There’s a cartoon circulating somewhere that shows two cavemen squatting on their cave’s floor, and one of them is saying to the other, “Something’s very wrong: we get plenty of exercise, drink pure water, eat only organic and free-range food, and yet none of us live past thirty.”
To be accurate and to preempt any “fact-weenies,” skeletons of 60-year old cavemen have been unearthed. But please note: said cavemen were dead by sixty, and usually much earlier.
A majority of McDonalds-eating, chain-smoking couch potatoes reach age 70 and beyond these days. I prefer eating healthy myself, and exercising, and I believe that good nutrition can make a dramatic difference — on occasion — in one’s health and fitness, but here’s the deal: It is modern life and modern medicine that have prolonged our lives more than anything else, so much so that even couch potatoes are productive citizens for all the purposes that matter in modern society, and they are so for decades beyond the life span of our ancestors. Leave us alone, control freaks!
