The other morning, as I was having a hearty breakfast, we in the restaurant were joined by a tall, thin man who, almost before he sat down nearby, powered up his laptop to apparently address a most urgent matter.

He told the waitress to bring him a bowl of plain oatmeal, two slices of “dry” wheat toast, a small glass of orange juice and some water. Past experience told me that anyone who eats like that was probably in the first several weeks of heart-surgery recovery, but, no, as I later learned, this is his regular fare.

As the water was brought, he reached into a satchel next to his whirling computer and drew out a package containing at least 25 pills and capsules and, as I got into my third over-light egg and mixed it with a generous dollop of grits, he started choking down his pharmacopeia.

This isn’t about who is right and who is wrong. Further, if taking fish oil or glucosamine works for you, by all means carry on, but somebody needs to tell my gaunt friend, who has obviously already lost his hair, that he looks dadgum awful.

They also need to tell him to lighten up, to enjoy his day rather than peck away at some nuclear equation while the rest of us study the odds on Saturday’s football games, because I’m of the notion stress and angst will get to your heart a lot faster than buttered grits will.

Because of the way my life’s path has led, I have spent considerable time at the Mayo Clinic, that bastion of medical marvels in Rochester, Minn. And because I have been blessed with a bone-borne infection problem, I am known for what is politely called “a series of complications” and thus they keep a pretty beady eye on me.

One of the doctors who studies me is perhaps the smartest medical man, in the general sense, I have ever come across and suffice it to say he is also the “editor-in-chief” of the huge Mayo Clinic Family Healthbook, which explains everything a layman ever needs to know about medicine.

So one afternoon I was in his office and, as he shuffled through literally pages of blood work and infectious-disease reports, I asked him point blank, “Do you think I ought to be taking vitamins?”

The smartest guy in the world looked over his glasses and asked in return, “Aren’t you eating right?” And when told that I don’t cull much on my plate, he yawned and told me to take a couple of those multiple vitamins if I wanted to, but that he didn’t see much sense in it.

“You’ll do better if you eat a banana every day and eat an apple if you get hungry. If you eat sensible foods and concentrate on raw vegetables and fruits, you should do fine, he said before delivering the clincher, “You look pretty healthy to me if we can get this arm problem fixed. Eat a banana.”

So therein lies my point. The dry toast-and-oatmeal guy looked gaunt. He looked like he needed to hear a joke rather than get a jolt of sawgrass palmetto. I believe if you’ll eat right, the human body will find the calcium and the B-12 and the iron it needs in what you put in your mouth.

Once again, far be it for me to judge anyone, but there is something to be found in several slices of tomato, some fresh eggs, and a patty or two of sausage that can’t be compared to a pile of pills that come in some plastic sack.

And when you walk in a place for breakfast looking all dour with your face stretched real tight, tell ‘em to put some butter on those grits.

Start reading the odds on football games, too, because I’m betting while none of us are going to get out of here alive, the trade-off of plain oatmeal versus fried bologna just ain’t worth it.

royexum@aol.com