There are a multitude of factions from the medical community, to pharmaceutical conglomerates, to the meat, dairy, and egg industries, to the vitamin supplement producers that have an economic stake in Americans buying into the belief that they have little control over their state of health, that is, “heredity, stress, and the environment are the majority offenders in making us sick.”
With the economic resources these juggernauts have it is easy to pound that message home day in and day out. And because there is little incentive, funds, or motivation for scientists and researchers to provide information that might give Americans a different perspective with the flip side, the public can only come to one conclusion. However, if Americans were reading scientific journals, reviewing the empirical evidence, and applying a bit of deductive reasoning and common sense, they would probably come to a very different conclusion. Even without doing that, they might ask themselves this: with our vast medical technologies, pharmaceutical advancements, supplement revolution, and plentiful bounty, why do one out of every three Americans suffer from one or more degenerative diseases?
Maybe we should consider the advice of one of the more brilliant members of our species. He probably wasn’t referring to the subject of diet and health when he uttered these words, but no matter, the wisdom hits the bull’s-eye. He said, “Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.” We hope, Mr. Da Vinci, we will begin to heed your words.