As I leave behind Wisconsin, the birth place of the genius architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and Minnesota, the birth place of the  great American song writer Bob Dylan, I enter Illinois, the birth place of the great American writer Ernest Hemingway. I drive southeast toward Chicago the home of the Chicago Stockyards. In 1964, Chicago was the center of the American meat packing industry. It is ironic as I write this given the surgeon General’s warning about cancer and alcohol. Why ironic? Because early in the 20th century the American meat packing industry was so unhealthy and corrupt it triggered one of the most famous and effective American muckraking novels of the twentieth century – The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

My main goal is one of the great art museums in America: the Chicago Art Institute. There were so many great paintings I spent several hours there including a break for lunch absorbing these masterpieces.

The next day I headed southeast of the southern tip of Lake Michigan. I drove through Gary, Indiana because I wanted to see Gary Works, one of America’s most massive steel mill complexes belching smoke and pollution. Nothing in Gary seemed to be alive. It was a sprawl of industrial waste land – a precursor to the rust belt.

I was relieved to turn north at my first opportunity to escape the industrial blight and enter Michigan. Michigan, as you will see, is a strange mixture. I drove northeast, then due east to my first Michigan goal – Battle Creek, Michigan – Cereal Town USA.  As I drove, I recalled my early childhood and the 3 cartoon characters of one of my favorite cereals, Rice Krispies: Snap, Crackle and Pop. I even sent away for the finger puppets.

As I approached Kellogg’s, the actual Kellogg’s factory, it even smelled like cereal. I did a tour and saw how one of the famous new cereals was made – Sugar Frosted Flakes. Just the name makes me cringe now. But as a kid when all we had were “plain” cereals like Rice Krispies or Corn flakes, eating Sugar Frosted flakes was like eating dessert for breakfast. And as their mascot Tony the Tiger said they were Grrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

After my tour of Kellogg’s, I drive due east toward the center of the automobile industry in America, Detroit, Michigan. I stayed overnight in a cheap motel just outside of Detroit.

Next morning I headed for the Ford plant in Detroit. I did a tour of the Ford Mustang assembly and got to see how American cars were made. American car companies still dominated the American car market. W. Edwards Deming (“Refine the process constantly and forever”) and the Japanese car companies had not yet entered the USA market in force. David Halberstam is his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Reckoning details the pathetic post World War 2 struggles of Japanese car companies – the laughing stock of American car companies and how a couple of decades later, the laughing stopped. Cold.

The upper Michigan peninsula is the spiritual home of one of the great American short stories – The Big Two-Hearted River by Earnest Hemingway. Hemingway, as you may know, was very seriously injured in the First World War.  After months of recuperating, he moved to Paris to begin his writing career. As he wrote, he struggled to heal his deeper more serious wounds. In his imagination he traveled back to his fishing and hunting trips north to the Upper Michigan peninsula. From his spiritual healing came one of the truly great American short stories: The Big Two-Hearted River. Hemingway’s clean, spare style changed world literature forever. He was later honored with a well-deserved Nobel Prize for literature. Hemming influenced a number of great American writers including one of my all-time favorites Joan Didion.

So, in a matter of just a few states we moved from a great writer of anthemic songs from Minnesota who changed America and the world to the writer from Oak Park, Illinois who changed world literature, both artists from the Heartland of America. It would be a challenge to think of two more different artists. Such is this great, complex country of ours.

Speaking of complex, on Friday, January 3, 2025, the Surgeon General of the United States delivered a powerful message about the 3 most preventable causes of cancer in order: tobacco, obesity and alcohol. In 2023 there were 1.9 million NEW cases of cancer in the United States and 609,360 deaths from cancer, the second leading cause of death in the United States. The surgeon General made some statements supported by all the leading cancer research centers in the United States as well cancer centers worldwide and The World Health Organization. There was a full page article on the cover of The Wall Street Journal Saturday morning, January 4, 2025.  The same morning, there was also a major article on the front page of the Financial Times. The following is a distillation of a few of the major points in the Surgeon General’s message. There is NO safe amount of alcohol. Alcohol is a MAJOR cause of breast cancer. Alcohol is a MAJOR cause of ALL colorectal cancers. It took decades but most Americans now take smoking seriously as a major cause of cancer. As a health and fitness speaker and coach for over 45 years, I still do not see Americans taking obesity seriously as a major cause of cancer. Americans still think of obesity in terms of vanity. And even more sadly, the majority of Americans think alcohol is actually good for them. Alcohol, among other things, is a major cause of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. The number one reason I have not touched a single drop of alcohol in over 45 years is: I value my brain.

Fresh start. New year. Time to get your male or female blood panel to see in black and white where your inflammation markers are. Where your triglycerides are. Where your HDL (good) cholesterol is. Remember: you want your triglycerides divided by your HDL cholesterol to be less than 1.0. Recent studies have also shown that as we get older (over 50) higher LDL cholesterol is better. If you value your health, it is time to walk your talk.

Feed your body and your brain high-quality protein like JDD protein and lots of pasture raised whole eggs – awesome nutrition for you and your kiddos.

Talk with you soon.
Joe