HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1999-12-01, Page 5Laugh1? I thought
I’d diet
You want to hear my nomination for the
deadliest four-word combination in the
English language?
I’m on a diet.
Whenever someone says those words to you,
you might as well excuse yourself, go home
and pull the blankets over your head. You're
definitely not going to have any fun with
someone who’s ‘on a diet'.
They'll be bitchy, out of sorts and they’ll
stay that way until they come to their senses,
give up the diet and go back to burgers and
sundaes.
The sad fact is, so many of our friends ARE
on diets nowadays. Someone figured out that
at any given time, 15 per cent of the population
is trying to lose weight by drastically
modifying what they eat.
Which means that at any given time, four
and a half million fellow Canadians are not
eating - and feeling irritable about it.
They’ve got lots of choices. There’s the
Atkins Diet. And the Stillman Diet. And the
Scarsdale, Pritikin, Drinking Man’s, All
Protein and Weight Watcher’s Diet.
Which one works? Every one of 'em -
providing you stick to it.
And that's the catch: virtually everyone who
goes on the diet bandwagon eventually falls
off - and usually winds up putting on more
weight than they lost.
That is ... until now.
Gather around friends, for I bring news of
the latest diet fad to come down the pike. With
this revolutionary approach you don’t have to
count calories, figure out protein percentages
or worry about whether kumquats qualify as a
permissible fruit or a verboten vegetable.
That’s because on this diet, you won’t be
eating any kumquats. Matter of fact, you won't
be eating any fruits. Or vegetables.
You won’t be eating anything at all.
It’s called the Breatharian Diet and the name
says it all. On this diet,
you subsist on your own breath — air -- and
that’s it. Miss Piggy.
You think I’m making this up, doncha? I’m
not.
There is a Breatharian Society, with
headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. Disciples
of the society insist that they live exclusively
on a diet of air and light - which they call
“pranic nourishment”. They tell anyone who
will listen that through meditation and creative
visualization they have ‘re-wired’ their bodies
so that they no longer require conventional
food and drink.
- Advantages? Breatharians claim that giving
up grub has given them more energy, greater
creativity and better sex lives.
Not to mention much lower grocery bills.
Head of the movement is a woman who goes
by the name of Jasmuheen. She lives in
Brisbane and she’s written a book called
Living On Light: A Source of Nutrition for the
New Millennium.
There’s a Breatharian chapter on this side of
the water too. It’s called the Breatharian
Institute of America and it’s run by a fellow by
the name of Wiley Brooks.
Correction: it used to be run by Mister
Brooks. He had to resign after he was spotted
ordering a package of Twinkies at a Seven-
Eleven store.:
As for Jasmuheen, her credibility became
somewhat strained after a reporter
interviewing her at home peeked into her
refrigerator and found it stocked from ice cube
tray to crisper with enough vegetarian food to
feed an ashram.
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1999. PAGE 5.
Jasmuheen claimed that the food belonged
to her partner, Jeff Ferguson, but that didn’t
add to her trustworthiness much. Not after the
reporter dug into Mister Ferguson”s history
and discovered he’d been convicted of fraud.
Jasmuheen torpedoed herself again when
she invited a journalist to accompany her on a
flight from Australia to London. When
Jasmuheen got to the desk, the agent asked
her, in a loud voice, to confirm that she had
ordered an in-flight Vegan meal.
“No, no,” she protested, rolling her eyes at
the journalist, and then,
“Well, yes, okay I did. But I won’t be eating
it.”
Hey, Bill Clinton could relate to that - he
smoked pot - but didn’t inhale.
The bottom line is that Breatharianism is a
crock, a con and a farce.
Anyone who knows anything about nutrition
will tell you - hell, your own common sense
will tell you - that the human body cannot live
on a diet of air and light.
“If you just laid in bed,” says one expert,
“you’d probably be okay for about a week.
But then your blood would thicken, your
kidneys would back up and fail, followed by
every other organ in your body and you would
die.”
Tragically, some naifs have taken the
‘philosophy’ of Breatharianism seriously. One
was found last month in her tent in the Scottish
Highlands, expired, but still clutching a copy
of Jasmuheen’s book.
Last summer, a 33-year-old Australian
voluntarily put herself on the Breatharian diet.
She died in a Brisbane hospital.
The bizarre doctrine has also been blamed
for the death of a German kindergarten teacher
two years ago.
Mind you ... they all lost quite a bit of
weight before they went.
A glimpse in the
past
I recently attended a lunch in Toronto given
to honour the visit of the Hungarian prime
minister. While I was there, I met cabinet
ministers, both Hungarian and Canadian, as
well as both countries’ current ambassadors in
Ottawa and Budapest.
It was an enjoyable, and at the same time,
rather unique occasion since I do not normally
have much to do with things Hungarian and I
can assure you that my knowledge of their
language is not one of my accomplishments.
However, the event evoked some very vivid
memories of my much younger days,
especially when I sat at a table for lunch and
found that I was the only one of the eight who
did not speak Hungarian. It was the sound of
the language itself which brought back the
memories since in 1956-57 1 was an idealistic
young worker in Vienna, with the ink on my
Canadian citizenship papers hardly dry. My
job, among other things, was to process and
conduct groups of Hungarians bound for
Canada to various embarcation points in
Europe.
For those whose history may be a bit rusty,
in the fall of 1956 Hungarians rose in revolt
against the Communist government in
Budapest and their Russian masters. The revolt
was eventually put down brutally by Russian
tanks and troops but not before tens of
thousands of Hungarians had fled their
homeland into neighbouring Austria.
Handling such a large quantity proved to be
a huge problem and, since thousands of them
elected to come to Canada, more manpower
was needed to cope with this influx. I was a
part of this manpower.
While I worked out of the Canadian
consulate in Vienna, one of my jobs was to go
to Traiskirchen south of Vienna and, in
connection with an organization called ICEM
(International Committee for European
Migration), put hundreds of refugees on a
train. This train was then taken to one of the
main stations in Vienna and attached to the
appropriate regularly scheduled express train.
Let me relate one such trip. We had 500
refugees bound for Holland where they would
be sent to Canada after due processing. After
picking up the refugees in Traiskirchen, we
left Vienna about noon and travelled by way of
Salzburg, Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne to
Holland.
Two of us were in charge of this group; we
had all the food for the trip in our
compartment.
Just to keep some semblance of order, I
appointed one person to be in charge of each
carriage and that one person had to speak one
of the languages that I did. Thus it transpired
that during the trip I spoke English, German,
French and Russian; it achieved the goal of
keeping open the lines of communication.
When we arrived at our destination early the
next day, there was a Dutch band to greet us
and they played the traditional Hungarian
national anthem. There was not a dry eye, I am
sure, among the whole group of 500.
After the brief ceremony was over, we got
them on buses which took them to a Dutch
army camp where they would stay until they
could be sent on to Canada.
After a quick breakfast. I fell into bed; I had
been on the go for over 30 hours.
Many of these refugees have gone on to
distinguished careers in Canada and some
of the ones I handled in Vienna were there
at the lunch. We reflected on how much had
happened in the 32 years since those
hectic days in Vienna when thousands of
refugees milled about, having no idea of
where they would be in a few weeks or
months.
Talk about insecurity! I am sure that many
readers can think back to one or more
occasions in their life when they found
themselves equally insecure.
Cheerfulness to keep
daylight in the mind
"... cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight
in the mind, and fills it with a steady and
perpetual serenity."
— Joseph Addison
I don’t know if I’m alone, but since the time
change I have been feeling somewhat
sluggish. Waking in the dark, driving home
from work in the dark, doesn’t exactly strike a
spark of cheer either.
Following a particularly draining Monday
last week, I dragged my worn body and weary
inner self from my office only to be
confronted by the fact that sunlight had
disappeared while I was tucked away at the
back of the building. A resigned sigh, a look
of regret and I turned back to attack the
remaining chores before me, the last dribble
of enthusiasm now drained.
It was only a short time later, however, that
for the first time in weeks, I didn’t miss the
daylight. My work complete, shrugging into
my coat for the trip home, I opened the door
and felt my spirits brighten. Sparkling lights
on evergreens and in store windows cheered
the dark night, like fallen stars landing with
aesthetic perfection to warm a dreary world.
Even in the dark, or maybe especially,
downtown Blyth was a lovely place to be.
I paused, and allowed myself a second to
look and appreciate it.
It was a welcome refreshment, but too brief.
Upon arriving home I discovered a rather
impatient pup who felt she had waited entirely
too long for her walk. So without further ado,
or supper, Ani and I departed.
Lagging behind my exuberant young
canine, my second wind began to blow itself
out. Yet, as I headed through town, the walk
became once again, a time to relax, to unwind
and enjoy the lovely setting around me.
Brussels too has gotten spruced up for the
season and the twinkle of lights, the cedar and
bows has dressed it nicely.
Obviously, it’s important in attracting
Christmas business to look festively attractive.
But so much more than that has been
demonstrated. The merchants and village staff
of both communities should be commended
for the spirit of co-operation they’ve shown in
getting their downtowns in holiday splendour.
Co-ordinating the decorations and
participating is what makes the effort and our
small towns special.
However, from this individual there is
another thank you. The holiday season is a
time of goodwill, of cheer. The co-operation
demonstrates it, the lights and decorations
display it. As we adjust to shorter days and
longer nights, as we feel a winter coat of
drowsiness weight us, these visible signs of
holiday cheer really can keep daylight in the
mind, filling it with serenity.
To the residents of these communities, do
yourself a favour and take a stroll some quiet,
dark evening down the main street of your
town. Look, and appreciate the effort and care
that went into holiday decorations.
To those whose effort and care went into
them, you’ve done a lovely job.