The Other 1%

“If you have your health, you have everything.” So the old proverb goes. In 21st century America, health means you can afford the best pills and the latest medical interventions to prop you up as you hobble into old age. My job, as a health care practitioner, is to give you the props.

My patients have heart disease and most face continuing deterioration in their health. The devices in their chests sometimes shock them onto the floor. They swallow a long list of pills each day. They are obese. They try to do the right things: remember to take their pills, show up for their appointments, and maybe, sometimes, try to get healthier. Choosing better health often means trying the latest fad diet, swallowing the newest diet pill or buying Dr. Oz’s next miracle supplement. What they get is emptier pockets.

Every day I watch people of all ages and means stream through the doors of my hospital. If I were to count, probably half of them look like the people in Wall-E. Big, round, walking time bombs. Lurking inside them is the ultimate outcome of modern civilization -- heart disease, cancer, diabetes. Every one of those diseases is fueled by an unsound diet. While there is no silver bullet for excellent health, the statistics and the science are increasingly clear. If we could improve human nutrition there would be a profound reduction in illness burden and societal cost. No, expensive vitamins and supplements are not gonna do it. We have to alter, in a substantial way, what people eat every day. Few will want to do it. Even me. Especially me.

How in the world did I end up here, with a late-in-life obsession with nutrition? I’ve never been a “foodie”. I was never a devoted cook (ask my kids…my eulogy will not include raves about my cooking). If it’s not about the food, then it must be about … FEAR. That my family’s health is at risk, that I’ll end up sick from avoidable illness, or that my talents, however meager, won’t have been put to very good use.

I’ve been on a dietary roller coaster for more than 40 years. In the ‘70s, I hand-ground baby food for kids 2 and 3 (sorry number 1, you got Gerber’s Blueberry Buckle). As a young mom, I made all our bread -- whole wheat of course. I owned a copy of The Vegetarian Epicure and Diet for a Small Planet when only west coast kooks bought them. In the 90s I dabbled in “fringe” diets like Dean Ornish. He was holistic. He did yoga. His recipes were long, and time consuming and …well, not very good. I failed at any sustainable change. You eventually had to cook and we’ve established that I’m not a kitchen goddess. You ate weird food too, like tofu. You stuck out like a sore thumb the minute you shared a meal. I gave up.

But like a karmic cycle, here in my 60s I’m back to The ‘60s. Like “liberals” who’ve become “progressives,” the V word has a new name too -- “plant based”. It’s the same thing those fringe folks wrote about so long ago only now there’s no commune to sustain our resolve. And it’s still hard. And I might give up.

Yet I seem to be stumbling towards a calling. I feel ill-equipped for the task. I don’t know how to help people make transformative change in their food habits. I’m barely managing my own personal transformation, which is a rocky road at best. I’m aiming to become one of the 1%. No, not Mitt’s, but Bill (the Big Dog) Clinton’s. That’s how many self-professed Vegans lived in the U.S. in 2009. Many days I don’t want to go there. It will definitely sound the death-knell for my dating life. But I seem pulled to this new thing, to the possibility that I might be able to help people avoid or reverse chronically ill health. That I might be able to dodge the diabetes that has stalked my own family.

I can’t continue to turn a blind eye to what passes for “health” care. I feel inauthentic. It’s taking a personal toll. But entering this new world is a struggle. Finding a personal and professional support system is a challenge. If I make a transition, I have no idea what it will look like or if I can be self-supporting. Too often, I feel alone and on the fringe even though I know there have to be others out there who are like me. For now, I’m educating myself and searching for the spiritual and emotional courage to move into an unknown future with all the vulnerability that comes with that. Until then, I’m teetering on the bleeding edge of the 99%.