Something’s Got To Give
There is a famous Vedic verse:
“It is our duty to the rest of Mankind to be perfectly healthy, because we are ripples in the ocean of consciousness. And, when we are sick, even a little, we disrupt the cosmic harmony.”
WE HAVE A MAJOR HEALTH crisis in America, and it is affecting our general happiness. I am sorry to just put it right out there in the first sentence of this book without any foreplay, but I will not beat around the bush when it comes to health and happiness. The statistics for heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes are astronomical. And climbing! One out of every three deaths is caused by Heart Disease. That means 700,000 Americans die every year from heart disease. Second in line is cancer. 598,800 people died from cancer in 2020. The third leading cause of death in the United States is medical mistakes. That means medication errors, medication side effects, surgical errors, and patients who go into the hospital for care and suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death. The Center for Disease Control, the CDC, says that of the two trillion dollars spent on health care every year in the United States, 1.5 trillion goes to treat Preventable chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. These dis-eases are all mostly diet and lifestyle related. If that does not push us in the direction of diet and lifestyle changes, I don’t know what will. Stay healthy, avoid the hospital, and greatly reduce the risk of the third leading cause of death in the United States. This sounds logical, right? But, wait! There’s more! For the first time in the history of the world, children are being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Also known as Adult Onset Diabetes…ADULT Onset Diabetes…in children! Our society seems satisfied with the concept of eating whatever we want/doing whatever we want for now and fixing it later with medications and surgeries. (Remember the third leading cause of death? Medical Mistakes?). We cannot be at our best and feel our happiest when we are sick and tired and fat. Why are we so sick and tired and fat? We have a lot of help from the media and also the United States government. Sad news, our government is subsidizing a fast food diet. The government pays farmers to grow corn and soy. A large percentage of these crops go to feed cattle, chickens and pigs. Also, to create high fructose corn syrup, which is in most fast food and packaged, processed crap products. Plus corn and soy are used to make all the other mystery ingredients in fast food; dyes, emulsifiers, flavors, and don’t forget the oil in which everything is fried! The government also indirectly subsidizes feedlot factory farms by paying farmers to grow these cheap crops. These “farms” are not only overcrowded and filthy, but they produce low quality, inexpensive meat, which has resulted in the average American eating a lot more meat, much more than is healthy. These “farms” and feedlots are not required to treat their waste nor do they take responsibility for the massive amounts of air pollution they create from animal waste. The old adage is if you visit a factory farm or slaughterhouse, you will most likely come away a vegetarian. It is that bad.
Circling back to Type 2 Diabetes and government subsidies, our government has created a dichotomy between Diabetes and Health Care. Actually, General Disease and Health Care is more accurate. On the one hand, the government subsidizes corn and soy, which is used to make sugary sweet, and artificial, chemical laden food-like substances, and then they have to help pay for the Dis-ease that eventually comes from a diet of crap! Insanity! ChooseMyPlate. gov shows us a dinner plate with large portions of vegetables and fruits. But, that is not what they are supporting the farmers to grow! I am going to have to call Bulls**t on that! What do you think? I get mad when I think about how very sideways these policies are. And, the problem is we do not really have a food policy in the U.S.A. We have policies for agriculture, employment, foreign policy, monetary, energy, drugs, the list goes on and on, ad nauseam. But, we have no food policy. Hmmm. The indirect message is, ‘Eat your veggies, but we are not going to make it easy or inexpensive!’ What is made easy and very inexpensive is junk food. Processed, chemicalized, artificial food-like substances that are readily available and cheap everywhere we go. This concept takes us back to ‘Eat and do whatever you want now, and fix it later’…Gee, I wonder where we learned that?
I am not blaming the government for all of our health problems, but I will say they are creating a lot of easy access to unhealthy, processed, cheap, crappy food. And, there is not a lot of integrity going on either. The government is not practicing what they preach. And, they are allowing the destruction of the environment along the way with chemical fertilizers, factory farms, the leveling of the rain forests in order to raise cattle (80% of deforestation in the Amazon is from cattle ranching), and don’t forget the methane and ammonia emissions from the animal waste products on feedlots, which cause immense amounts of air pollution. There is a lot going on here! It sounds so chaotic, and it is. The state of our food supply, health care, government interventions, it is Chaos! So, what do we do? After all that bad news, what can we do? First of all, don’t panic! There is a solution. Remember, only about one quarter of all the diseases that plague our society are genetic. And, genes are not written in stone! Just because your mom or dad had Diabetes, heart disease or cancer does not necessarily mean that you will get those diseases, as well. Some genes indicate what will absolutely happen in the body like eye color and hair color. As Dr. Neil Barnard says those genes are ‘Dictator Genes’. They dictate aspects of us that are unavoidable. But, most disease related genes just make suggestions in the body. In other words, diseases are almost always dictated by diet and lifestyle, not by genetics. And that is very good news because that means it is not necessarily our biological make up that determines our future, but that we are in control of our destiny. How often do you hear someone talk about the diseases they will probably get because they have the genetics in their family? “It runs in the family.” Of course there is a component to genetics, but there is a much more powerful component than genetics themselves. That component is Belief. What we believe to be true very often manifests in our lives, good and bad. The mind is incredibly powerful and so is The Universe! You are probably getting the idea that it is my belief that we are meant to be well and happy, yes? I believe that we are meant to be in command of our lives, our wellbeing, our health and our happiness!
The very good news is the majority of all the Dis-Ease we are experiencing is, in most cases preventable and reversible. So, where do we start? Diet and Lifestyle, Baby! It may sound simplistic but, adopting a vegetarian or vegan way of eating, at least a couple of days a week will make a huge impact. Not only on your health, but on your pocketbook and the environment. Every little bit counts! So, Eat Your Vegetables, Bitches! I say this with Love!
Until my next Blog Post…Be well.
Meanwhile, here is an awesome recipe for a hot summer day!
Asian Cucumber Salad
2 cups of very thinly sliced seedless cucumbers
1/4 cup of finely sliced red onion
1/4 cup of fined diced red pepper
1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
Combine VERY thinly sliced cucumber, sliced red onion, diced red pepper, and sesame seeds to a medium size bowl. Set aside.
In a small bowl mix together rice wine vinegar, honey, toasted sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and sea salt .
Add dressing to the cucumber bowl. Toss to mix everything.
Serve immediately or cover and let sit in the refrigerator for an hour or two to let all the flavors meld.