Skinny Bitch (10 page)

Why would the FDA knowingly allow a cancer-causing hormone into our milk supply? One theory highlights the fact that the FDA Deputy Commissioner at the time of the Posilac approval was a former Monsanto lawyer. And, during his tenure at the FDA, this same deputy commissioner wrote the policy exempting BGH from special labeling. Yet, fingers also point to a former top scientist with Monsanto, who was hired by the FDA to review her
own
research, conducted while she was working for Monsanto. This little beauty also allowed a hundred-fold increase of antibiotic residues in milk.192

Fear not. The FDA’s bad behavior isn’t singular to the dairy industry. It also has a sketchy history with monosodium glutamate (MSG). One former FDA Commissioner testified before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition that MSG was safe, citing four sources. It was later discovered that two of the studies were nonexistent, and the other two were incomplete!193

Secrets and lies. It’s just too much to bear. So let’s also play the “I’m not telling” game. Ever see the words “natural flavors” on food packaging ingredient lists? Yeah, that’s because the FDA allows companies to be vague and doesn’t require them to tell us exactly what we’re eating. The FDA has a list of approximately 300 foods that meet a “standard of identity,” meaning, companies aren’t required to spell out their ingredients. For example, ice cream manufacturers can use any of twenty-five specified additives without listing them in their ingredients.194 Who wants to put something into his or her body without even knowing what it is? By now, Chapter 9,
you
better fucking not!

You Are Your Only Chance

If you want to get skinny, you can only rely on yourself. If you adapt only one practice from this book, let it be this:
Read the
ingredients.
Forget counting carbs, adding calories, and multiplying fat grams. Just read the ingredients. It doesn’t matter how many calories or carbs or fat grams something has.
It just doesn’t matter.

You don’t need the government’s asinine recommended daily allowances (RDA) to tell you how to eat. Just read the ingredients.

If they are healthy, wholesome, and pure—dive in. If there is refined sugar, white or bleached flour, hydrogenated oils, any animal products, artificial anything, or some scary-looking word that you don’t know—don’t eat it. We can’t make it any simpler. Just read the ingredients and completely ignore all the other gibber jabber bullshit the government calls for on the packaging. Fuck them.

Trust no one. Get skinny.

And no matter what, do not fall prey to clever advertising used on the packaging. The companies that call their products “wholesome” or “nutritious” can be the same ones that add hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors, or synthetic preservatives. Just read the ingredients of everything you buy. It’s not a big deal, assuming you are literate.

There is so much bureaucracy and red tape surrounding health-related government agencies that you are much better off fending for yourself. After all, why would anyone take nutritional advice from organizations that let color dyes, hydrogenated oils, chemical preservatives, and artificial flavors into the food we eat?

The EPA Makes Us Sick

StarLink corn, a genetically modified organism, contains an insecticidal protein, deemed unsafe for human consumption.

But the Environmental Protection Agency allows the use of StarLink for livestock feed.195 Let humans eat the animals who ate the corn? That’s safe? Duh.

Clearly, nothing is sacred to the group that allows
rocket fuel
in our milk supply. Yeah, you heard right. Rocket fuel. In milk. Thanks to the Pentagon, ammonium perchlorate, the main explosive component in rocket fuel, has been lurking around our environment for decades. It finds its way into water used for growing feed crops for cattle. Cows eat these contaminated crops, with the result being contaminated milk. Whether you are drinking milk or eating dairy products made with this milk, you are ingesting perchlorate. And the EPA actually makes allowances for a “provisional daily safe dose.”196 We’re sorry, but where we’re from—Earth—there is no acceptable amount to ingest where explosive components are concerned. Even if you believe any amount to be safe, tests revealed milk perchlorate levels well above the EPA’s index. Studies conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit, non-partisan organization, found
every single
milk sample tested in Texas to be contaminated. California’s own Food and Agriculture Department found that milk off the grocers’ shelves had
five times
the EPA’s “safe dose” of perchlorate. But, of course, the California Food and Agriculture Department did not release these results.

Instead, they were brought to light by the EWG. Although both the dairy industry and government agencies acknowledge that there could be some health risks associated with perchlorate, they maintain that we should keep drinking milk for its “calcium, protein and minerals.”197 We’ll let you use your own heads on this one.

Regardless of your political affiliation, please know this: The Bush Administration continuously asks for exemptions on behalf of the military and chemical companies, allowing them to continue this contamination and to shirk responsibility for cleanup. In fact, the Bush administration’s EPA has been widely criticized on many counts of environmental pollution that affect our food and water supply. Like the USDA’s pathetic voluntary program, the EPA has its own version of letting agribusiness trample all over public health and safety.

Collaborating closely with the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association and The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), the EPA developed a
voluntary
air-monitoring program. Disregard the notion that the EPA blames factory farming for 73 percent of all ammonia (fumes from all the shit and piss of farm animals) released into the air nationwide. Never mind the fact that the EPA names factory farming to be the single largest contributor of polluted American waterways.

Factory farmers do not have to submit to EPA monitoring programs.198 If it pleases them, they can volunteer. How civilized.

Outraged by the EPA’s lack of enforcement, opponents point out that the factory farming industry made $3.46 million in campaign contributions, benefiting mostly Republican federal candidates.

The NPPC even went so far as to present President Bush with its “Friend of the Pork Producer” award in 2004, thanking him for his help in “shaping environmental policies impacting agriculture.” 199

Yeah, um, thanks for that.

Trust No One

Whether you love him or hate him, President Clinton’s administration tried to “implement a tough, science-based food inspection system,” according to Eric Schlosser, bestselling author of
Fast Food Nation
. Sad to say, however, these attempts were squashed when the Republican party gained control of Congress in 1994. Schlosser revealed, “The meatpacking industry’s allies in Congress worked hard to thwart modernization of the nation’s meat inspection system. A great deal of effort was spent denying the federal government any authority to recall contaminated meat or impose civil fines on firms that knowingly ship contaminated products. . . . . The Clinton administration backed legislation to provide the USDA with the authority to demand meat recalls and impose civil fines on meatpackers. [But] Republicans in Congress failed to enact not only that bill, but also similar legislation [for four consecutive years.] . . . Under current law, the USDA cannot demand a recall [of contaminated meat.]” Can you fucking believe this? If a company decides voluntarily to recall contaminated meat, “it is under no legal obligation to inform the public—or even health officials—that a recall is taking place.” 200

Now, we don’t mean to say that everyone working for the government is evil. Surely there are some decent, caring, moral, intelligent, well-intentioned people working for the FDA, EPA, USDA, and Bush administration. One former staff attorney-turned-environmentalist said the EPA “hasn’t initiated one investigation in four years. They’re not doing anything.”201 See, she’s a “good guy!” She finked on the EPA. Unfortunately, many of the “good guys” seem to be lost in the shuffle of politics and greed within these groups.

So do yourself a favor and trust no one. Read ingredients. Ignore everything else. And, if you’re totally incensed by what you’ve just learned, do something. Contact your representatives, senators, the President and Vice President and demand reform of these crooked, self-serving agencies. Go to www.congress.org to send a quick e-mail to these politicians. While you’re at it, write a letter to the editor of your favorite magazine or newspaper, and ask others to join the crusade. Visit www.congress.org and click on “media guide” to access their contact information.

Chapter 10

Don’t Be a Pussy

What if someone told you that you could totally change your life and have the body you want

for the rest of your life? What if all you had to do was follow a simple formula and maybe

struggle for a month or two? What if you could reprogram your brain to actually enjoy healthy foods? Well, guess what? You
can
change your life. You
can
have the body you want for the rest of your life. You
can
enjoy healthy foods. All you have to do is follow a simple formula, and be willing to delay gratification for a few months. A few months. That’s it. Then you can enjoy a new body for the
rest of your life.
Don’t be a pussy. You have all the nutritional information you need to become a Skinny Bitch. The rest is up to you. While this is a lifestyle, and not a diet, it is going to feel like a diet for the first thirty days or so. During this time, you will be retraining your brain, healing your taste buds, and cleansing and detoxifying your body. It might suck a little. Chances are, there will be times you feel deprived, angry, overwhelmed, and frustrated. But these few, fleeting moments will all be worthwhile once you are skinny. Truth be told, if you follow our guidelines, it won’t be so bad.

Before you even start making changes, take notice of how you feel and the role that your diet plays. Do you wake up tired? Is coffee the only thing that gets you going in the morning? Are you cranky in the afternoon? Do you need snacks to bolster your mood? Do you have little or no energy? Do you rely on soda or sugar for a little boost? Do you have trouble falling asleep? Is a glass of wine the only thing that gets you drowsy? When you eat something unhealthy, how do you feel while you’re eating it? Right after? An hour later? How does it affect your sleep that night? How do you feel the next day? Pay attention to the negative effects your current diet and lifestyle have on your body, moods, and energy level. Feel free to start a little journal, writing what you eat and drink throughout the day and how you feel as a result. This way, when you start making positive changes to your diet, you’ll appreciate
all
of the results—not just the weight loss.

Recognize that anything worth having is worth fighting for.

Good health, vitality, more energy, more confidence, better sex, great abs, a tight ass—you either want ’em or you don’t. You can continue plodding along in your life feeling like you’re not living up to your glorious potential or you can dedicate yourself to creating the life you want. Fuck excuses about not having the time or the money. You spend forty hours a week working, or more if you’re a full-time mom. Certainly your health and your body and
you
are more important than anything else in your life. You are worthless to your colleagues, friends, and family if you do not value yourself enough to take excellent care of
you
. Yes, you have to put
yourself
before your friends, parents, boyfriend, husband, and even your children. It won’t make you a bad daughter or wife or mother; it will make you a less resentful, more confident, interesting, beautiful, patient, tolerant, and fun person to be around. Your bright, shining light will give everyone around you the permission and inspiration to shine more brightly. Love yourself enough to do whatever it takes to be the best
you
you can be.

An important part of any recovery program for addiction—and unhealthy eating is an addiction—is taking one day at a time. Don’t torture yourself with thoughts of, “I can never eat steak again,” or

“How will I live without coffee?” Just take it one meal at a time.

Don’t think ahead with dread and anguish. One meal at a time.

And when all feels hopeless, remember that you are in charge of what goes into your body, you don’t answer to anyone, and you are
allowed
to eat anything you want. Often just knowing we
can
eat whatever we want is enough to keep us from eating whatever we want. We’re so rebellious.

If you feel really invigorated and motivated, and you’re ready to completely immerse yourself in the Skinny Bitch lifestyle now, then rock on. Go for it. Otherwise, feel free to set mini-goals for yourself and tackle them one at a time. This means, spend the first week of your new life removing one dirty vice item. Whether it’s cigarettes or coffee or alcohol or sugar or junk food or meat or dairy—just purge something negative from your life immediately. Choose something that you like and enjoy, but that you know you can let go of successfully. (But start right now. Don’t let these intense feelings fade—use them.) Dedicate the week to getting this vice item out of your diet, your body, your kitchen, and your mind. Think of all you’ve learned about this item, and how disgusting it is. Envision the damaging effect it has on your organs, your mood, your health, and your appearance. Imagine exactly what it is that you’d be eating. Know how shitty you’d feel, physically and mentally, if you ate it. Understand that you have free will and that if you
wanted
to eat it, you could. But know with every fiber and cell of your being that
today
you wish to put only pure, beautiful, healthful foods in your body. Most important, acknowledge that no vice item will ever make you feel happy or whole or satisfied. In fact, all vice items make you
unhappy
because they contribute to weight issues, health problems, mood swings, and low self-esteem.