So my father got ‘the gout’. Which I must say – I find utterly hilarious. When I think of gout I think of white powdered wigs, Elizabethan necklines, a decided lack of indoor plumbing, and a ridiculous fascination with the ‘turn of ones ankle’ (whatever that means). – In short, I do NOT think of this modern era. Where most ‘bouts of the gouts’ (sorry I couldn’t resist) can be avoided in essence by eating LESS MEAT and more not-meat.

This presents a significant problem for my father as he has been on the Russian-Roulette Atkins Diet. Which involves lots of high fat ground beef, cheese, mayonnaise, high sodium lunch meat, and the occasional canned green bean (for color). The Russian-Roulette is when we all sit and wonder which food of the many varied and heartattack inducing, will ACTUALLY end up killing him.

He does Atkins the way Dr. Atkins never imagined in his most fantastical flights of fancy. The gist of Adkins is that people with a low threshold of physical activity can reduce body fat by eliminating certain simple and complex carbohydrates in the early stages and once your body weight is such that you can increase your physical activity then gradually higher glycemic carbs are reintroduced into the die. Yes at the outset you are free to consume fats – they are not limited – but the TYPES of fats are just as important – if not MORE important than the amount.

Sure he lost 30lbs 7 years ago but the diets effectiveness ceased, at least in my opinion when he developed lifestyle induced diabetes last year. Huh – amazing that would happen (please note for sarcasm). So now he suffers from ‘the gout’ – which let’s face it NEVER stops being funny to say. And the only dietary modification that he has made is to add cherries to his diet – which supposedly are a homeopathic talisman against ‘the gout’ (heh, heh). Except he can’t even get THAT right because apparently bing cherries are the only type of cherries proven to help with ‘the gout’ and he keeps getting black cherries.

I keep trying to tell him that not all black cherries are bing cherries – but he insists they’re all the same. Just like eating a cup of mayonnaise like it were yogurt is the same as drizzling some olive oil over a salad. Right Dad – how could I be so blind?