Sometimes I get the feeling that people think I may be overstating the urgency of the diabetes epidemic. So I gathered together a few statistics for you.
A couple of weeks ago the Associated Press said that, “An estimated 366 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, and the global epidemic is getting worse….” According to the Washington Post, “The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has found that…one person is now dying from the disease every seven seconds.” At the September meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Portugal, the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) announced that “The worldwide diabetes epidemic continues to worsen, with…4.6 million deaths each year, and annual health-care spending at $465 billion.” IDF president Jean Claude Mbanya, MD, said that “the numbers are likely underestimated, since not all countries have good data….” Dr. Mbanya estimates that the diabetes epidemic will affect nearly 600 million people within 20 years.
Here’s the thing, though: Diabetes is preventable. That’s the part that I can’t get around. We don’t have to live with this; we can do something about it. Here are a few ideas:
1) Go for a walk around your block. Inviting a friend helps even more than just the walk.
2) Eat a breakfast that is not made from white flour. I had scrambled eggs, and they were quite tasty.
3) Slice up a pineapple. I just learned how to do it this week from Wolfgang Puck, and it was a lot easier than I thought. First, turn the pineapple on its side and slice off the top and bottom. Then stand it up on its bottom, and slice away the skin in long vertical strips. It takes approximately 8-10 cuts to get all the way around the pineapple. Don’t worry about wasting, just get rid of ALL the skin. Finally, turn the now completely naked pineapple back on its side and slice into 1/2-inch rounds. Slice these into half-moons or quarters if you’d like, or just pile the large slices on a plate. Way delicious dessert.
4) Go back outside and sit in the sun for a little while.
5) Garden. If you don’t have one, make one. If you can’t have one, get some potting soil and some seeds, and grow some herbs in your kitchen window.
6) Roast some beets. Scrub, slice into quarters, stir with olive oil and salt, and spread out on cookie sheet. Cook at 450 until you can push a fork through.
7) Make homemade soup.
8) Start a compost heap in your backyard behind a big tree. This takes no preparation whatsoever. Just start putting all the bits of cooking leftovers into a plastic container until it is full, and then take it outside and dump it behind the tree. Compost your tea bags, egg shells, coffee grounds, pineapple skin, grapefruit peels, moldy humus, rotten grapes, spent lettuce leaves, melon rinds, strawberry tops, and so on. Remember not to include any dairy products, eggs (except the shell), fish, poultry or meat, because these will attract rodents. That’s all there is to it.
9) Eat a handful of nuts in the middle of the afternoon.
10) Eat lunch with a couple of people whose company you enjoy.
You don’t have to do all of these every day. Pick just a couple and see if you can get to them this week. Apply the underlying themes to other things you’d like to do. Eat food that you made yourself. Get some exercise, and get outside. Preferably both, if the weather allows. Do things outdoors. Make as much of your own food as you can manage. Eat fresh food that has not been processed in any way. Keep working the program.