Why Buy Organic?

It has recently come to my attention (again) that a majority of my fellow Americans are misinformed about the prospects of living an organic life.  I recently read an article on Yahoo called "Organic Food No Healthier than Non-organic Food" in which the writer informs use that there may be no more vitamins or minerals in organic food than there is in non-organic.  That may very well be true, but then the article continues to say but eating Organic food MAY reduce exposure to pesticides.  MAY! are you kidding me it is a scientific fact that organic food contains fewer pesticides and that is precisely why it IS healthier.  Sure a little poison meant to kill weeds or bugs won't kill you, but do it day after day meal after meal and it beyond a shadow of responsible doubt will effect your
body.

Buying Organic doesn't make me high and mighty it means that my dollar doesn't go to the mighty corporations like Monsanto who has genetically modified more seeds than any other company, among their other lovely products are RGBH a growth hormone for cows, Round-up amount other commercial herbicides, and their latest GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) corn that contains insecticide whiten it's cellular structure! How is that even deemed safe!?

Buying Organic means that I support the companies that are run by people who sacrifice larger profits for righteous and healthful products, it means that my monetary vote goes to the family growing a healthful farm and not one owned by a greed-ful company.  I don't only buy organic for myself I buy it for the little farmers, for small even large businesses fighting to succeed over large corporations, I do it for my friends and family, and much more I do it for those who have yet to be born!

Going Organic is expensive! But it is literally the difference between Right and Wrong, black and white.  So will you spend the extra dollar to support tomorrows generations or will you wait for someone else to save you?  Do use all a favor and stop buying CRAP it won't just kill you it will consume you and it will assist greed filled businesses in consuming more people!

Stop supporting companies that put money over the health of their customers! I can't even convey in one year how important going organic is for EVERYTHING.  I urge you strongly to do the same, before the option is no longer available.

INFORM YOURSELF ABOUT WHAT YOU EAT AND WHERE IT COMES FROM!!!!

Health Over Wealth- Lowering Healthcare Costs

Lowering the Cost of Health Care

There has been a lot of debate in congress about how to lower the cost of healthcare, the most likely option is to make everyone pay for insurance, this will bring about a lower overall cost. However, this entire debate is revolved around the ideals of wealth, it is not truly for reasons of health that they do this. If it is about Health it's about the health of the economy, not the health of the people. If we want to lower healthcare costs we must first go to the root of the problem, which is people are getting sick too often. Lets clear up one thing, accidents happen and it is sometimes necessary to go to a hospital or a doctor and the patient needs to be cared for fully, but a majority of doctor and hospital visits come from self neglect (meaning the individual has neglected to take precautionary measures to ensure their own health). That is not to say they should not be covered anyhow, we all make mistakes, but a majority of the costs are due to neglect and not to a random accident or injury. For example, the leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease. Massive amounts of research have shown that heart disease is caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, whether it be eating too much fat or not getting enough exercise. This means that through changes in lifestyle heart disease can be prevented if not completely eradicated.

Eliminating the leading cause of death in the United States would certainly lower the overall cost of health would it not? 616,000 people died from heart disease in the United States in the year of 2008. Nine in ten had at least one of the following risk factors; high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, obesity, poor diet, and were physically inactive or drank alcohol. This is straight off of the CDC website. Every one of those factors (with the arguable exception of diabetes which only accounts for 11%) is preventable through proper dieting. 1 in 6 dollars spent on health care goes to heart disease, which cost an estimated 414 billion dollars in 2010. That is about $1380 dollars a person for that one year!

In general we tend to be cautious about our safety and the safety of others and maybe it's due to a lack of education on the importance of proper eating, but so many people are not concerned about what foods or nutrients they intake until major disease occurs. Even then so many of us will take the prescription route instead of eating right and seeking a more permanent measure. We take the pills, because it is easier than changing what we eat and how we behave. This is understandable, but could there be a better way? It is not fair that all the people devoted to taking responsibility for their own health should have to pay a tax so that those that don't take the preventative steps should get a lower rate at the expense of those who actively participate and invest money to their health. This like many solutions a partial one and it is not the best option available. The fore fathers had the guidelines right, they knew that by the time it came down to a socialized healthcare system something went wrong along the way, but what did we do wrong....

To be continued...

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Stay tuned for more updates on this article.   It is quite long and will cover a dynamic range of information on  living a health oriented life.  You can sign up for automatic e-mails by entering in your e mail address in the space to the right. Please tell me what you think in the comments below, I would love to hear your ideas and maybe talk about them.

Improving Health Education

Why do we need education of health?

Every time I say that we need to educate people on health I get the response from someone they already are educated, they just don't have the time and money to eat right.  This upsets me for a second, but every time I recover from my lapse of emotional comfort,  I begin to propose the following:

Education

First of all, people are hardly educated about their health whether it was on TV or in schools, the American approach to health is quite as well established as it could be.  The extent of what people know about their health is what we learn in health class throughout school, and perhaps brief snippets here and there online and on TV.  This brings me to the question so what did you learn about eating in health class?  The answer I always receive is "the food pyramid" which would be my answer as well, as I learned little beyond the food pyramid in health.  So what is missing from this education?  Health class wasn't actually a full on class we had it once every month for a week each time, and that was only when we were assigned PE, which was one year in high school for me.  In that health class we mostly covered mostly sex ed, drugs (and what they do) and exercise.  Those are both important, but when it came to health it was usually based on the food pyramid.  This is not to say there is no importance in the pyramid, but really it does not cover anything about what foods are actually beneficial and why.  In fact we spent more time in school discussing different diseases and how we get them then we did learning how eating right to prevent them.  We learned that breathing in someones cough could make us sick, but not that Vitamin C and a multitude of other vitamins prevent sickness, much less the foods that already contain these vitamins.

For instance we learn that we need 2-4 (broad number) servings of fruit, but what we don't learn is that fresh fruit is optimal, that canned fruit is loaded with sugar, frozen fruit loses nutrients, and so on.  Health is a multi-dimensional topic and the aspect of food cannot be covered solely by the food pyramid. Food education alone should be a full on class, not only should we be covering what foods we should be eating daily, but also why we should eat them.  What do vitamins and minerals do for the body, which ones in specific affect the brain, which ones do we need everyday and why.  Other issues to be covered would be; where to find healthy foods, what form of food should you eat and why (fresh, frozen canned etc.), why  over processing food kill it's nutritional value.  I could go on but I think you see the point that I am getting at, there is a lack of food education.  Later I will cover each one and it's importance in detail, but for now I have a different task at hand.

We need education throughout school about health to integrate it into our lives.  The only other chance people have to learn about health is from their family, which in most cases they know what was taught to them.  There is a chance to learn about health after high school, but so many of us get so wrapped up in the working world we don't take the time to learn about it.  People don't not eat well because they don't care too, they don't know how to.  People, much like dogs, are conditioned, meaning we form habits, habits we get from others, people don't eat right because they aren't conditioned to.  We need an education system that conditions people to be concerned about what they eat in the same way they are conditioned to wear a seat belt.

Time

The second excuse for poor eating behaviors is lack of time. Well the first thing I have to say to that is eating right gives you time, not only does it give you a longer life expectancy, it clears your mind so you can more clearly pre-meditate your ideas more fully, and taking the little bit of time it takes to prepare the food will make you happier through the  time you "don't have".  There is a quote I read once "You don't have the time? You make the time.".  It isn't that difficult to pick up an apple and eat it unprepared, nor is it difficult to spend Sunday evening making your meals for the week.  I'm not going to go into recipes right now, but there are ways to eat healthy with little time.  I will not be going into this issue any further at the moment.

Money

Let me get this straight, you don't have the money to eat right?  That is the lamest reason of all, I'm sorry but if you can afford to eat already then you have enough to eat well.  I make 60 dollars a week and I still eat healthy, on top of it I help feed one other person on that budget.  Even on this tight budget I eat well,  I buy whole wheat bread $2.50 I buy whole wheat noodles and sauce $2.50 that is like 6 meals worth of food for 5 dollars.  Yes there are ways to eat cheaper with un-nutritional foods , but is the tax it takes on your body worth it.  Some of same the people who tell  me they can't afford to eat well are the same people that support Obama's new forced tax plan on healthcare.  I am of no political affiliation, but this bill is ridicules and there are better options.

Do you want lower healthcare?  Then invest in your health, everyday!  Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States it cost 414 billion dollars in 2010, but in almost every case it was PREVENTABLE.  Nine out of ten people that die from this disease have 1 or more of what the CDC considers risk factors, these factors include; smoking, drinking, malnutrition, diabetes and in most cases obesity.  Only one of those may not have been the choice of the individual that died and that diabetes, but despite popular views there are many plants that lower blood sugar in the body some include, cinnamon, turmeric, and dandelion root.   That 414 billion equates to over 1000 dollars a year per every person alive in the US.  It is not fair that people that care for their own health should have to pay a tax for those who don't.   So if you want to lower the cost of healthcare quite eating food that isn't good for you, quite smoking, quite drinking so much, and by God stop with the lousy excuses and do something for your health!

You have the ability to live a healthy life,  you live in the United States where healthy food is massively abundant utilize these resources.  You have the internet, what you don't know can easily be found on the internet. There are many people out there including me willing to work with anyone to improve their health turn to them and ask what it is you need to know.  Don't be afraid to learn something that contradicts the norm, listen to your heart and it will tell you "you are what you eat".

<----- "That's not such a bahhhd idea."
              -Goat

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An introduction to the Aspects of Health

Ever wonder why someone can survive a disease that many others have died from? What makes that person different? Why do some people just never seem to get sick? This phenomena isn't as complicated as it might appear. Disease resistance is almost directly related to the strength of the individuals immune system. There are many factors that make up the strength of an individuals immune system. Yes, everyone is different and unique and we are all born with different factors that affect our immune health, including genetic predisposition, but that is not to say we can not all take steps to improve our immune strength. If you have a weak immune system or you find yourself sick more often than you would like it is important that you find ways to strengthen it. There are many ways to bring strength to ones immune system, many more ways than could be covered fully in writing. I encourage to go beyond this material and search for your own ways to view your bodies health and strength. If anyone has ever told you that there is no improving your immune strength or that you will always be sick, even if it was a doctor, they were likely wrong. "Where there's a will there's a way" and that is most certainly true when it comes to your body and the conditions facilitated there in.

There are many ways to improve the your immune strength as well as the overall health of your body. Some of them you may already know, but maybe you haven't fully realized their importance. Some of the key factors of health is food we consume (this is my primary focus), exercising (stretching, jogging, walking, martial arts, yoga), another aspect to consider are exterior or stress factors (work, home, friends, recreational activities). In this material we will focus on the role that the foods we eat play in making up the over all well being of our bodies.  "You are what you eat" and therefore it is important to know what you are eating and how it may be affecting you.

Why is this information important to you? Knowing about how to fuel your body properly will lead to a longer, happier, and even more fulfilling life. The information contained in this blog does not come from the authors knowledge, but it is a compilation of 1000's of years of health studies, involving the lives of many thousands of individuals. Herbal medicine  and the role of how whole foods affects health has been based down from our acceptors for many, many generations and as they were passed down, so to was the wisdom of their healing properties or the disease they may bring.  This information is invaluable and is in no way to be surpassed in the name of "modern science" and short term trials, even a 20 year long trial is nothing compared to the 10's of thousands of years of wisdom passed down from our ancestors.  Throughout the blog you can expect to find information in regards to whole food nutrition, Living with your body, sources of health information, healthy and fun recipes, and even some politically motivated articles.


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This Blog was started in 2012, but is being updated and revised as so much has changed since then.