The All Cricket Diet

Courtesy Johan J. Ingles-Le Nobel @ Flickr CC

Early this year I stopped eating meat. 

I did this because I was grossed out by how meat is raised, because I can't really afford to buy even the most corporate-raised mystery meat (never mind grass-fed organic), and because we had just gotten Netflix live streaming for TV, which offered at least six documentaries on why vegan eating is the only responsible way to eat, period. 

That was back in February or so.

Since then, I've added eggs and whole milk to my diet because I just started craving them. I buy cage free eggs which I know are still not that humanely raised, and organic milk. 

We grow some of our own fruit and veggies.

It got me to thinking though how hung up on food American's are, me included. 

We're fat, for one thing, and we know it. We get constant reminders on the news and in the doctor's office and when we try on clothes made in the third world for people one-third our average size. We feel bad about that and wallow in self-hatred and yet... losing weight is hard. 

Correction: Losing weight is easy.

Keeping it off is hard. 

I've lost some weight. mostly by accident, switching to veggies. But in general, I'm still not bikini material (at 61) and even though Helen Mirren IS (and she's older than me!) I've learned that I can't (won't) do anything about it and anyway, acceptance works way better for me for a happy life.

I've seen these food fads come and go:

The Stillman Diet (remember that one?): All protein. period.

The Atkins Diet: Mostly protein, some veggies.

The South Beach Diet: Low fat protein, lots of veggies & fruit.

Food Combining: Because nobody knows more about food than Suzanne Sommers.

Eating every other day: Because if you don't eat, you can lose weight.

Vegan: No meat or animal products ever, no matter the cost. (The saddest two words in the English language are "vegan bakery.")

No grains, no bread: Wheat belly? Please. I made this belly myself, thank you very much!

No sugar: OK that's actually a good idea. But very difficult.

Basically almost any change you make to your diet that eliminates a food group will cause you to lose some weight, for awhile. But for most of human history, people ate whatever they could get their hands on. And in lean times, so would we. 

I'm thinking however that diet books might be a source of income in a time when most writers are filled with financial despair. How about the All Cricket Diet? Did you ever see a fat bird? No of course not. Birds eat crickets and so should we. 

John the Baptist lived in the desert on locusts and honey and did he have a gut?

No, he did not. Although, he did lose his head eventually... but I don't think it was due to the locusts.

So choose your poison, or your food. It's your life, after all.

But you are not what you eat.

You are you. 

Food is food. 

Crickets are free.

Eat as many as you can catch for a svelte new body!