[Ed Bighi]

The results of engineered foods, or long term results of popping pills and other things of that nature, is something that takes decades to really see the result of. So who knows. There will be plenty of bull***** on both sides with the truth somewhere in between. But I like the crap I eat to be as normal and natural as possible.

But here is something else to ponder over when it comes to food and smoking since someone else here mentioned it. Japan and Switzerland both have many more smokers than we do in the US. These are two interesting countries to use in the comparison being that Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world. Switzerland second. Sure we know that the Japanese eat much better than we do. But they have the highest percentage of smokers in the industrialized world. But this does not seem to affect their life expectancy. Switzerland, on the other hand, is a country where fat is plentiful in foods. Then there is Appenzeller, Gruyere, Emmentaler and plenty of chocoloate consumed. The highest chocolate consumption in fact. Top it off, those lucky bastards (for a lot of other things as well) get a mixture of Italian, German and French cuisine. And they smoke more than us. But they are still far less obese than we are, and have the second best life expectancy. So there goes the "overeating is the lesser of two evils" theory.

But who needs statistics. Go and find a skinny elderly person smoking. No problem. There are plenty in Europe and Asia. Now go and find an obese elderly person. It's a hell of a lot harder to do. Sure, maybe those ancient smokers are the lucky few that made it since smoking killed the rest right? But show me the lucky few obese elderly. You will find less obese elderly in obese US than elderly smokers in Asia. As far as I have seen they are more scarce. The way I look at it, overindulgence killed those obese folks before the smoking killed the skinny smokers. So as far as I am concerned, food is just as efficient a killer if abused. Maybe more so.