too fancy, it's supposed to be something of a hardship. Still, retreat can be difficult and doesn't need to be made more so. I try to cater to diverse tastes. Some people like Asian-style food and others just aren't accustomed to it. This is Indiana, after all.

My job is to try to help the retreatants (spellcheck is telling me that this is not a word) focus on practice by taking care of meals. It can be exhausting just sitting! This is one thing Buddhism has taught me. I try to put love and good energy into the foods and take care of as much as I can so that the attendees can put all of their energy into practice. It is a great honor to do this and a practice in itself.