Is Ignorance Bliss?

That Nice Boy I Married and I were invited to a small cookout Saturday night. Had a very nice time -- good food, good company, lovely evening for sitting out. Well, it kind of sucked that while everyone else was drinking wine, I was sucking down a whole 2 liter bottle of club soda. But other than that, a really great time.

The hostess voiced her trepidation at cooking for me, since I'm a cookbook author and all. I told her I was sure the food would be great, and it was. However, she was a little concerned that I didn't eat the grain dish or the dessert. (I stuffed myself on perfectly-barbecued chicken and a terrific salad of local organic vegetables with toasted walnuts, which was wonderful.)

At one point she asked me, "Do you sometimes feel like you know too much?" I was puzzled at the question, and asked her what she meant. She clarified that maybe if I didn't know so much about nutrition I could just relax and enjoy what everyone else was eating.

I said no, I didn't think I knew too much; indeed, I think I still know too little. I'm a feel-good junkie, I explained, and anything that can make me feel healthier is something I want to do.

I explained to her that it really and truly doesn't bother me to pass up high-carb foods. I know that many people feel a pang when these things are served, but I truly don't. That pang is a mental conversation that goes something like this: "Oooh, that looks good! But it's not on my diet. But it would taste soooo good! But I really shouldn't..." It's a battle.

My brain doesn't work like that. I never get to the "Oooh, that looks good" part. My brain doesn't even consider it. It skips right over any thought of how the dish would taste, and goes straight to "If I eat that, I'm going to feel wretched in 90 minutes, and my pants won't fit in the morning." Truly, I don't want to eat concentrated carbs.

I find the attitude of "You know too much" curious. It seems to ignore, or at the very least greatly minimize, the health effects of nutrition. (I do not mean to dog on my hostess, by the way. The grain dish she served was made with brown and wild rice, the dessert was fresh homemade peach cobbler. As concentrated carb foods go, they were darned good. But they were still concentrated carbs.) Just as I have a disconnect in my brain for "Oooh, that would taste good," most folks have a disconnect in their brains for "That will make me feel wretched." And of course, for some folks it doesn't make them feel wretched right away, and some not at all. But my observation is that a high percentage of the population has health complaints that come from nutritional habits, and they never make the connection in their heads.

Most folks don't want to make that connection. If they realized that their fatigue, or their headaches, or their mood swings, or whatever, were nutritionally caused, or at the very least, exacerbated by their food choices, they'd feel like they had to change how they eat. And they don't want to. Most people would quite literally rather die than change they way they eat; they do it every day.

That's their right. But it's an attitude that is opaque to me; I confess I don't understand it. I have zero patience for being less than bloomingly, energetically well. (I have to tell you, if I found out that shaving my head would eliminate this stupid Lyme disease, I'd be bald by sundown.)

In light of that total intolerance of ill- or even marginal-health, the idea of knowing too much simply does not compute.