Diet and Inflammation -- is there a correlation?

Quote that got my attention:

"Usually, however, when ducks are domesticated, they get fed bread most of the times. This is the sort of food that other people have come to associate with ducks. Ducks do eat bread and crackers. The problem with too much of these carbohydrate-enriched foods is that they can make ducks to get fat and unhealthy. Ducks could develop heart or liver diseases."  
Quote from: "How to Raise Ducks", http://www.howtoraiseducks.com/what-do-ducks-eat.html

It seems that ducks in their natural habitat eat grasses and greens, aquatic plants, bugs, small fish and worms. I thought it was a little ironic that humans eat a similar balance of protein and greens and vegetables and if we eat too much bread we also develop heart or liver disease along with diabetes and chronic inflammation.

We can learn a lot from animal husbandry. The folks who are trained to take care of farm animals for profit know precisely what to feed their pigs and cows and chickens when they want to fatten them up for market -- and that is grain.

I read an article where a heart surgeon described his surgeon's-eye view of inflammation in the arteries of people with heart disease. Dr. Dwight Lundell, M.D. has been seeing blood vessels filled with inflammation for twenty-five years and is now speaking out against the low-fat/high carb processed foods diet that most Americans eat and which causes inflammation. He says the medical establishment has created an epidemic of heart disease and diabetes by recommending that people switch from healthy saturated fats to unhealthy polyunsaturated fats over the last decades. He also says that excess sugar from starchy carbs and processed foods should be avoided if you want to calm down the inflammation in your circulatory system.

Dr. Lundell used a sweet roll as his example of what not to eat. He pointed out that when we eat foods like sweet rolls, chips, pizza, or other simple carbs processed with polyunsaturated oils repeatedly throughout the day we are causing chronic inflammation and irritation in our blood stream to occur over and over again inside our bodies. Each time we consume high carb or processed foods such as chips and bread we are adding to the inflammation. (If you'd like to read the article and see a picture of Dr. Lundell copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/242516-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Out-On-What-Really-Causes-Heart-Disease )

I don't know about you, but, for some odd reason, I need these reminders to be in front of my face over and over again. It is so easy to slip over into eating processed foods and leave behind the eating of good fresh raw veggies and freshly home cooked meat and poultry that I must constantly yank my own chain to get me back on track. Reading about this stuff does that for me.

I also found this rather interesting article with pictures about what individual families from all over the world eat in a week: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/244818-Amazing-Photos-Show-What-the-World-Really-Eats  

As I examined the photos and captions with great interest it dawned on me that not every family in each of these countries eat what these families eat. I wondered if they really are "typical."  The only one I had any evidence to compare to was the American family and I just don't think every family eats this way. They had almost no fresh vegetables, or even fruit on display. Every single thing they ate was processed or packaged. They have quite a bit of fruit juice (which is pure sugar) and some milk along with fast food sodas that are consumed every single week, too. Is this really a typical American diet?

I guess the only way I could have any idea what other people eat in the USA, or at least in Stone Mountain, GA, would be to begin paying attention to the shopping carts of others at the grocery store. Don't worry, I'm not going to be going through shopping carts, I'm just going to make a mental check in my mind as I pass them in an aisle or stand in line at the checkout. I should be able to get a good look at what the person ahead of me in line is eating by viewing their purchases laid out on the counter in front of me. I might even compare what is on the counter with the body build of the person to see if there is a correlation. There is no guarantee that this will be a week's worth of groceries, but it will certainly be evidence of what they probably eat every week.

I have no idea what purpose this will serve, except to satisfy my own curiosity about what people actually eat. As I thought about that I recalled a chance encounter in a grocery store during the time I was a vegan many years ago. As I pulled into the check out line a lady took a look at my cart and exclaimed that I had only healthy food in my cart. She seemed quite amazed. Maybe she was comparing my cart with my body and there did not seem to be a correlation. So as I become aware of the buying practices around me there may be others who are trying out a new way of eating so I need to not "judge" but simply observe. I've never done this before... feeling it to be rather intrusive to check out other people's purchases. Who knows, maybe I won't have the guts. LOL Perhaps it is just a silly thought after all.

By the way, the only picture in the article that showed a family eating a traditional diet was the family from Chad who ate mostly soup from sheep meat with some rice and beans added to it. There were a few open packages of other items but I could not really make them out for sure. They appeared to be fresh round vegetables or fruit and nuts of varying kinds. Certainly there were no "pre-packaged" foods (bread, sweet rolls, or pizza) like the article says the rest of the world eats. The family was all dressed nicely and they appear to live in a tent. I looked in the background and saw what appeared to be a tent city. I suppose it could be a large nomadic family, but it kind of reminded me of some of the tent citys that refugees occupy that I had seen on the news in recent years. Please pardon my ignorance, here. I'm just going by what I observed in the picture.

Anyway... I need to get back on track again. I ran out of fresh raw veggies a few days ago and have been procrastinating on my fresh grocery shopping. I really have no idea why I begin to resist going to the store and getting what I need to stay on my program. Part of it has something to do with spending excess money. Yes, I know, groceries, is not excess spending. It just feels like that to me and it becomes an obstacle for me.

I recently watched a comedian on Netflix by the name of Demetri Martin. I had never heard of him before but watched part of his video (until he started to get raunchy) but the beginning had a few good laughs in it. He seems to like to make charts of the weird stuff in his head as if he is giving a lecture and one of them really smacked me in the face. It was his "Pie Chart of Procrastination" which was simply a big round empty circle. That one still makes me laugh because it is so extremely succinct and accurate.

Well that is about all that's on my mind to say this time. Hope you are doing well. Still trying out the coconut oil.  We'll see.

Be back soon,

Marcia