If you want to be healthy, live and eat like a peasant!
Ciociaria peasant proverb, Time Immemorial
Diseases of the rich
Written on : March 2023
Edited last: December 2024
Looking back at my growing up days in the early 1940s, I remember clearly that there was a very marked class distinction, namely, the "Rich", the "artisans", and the "peasants".
The "Rich" were people that did not have to work to make a living and they lived where they pleased at their several properties . They enjoyed a decadent lifestyle characterized by unrestricted amounts of food especially sweets, fried food, processed food, lots of condiments and spices, alcohol, tobacco, access to the latest recreational drugs such as cocaine, unrestricted access to doctors and to whatever they had to offer, and a total absence of physical work.
The "Artisans" were people that made a living with a trade (such as barbers, taylors, shoemakers, photographers) or selling things (such as meat, groceries, clothes, or books). Artisan lived in the small villages where they had access to more customers. Artisan had to buy anything that they ate. Artisan did little or no physical work except for those in the construction trades. There were no machines to help the workers in those days!
The "Peasants" were the people that lived on the land and off the land. Everything that they ate came from the land that they worked. Wheat, corn, eggs, meat, and vegetable. All from the land. If they did not grow it, they did not eat it. The luckier ones lived on their own land, and many lived on land that rich people owned and which they worked for a share of the crops. Peasants worked in their fields or tending the animals, from sun-up to sun-down doing back breaking work pretty well every day.
One of the things that jumps at me when I think of my growing up days, is that the modern diseases (such as Heart disease, Diabetes, Obesity, Gout, Hypertension, and Cancer) were common among the Rich, almost absent among the Artisans, and totally absent among the peasants. So much so that we would call these diseases the "diseases of the rich".
I have come to conclude that the reason why the "Rich" were more sickly than the peasant was due to their diets and life style. I still can hear my mother saying "The rich are always sick because they eat too many sweets and too much white bread and pasta; and they are always sitting down!". Comparing some details of these two diets, the following jump out as the main differences:
(1) Consumption of sugar. The "rich" ate a lot of sweets every day. The "Peasants" rarely, if ever, ate sweets. My mother would make a traditional Easter cake only once a year for Easter!
(2) Amount of food. The "Rich" had all the food that they wanted. All prepared by others and sourced from others. The Peasants had barely enough food, all coming from their fields and their own animals. Notably, the animals were grown as nature intented, there were no pesticides no herbicides, and no genetic modification. And all fertilizer was from natural sources such as manure and "Salt-peter" (birds poop imported from Chile).
(3) Quality of the food. The food of the "Rich" contained a lot of sugar, was refined, richer in condiments, and had a lot of processed meats such as prosciutto, salami, sausages, and mortadella. Also, their food preparation was more elaborate and prepared by their servants.
(4) Amount of vegetables, fruit, and unrefined food. The "Rich" looked down on vegetables and unrefined food and could afford fruit all year round. The "Peasants" diet relied heavily on unrefined bread and pasta, and on vegetables. It is noteworthy that and both fruit and vegetable were always limited to in season availability. We know today that the vitamins are mostly in the vegetables and unrefined Bread ad pasta, and that the body does not handle sugar well. We also know that plant food contains toxins and limiting consumption to only in season avaialbility gave the body a chance to recover from certain toxins before the were re-introduced months later. Therefore the "Rich" were not getting much vitamins and were consuming unhealthy amounts of sugar, and were subject to toxins in fruit all year around.
(5) Physical work. The "Rich" never did any physical work as they had servants to do the work for them. The "Peasants" worked in their field from sun-up to sun-down pretty well every day doing back breaking work. There were no tractors back then!
(6) Alcohol, Tobacco, and other Drugs. The "Rich" indulged in these without constrains. Even cocaine and morphine had entered the stage in my area in the mid 1940s. The "peasants" also were lured by these drugs. But fortunately could not afford them. Wine from our vineyards was a staple on the dinner table, but getting drunk was strongly stigmatized. My father insisted in no more than one small glass of wine with dinner.
(7) Access to doctors and their medications. The rich had full access to doctors and their latest and best medications because they were able to afford it. The "Peasants" could not afford doctors or their medications and I remember many declaring proudly that they never saw a doctor in their life! Diet modifications was relied on to remedy some of the ailment that befell them. My grandmother, who died while working in her fields at 102, was one of those that proudly pronounced "I have never seen a doctor in my life".
How did the above two diets do? The results, as far I can remember, were as follows:
The "Rich" were somewhat taller. But as soon as the resilience of youth started to wear out, they started having a sickly puffy look, started looking older for their ages, and started developing all of the "diseases of the Rich".
The peasants were somewhat shorter. But kept looking wiry and muscular with seemingly unbound energy, and remained essentially healthy and able for the rest of their lives.
Based on the above experience from my growing up days, and schooled by the many books and article that I have read, I have concluded that the modern decline in the health of people is due to the adoption of society norms that are similar to that of the "Rich" of my growing up days. These norms make people sick. Examples of these norms, to put them in modern terms, are use of:
- Daily use of Prescription drugs;
- High amounts of sugar, disguised under many names and present in all foods prepared outside of your own kitchen;
- Junk food, junk drinks, processed food, etc.;
- Lifestyle drugs. These are drugs to treat non-painful and non-life threatening conditions such as baldness, impotence, menopause, birth control, wrinkles, acne, etc. There is a pill for everything! ;
- Recreational drugs. These are addictive drugs such as, Alcohol, Cocaine, Morphine, Marijuana, Fentanyl, Opioids, Vaping, etc.;
- Tattoos;
- Cosmetics.
I strongly believe that these norms, especially daily use of prescription drugs and high consumption of sugar, are the root-cause of our Western Diseases. I strongly believe, based on my own experience (I still have all of my own teeth, and I still have the same weight as when I was eighteen!), that the danger of sugar consumption and daily use of prescription drugs is very real. Nowadays the lifestyle that adopts these norms is referred as the "Western Lifestyle". And there many experts that also maintain that our Western Diseases have reached epidemic proportions because of our Western Lifestyle.
Does Big Pharma support promotion of the Western Lifestyle? One thing is clear: there is no evidence that it opposes it. We are all bombarded by adds for new drugs. But I have never seen an equally well organized advertising campaign aimed at convincing people to avoid the Western Lifestyle to stay healthy, and thus avoid the many side effects of the prescription drugs.
In fact, Big Pharma does not speak out against the Western Lifestyle at all, and it is acting instead as if to effectively say: " Go ahead! Enjoy anything that you like to do or eat and, when you don't feel well, come to us and we will give you a few pills!". And, as these pills are designed to treat symptoms rather than root causes, the diseases are never cured and the side effects from the continued use of these pills end up causing even more diseases ... and needing even more pills.
And nowadays we have got to a place where everybody is taking many pills every day to the extent that drug stores have started to offer the service of organizing the pills for you in a neat package so that you do not forget to take the right pill at the right time! Furthermore, Big Pharma does not fund any research into how to cure root causes of diseases. The only research funded is for patentable drugs to treat disease symptoms.
In summary, the treating of symptoms does not ever cure the patient of diseases but cause additional other diseases and keeps requiring more prescription medications. Curing the root causes restores the patients to good health and do not require any ongoing prescription medications. Remember the Watermain Analogy on the "Modern Medicine" page.