Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest For Bodily Perfection Quotes
"Our tastes aligned with healthy foods. We evolved to like sugar because it’s in fruit."
"Evolution has betrayed us here. The human body is in many ways a malfunctioning machine."
"If evolution worked perfectly, healthy food would taste delicious and unhealthy food would make us gag."
"In general, food that tastes good is bad for the body."
"We live in a modern world, but we’re stuck with caveman taste buds."
"The problem is, we’re bombarded by loud noises almost all day long."
"Noise is one of the great underappreciated health hazards of our time."
"Noise has a surprisingly potent effect on our stress level, cardiovascular system, and concentration."
"Sitting and staring at screens all day is bad for you."
"Our Paleolithic forefathers walked eight to ten miles a day."
"Eighty percent of all infections are transmitted by direct or indirect contact."
"Most bacteria are harmless. In fact, human beings are mostly germs."
"Germs suffer from bad PR. Most are not harmful."
"Every year, germs in food sicken an astounding 76 million people in the United States."
"Hygiene is crucial, but excessive cleanliness might be counterproductive."
"Excessive hygiene practices can lead to immune system issues."
"We weren't built to sit. Never before in history have we been so immobile."
"Our immune cells don’t get the chance to learn to recognize and assassinate the bad guys."
"I call up an immunologist named Mary Ruebush, author of Why Dirt Is Good, a rallying cry for the Hygiene Hypothesis."
"‘The pendulum has swung,’ she tells me. ‘The first few millennia of human evolution, there was no thought of cleanliness. Then, when we realized there’s a link between cleanliness and health, we went overboard.’"
"‘Hygiene Hypothesis!’ she says gleefully. It’s her new catchphrase."
"‘Every day, in every way, I co-create my reality!’"
"I want it, I want it, I really really want it!"
"‘This is really, really fucking brilliant’"
"‘Don’t read novels on the toilet,’ he says. ‘Don’t write novels on the toilet. If you keep doing it, then you’ll have to get surgery. And hemorrhoid surgery is not fun.’"
"‘I’m a writer,’ I said. ‘And I’m a writer,’ I said."
"‘You have to be thorough and cover even the most unlikely of scenarios.’"
"‘Thank God I outwitted fate yet again.’"
"‘Sometimes in life you feel like a heroic statue. And sometimes you feel like a pigeon who is looking for statues to take a dump on.’"
"‘No one’s sure what happens afterdeathafter deathafterdeath. Some people think it’s like you go to sleep for a long time, but you don’t dream.’"
"‘I can’t speak for the original, but the modern bran-free version doesn’t seem to work so well in this regard. At least based on the following anecdotal evidence: I ate a lot of s’mores in high school.’"
"I just said F it, and took off my shoes!"
"Running puts a huge load on the feet—three times the body weight on the front foot."
"Do you want the bad news first or the good news? I always tell people that the bad news is actually good news, because then we know how to treat it."
"Think of it like you have pancakes on your upper thighs, and you’re trying to raise your knees to flip them."
"I’m not an advocate," [regarding barefoot running].
"Anything that says ‘antibacterial’ is a poison. Just conceptualize skull and bones on it."
"Well, I know I had something to eat, so that’s a start."
"They were probably too tight and giving him bad energy."
"Whenever I opened my computer, there it was, staring at me with its eye sockets."
"But why the F would you use it when you have a word processor?"
"I think it’s because he was wearing shoes."
"We need to pay more attention before we add new chemicals."
"It might be pushing it, but I wonder if the Africa trip—and his other charity work—is one secret to my grandfather’s longevity."
"You know, you helped New Yorkers’ lungs."
"New York’s air pollution is bad, but it could be much worse."
"You seem to have survived the pollution, Grandpa."
"The best you can do is try to keep your house’s air clean."
"My sedentary behavior is down to about four hours a day."
"I often wonder what the previous me would think of the me that I’ve become."
"It’s basically a modified Mediterranean diet, the diet that is perhaps supported by the most studies."
"I’m eating a lot of the same foods every day, which I’m not sure is such a good idea."
"As part of the project, I have to take care of my skin."
"Old age is a long, slow loss of control."
"One last show of affection from his grandchildren. It felt like tucking someone into bed for the final time."
"We needed something useful to do. We needed to have a purpose, even if that purpose was pointless."
"This letter is being written without a salutation, since you know who you are and it is silly therefore to tell you who you are."
"I want to stick around for a while longer."
"Life is a battlefield. Life is survival of the fittest."
"The eyes can see one hundred million colors! They can focus from infinity to inches in a fifth of a second!"
"I train like I’m training for the Olympics or for a Mr. America contest."
"I’m blind to certain smells and tastes. I have trouble tasting umami, for instance."
"Worry about cars, not planes. Worry about fire, not abductions."
"It’s about as scientific as numerology."