There are studies that prove that everything is both good and bad for you! Dare I say it, it depends who is paying the piper who is playing for her or his supper!
It seems to me that all you have to do is dream up something you would like to see, or better still, something that fits your view of your world, ask a few people some questions you have carefully created so that your point will be proven, check the figures, and make a huge statement.
As ADDers we are bombarded all the time by people telling us what we mustn't eat or drink, and rather less frequently, what we must eat and drink.
Have you noticed how the things that are "good" for us are so-called healthy things like raw carrots and broccoli, while the "bad" things for us are the nice things we love, like chocolate, and coffee.
My large collection of more than 13 000 files of ADHD documents, books, digital audio and video files is a place where I can spend hours happily reading, watching and listening to all things ADHD.
Delving into this trove of information requires sustenance and as I am a coffee lover of note, I often quaff up to 6 cups a day! I was very happy to find a piece in the 2011 edition of the Huffington Post by Delia Lloyd that one of favourite so-called sins was in fact good for you!
At last, I thought, I don't have be defensive about drinking the king of beverages, coffee, without some rabid health fanatic giving me the evil eye - or worse, trying to convince me earnestly that I should rather drink green tea, or some other foul tasting poison.
Ms Lloyd lists 5 reasons from a study to prove her point.
Women won't be as depressed if they drink coffee - a whole 20% less depressed. This follows another study that shows the more coffee you drink, the less likely you are to commit to suicide!
Men who drink more than 6 cups of coffee per day will have 60% less chance of contracting "lethal prostate cancer." This is a revolutionary statement, as drinking that many cups of coffee per day was absolutely certain to send you post-haste into an early grave, according to earlier studies.
Coffee provides for a 39% reduction in you getting head and/or neck cancers - provided you drink at least 4 cups per day.
A study on mice show that if we drink 5 cups of coffee per day, it's unlikely that we will get Alzheimers disease. Scientists are so excited about this, that if the study proves their point, coffee - or caffeine - will be used as an effective treatment against the dreaded disease.
Her last point is that coffee provides protection against diabetes, the Type 2 version. I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, I drink at least 4 cups of coffee per day, which clearly didn't provide any protection for me.
The point of this is, should we believe any of these studies? Following them leads to a life of misery having to eat foods that if prepared properly - as opposed to raw - would be marginally palatable.
As ADDers we are bombarded by people - well meaning people - who honestly believe that a neurological condition like ADHD can be cured by eating less of one thing, and more of something else.
There is even a study that says that the much vaunted multivitamins will actually decrease your life span!
Life is simply too short to pay heed to all these scientific studies.
I say, simply follow your nose, eat moderately of anything that takes your fancy, exercise by walking around enough to burn off the calories, laugh a lot, and love all day.
On a personal note I admit to not eating brocolli and kale easily, and cannot be near a house where tripe is being cooked, and tinned asparagas turns my stomach back-to-front!
Image Top: Clement Proust Image Middle: Unknown Image Bottom: Tony Leong
Print Edition is long since sold out, the revised pdf version available soon
I have been coaching people with ADHD for 20-plus years, and I know that they either have lots of money or hardly any.
