Here's what we had for dinner tonight: Tuscan-Style White Bean Quesadillas with Artichokes and Sun-Dried Tomatoes. This was from Supermarket Vegan, and it was a great, quick week day meal. I added a handful of baby bella mushrooms to the quesadilla filling, and topped the quesadillas with our homemade salsa instead of the suggested spaghetti or pizza sauce.
And now, a tiny rant. I went to the doctor last night for my three month check-up. My blood sugar level went down a whopping 22 points, which was fantastic. But it dawned on me that I basically go to the doctor to have him read out the results of the blood test. The rest of the visit was spent with him trying to find things that might possibly be wrong with me. This time it was a referral to a nutritionist, despite the fact that I am still losing weight and am eating more fruits and vegetables than I have in years. And then a referral to a endocrinologist so he/she can stick a needle in my throat to determine if I have a goiter! Um, no thanks. I have never had anything wrong with my throat, and don't feel the need to pay a costly co-pay and whatever my insurance doesn't cover just to have a procedure done that frankly isn't necessary.
I very clearly told the doctor that I felt "great," but I suspect that he doesn't feel an appointment is complete unless he hands his patients at least two or three referrals. Maybe there are kick-backs involved? I don't know. But I left the office feeling very disillusioned. There's something wrong with a medical system that encourages doctors to rush in and out of rooms, barely reading patient charts, and writing up a storm of prescriptions and referrals. There is so little emphasis on preventive medicine, and such an eagerness to prescribe bottles and bottles of medication, many of which have alarming side effects that need to be treated by more medication.
The American people (myself included) would like to believe that our country, in the form of both private corporations and government-run safeguards like the FDA, ultimately wants what is best for us. The medicine on the market is supposed to heal us, the food (even the heavily processed stuff) is supposed to nourish us. It took me a long time to realize that things like soda and candy are not only not innocuous, but the corporations that manufacture them and the administrations that regulate them are fully aware of how dangerous they are. These entities just don't care, not when there is an ungodly profit to turn.
In the meantime, there is skyrocketing levels of child obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. We go to our doctor, and instead of suggesting we stop eating the chips or lunch meats or soda, we are given bottles of medication. Medication that in turn, (like Avandia is suspected of doing) expose us to even more health risks.
Oops. I guess this wasn't exactly a "tiny" rant after all. Sorry, guys. I promise my next blog post will be about the yummy vegan food again, no soap-boxing!
Remember in movies and books when the parental figure would say "Eat all of your food. There are starving children in China." They don't say that in mass media anymore. Now it's "Don't Super-size your food. This car can't hold more than one obese child at a time." Okay, I made that last part up. But you're right. FDA and people like that only care about the money.
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