Written and Compiled by Pastor Anthony J. Iovine
And before writing this weekend’s sermon, I think I must mention the short story about ‘what makes a New York bagel’ on today’s New York Times website.
I agree wholeheartedly with Niki Russ Federman, co-owner of Russ & Daughters (their bagels are classic and amazing) on what is NOT supposed to be in a New York bagel:
“It should not be sweet and you should never find blueberries, jalapeños, or rainbow colors in your bagel.”
Amen.
When I’m tired, I tend to do things I shouldn’t.
I’m not talking doing things that are bad or would get me locked up.
No, it is kind of like me doing things and believing in ideas that, when I am rested and ready to tackle the day, would never cross my mind. The tiredness causes me to think irrationally about a lot in my life, both personal and professional. What happens when I am in this mode of pooped-outness, I will spend hours thinking and plotting and daydreaming about any personal or professional scenario that ends with everything working out great.
The only problem is that when I finally get some rest and think about the ideas from the day before, they make no rational sense.
A psychologist once told me that when I get into these wormholes of thinking irrationally, it shows that I’m burnt out and need a rest. Of course, I constantly deny that I need time off, and my brain overcompensates for being tired by overthinking and overworking, making situations worse for me.
Right now, I’m tired.
Admittedly, my sleeping habits stink. I wake up too early and go to bed way too late. I worry about everything and work like crazy to make less worrisome to me and others. I pray, but not enough. I don’t take time to really relax. Even on a Monday that is my scheduled day off in the week, I find myself this morning working on church stuff and cleaning around the house and folding clothes that were just washed and wondering if I should change the sheets on the bed (YES!) and planning to have the oil changed in my car and returning the recycling to the borough recycling center and figuring out what I want to eat for the rest of the week so I can go out and buy the stuff and cook it and prepare leftovers for the next five days so all that I have to do is heat it up. Instead of sitting down and clearing off my DVR, I want to figure out what my schedule is going to be the rest of the week and plan on tackling my work and personal to-do-lists like a rabid animal.
At 8 AM I decided to sit down for breakfast, a meal that consisted of toast with almond butter, coffee, and a banana. Sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the downstairs dryer spin with towels and cloths that were just washed, I just felt awful. The tiredness of sleeping less than four hours (again) coupled with a large list of things I need to get done is making feel blah. I need to unplug today.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Today, in the most basic sense of understanding Jesus in Matthew 11, this is me.
You ate what for breakfast?
A banana.
That’s it?
Yeah. A banana.
Don’t you think that you should something more substantial than just a banana?
No, I wasn’t hungry.
So you ate just a banana.
Yes. And drank two cups of coffee?
Anything in the coffee?
No, just black.
You wake up in the morning and eat only a banana and drink two cups of coffee. Don’t you know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?
I never believed that marketing mantra. But I did eat breakfast. I ate a banana.
Don’t you know that you need protein to stimulate your muscles? A banana doesn’t have protein!
A banana has protein, about 2 percent of what the government tells you that your body needs in a day.
That’s nothing!
No, that’s something.
What are you having for lunch then? An apple?
I was planning on a salad with baby kale, spinach, a couple of cherry tomatoes, cannellini beans, mustard, and a sweet potato.
What the heck kind of salad is that? Mustard? Do you mean honey mustard dressing?
It is a salad with greens, beans, tomatoes, and regular spicy mustard with no oil. The sweet potato is great with this salad. And just so you know, I don’t eat honey.
Why don’t you eat honey?
I follow a plant-based diet that doesn’t include anything that comes from animal.
But honey comes from a bee?
Yeah, and?
But it isn’t an animal.
Well, bees are animals, don’t you think?
But taking a bee’s honey it isn’t hurting the animal. You ain’t killing a bee to get its honey. Not like when you eat a steak because you have to kill the cow to get its meat.
It comes from a bee. That is why I don’t eat honey. Plus, honey has never been a favorite of mine, though I was in love with Honey Nut Cheerios for a while.
Are you going to eat an apple?
Maybe in the middle of the afternoon. I could eat an orange or a peach.
So what’s for dinner?
Leftovers. I made this really good dish last night that doesn’t have a name. It included brown rice, green peppers, onions, spinach, black beans, a frozen vegetable mixture of zucchini, broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, and a sauce that included tamari, peanut butter and red pepper flakes.
That sounds OK. You should call it “Anthony throws a bunch of stuff in a wok and hopes it tastes good.”
Hey, that sounds like a good recipe title!
But what the heck is tamari?
It’s gluten free soy sauce.
Why not eat normal soy sauce? You’re not allergic to gluten?
I bought it at Whole Foods. It was on sale.
Whole Foods has sales? Whenever I go in there I go broke buying stuff.
It’s not that bad. And now that Amazon owns them, I hope some prices come down. Even better is if they link up their Amazon Fresh grocery program with Whole Foods. That would be great!
Anthony, you’ve lost your mind. Eat a steak.
One of the most often asked questions that I receive when I tell people that I do not eat anything that comes from animals is “You mean, you don’t eat cheese?”
I don’t eat any kind of animal-based cheese. Why? I tell people that science shows that dairy is not good for the human body.
Dr. Michael Greger runs a non-profit website called Nutrition Facts. Three times a week, Dr. Greger posts short videos outlining some of the best new science regarding health. Additionally, Dr. Greger is the author of “How Not To Die,” a complete rundown of science detailing how consumption of animal products is detrimental to human health. He shows in his book how eating a whole foods, plant-based diet can virtually eliminate or make rare many diseases.
In his latest podcast, he dives headfirst into this most controversial topic (who doesn’t like a good grilled cheese sandwich every now and then?) looking at the science behind the consumption of dairy.
Studies have shown that greater milk consumption during childhood and adolescence contributes to peak bone mass, and is therefore expected to help avoid osteoporosis and bone fractures in later life. But that’s not what they found. Milk consumption during teenage years was not associated with a lower risk of hip fracture and, if anything, milk consumption was associated with a borderline increase in fracture risk in men.
And:
A hundred thousand men and women followed for up to 20 years; what did they find? Milk-drinking women had higher rates of death, more heart disease, significantly more cancer for each glass of milk. Three glasses a day was associated with nearly twice the risk of death and they had significantly more bone and hip fractures too.
Men in a separate study also had a higher rate of death with higher milk consumption, but at least they didn’t have higher fracture rates. So, a dose-dependent higher rate of both mortality and fracture in women, and a higher rate of mortality in men with milk intake, but the opposite for other dairy products like soured milk and yogurt, which would go along with the galactose theory, since bacteria can ferment away some of the lactose. To prove it though, we need a randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of milk intake on mortality and fractures. As the accompanying editorial pointed out, we’d better figure this out soon, as milk consumption is on the rise around the world.
A bit more:
The latest meta-analysis of all the best case control studies ever done on the matter concludes that milk consumption is a risk factor for prostate cancer. And the latest meta-analysis of all the best cohort studies ever done also concludes that milk consumption is a risk factor for prostate cancer. An even newer study suggests that milk intake during adolescence may be particularly risky in terms of potentially setting one up for cancer later in life.
To listen to Dr. Greger’s podcast, click over to NutritionFacts.org.
