Eating Healthy Options

[Hartmann]

I just finished "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. He basically rips apart the idea of "nutrionism" pointing out that things like omega-3 pills are nowhere close to as good for you as just eating fish. How beta-carotene pills that were touted to prevent cancer actually cause it.

His whole point is that if we eat food we should eat mostly plants and not too much. He cites the French, the Italians, the Japanese and how their diets are completely different from each other but they're still healthier than us.

[impala454]

Oh and also, I'm curious, do you take your own blood pressure with a monitor at home? If not, go get one. What type of method does your doctor's office use to measure your blood pressure? Is it an older one where they manually pump the air bag and read an analog dial? I found big time that a couple of different doctor's offices I've been to, the "assistants" or whatever they are (most of the time not even nurses) have no clue how to properly take blood pressure. It might be because I have a huge arm, I dunno. But they always read it out of sight (like 140s/90s, or even higher). I'm like... uh... no. Then I had my actual doctor do it once, just to prove, and it's completely normal. She had me get one of those wrist based monitors and take it at home every day for a month and write it down, on average I was at like 115/75. So moral of the story, don't necessarily trust the doctor's office for blood pressure. It's crazy, makes me wonder how many people out there are improperly getting blood pressure meds.