May
31st, 2007Like many people, especially as they get to my age (around 50) I have started to really consider my mortality. All of a sudden it gets 'real' so to speak.
I can feel things in my own body that I had no idea existed. "What in the
world could hurt there?" I ask myself "I did not realize there was anything that
could get old in that area!" I sound like my Dad when I bend over or get up out
of my chair also. It has caused me to do some reading, some analyzing, and some
serious consideration of my life style and everything I have been taking for
granted.
First of all, I contemplate human nature, and how much I dis-trust
industry and commerce. The food and drug industry, I realize, is out to make a
buck just like everyone else. They are not interested in our health or
well-being. They do not even know who we are, individually. We are numbers and
profits on a blackboard or pie chart. That sounds cold, but if you really think
about it, it's true. Profit and loss is their ultimate, and in fact only,
concern. It is in their interest for us to be fat, addicted to their products,
sick and in need of drugs.
The pre-packaged food industry benefits a lot more from people who are addicted
to their potato chips, crackers, frozen pizzas, sweets, and whatever else they
can come up with, than they would from us eating healthy, organic, local produce
and meat.
Prepackaged produce has to have certain components in place to make them profitable. They need to have a long shelf life, be cheap to produce, have an addictive quality, and most of all have great marketing appeal. The box, can, bottle, bag, or microwave-able package must be attractive. It needs to look 'fresh', 'healthy', 'tasty', 'safe', 'easy', and have an appeal to the consumer. Millions of dollars are at stake. If there is one thing we Americans know how to do best, it is sell something.
They have us providing our families freeze-dried, dehydrated, re-hydrated, de-constituted, re-constituted, preserved, flavor-enhanced, color-dyed, quick, easy food, and also have us believing we are providing good nutritious daily meals. The absolute best scam in any arena is when you have your target convinced that they made a wise and beneficial decision, and that they made the choice themselves.
One of the biggest factors, in my opinion, is what I call the 'scientific age'. In the last hundred years, give or take a few, we as a people have embraced 'science' as if it is the voice of God Himself. If the doctor said it, we obey like sheep. If it is the general scientific opinion, we believe it without question. A perfect case is point is when I myself was a baby. This is hard to comprehend now, but back in 1958 it was believed that 'scientifically prepared' baby formula was better than mother's milk. When I say that now, people do not believe me, but it was true. I thank God that my mother had a stubborn streak in her, along with a distrust of mankind in general. She knew that God knows best, no matter what anyone around her thought, even if that meant that her own friends and peers thought her strange and backward. Of coarse today we do not hear that statement at all. Mother's milk is considered the best way to raise any baby. Formula is frowned upon now and people are turning to organic vegetables and juices that they prepare themselves, along with breast feeding. Natural and organic is the new trend. Funny how that was the trend for so many years (and centuries, and millennia!)
I remember reading in a medical journal (at the back in a very small unobtrusive column I might add) that studies now show vitamin supplements do no good. They are basically urinated out. Your vitamins and minerals need to be carried in good quality food in order to be absorbed and assimilated by the body. Imagine that? The manufactured capsules which produce such a great shelf life using plastics, dehydration and chemical preservatives are actually not doing us any good (they are making massive profits however) I guess that is why they call it 'practicing' medicine! We have been 'pissing' our money away, literally, because of doctorıs opinions.
I honestly think we need to wake up and realize that our health and well-being is our own responsibility, and that God knows best. God made potatoes, not potato chips. God made beef, lamb, chicken, and fish. Man has turned those animals into steroid filled, hormone treated, anti-biotech riddled, mad-cow contaminated, abominations of God's original creation. All in the name of profit. Can't blame any one individual though. It is mankind as a group that makes the profits. I have a job, just like most folks do, and it may be in advertising, mega-farming, factory packaging, whatever. I do not have a hidden agenda to destroy people, I am just trying to make a living.
I will never forget when I first came to live here. (I grew up in South Africa as a missionary kid, but kept my US citizenship and came to live here just as soon as I was of age. This was always my country) I was in the grocery store for the first time, and I saw mangos that literally blew my mind. I had never in my life seen mangos like this. We had mango trees were I came from, and I knew the fruit well. About three inches wide, five inches long, and basically kidney-bean shaped. Mangos are a way of life in those areas of the country. Everyone loves them. The biggest problem we had was intrusions by hordes of grey monkeys during mango season. The mangos I saw in the American grocery store were the largest, brightest red, juicy looking mangos I had ever seen. I grabbed a bunch of them and headed for the checkout. I could hardly wait to get home to try them. I peeled the first one open, and was a little surprised by the lack of color and texture inside, but I did not hesitate. I shoved it into my mouth and took the biggest bite I could. It came out of my mouth as fast as it went in. I took another look a it, and tried another bite. Same thing. It was texture-less, and tasteless. I peeled another, thinking it must have been a bad one, but every single one was the same. I ended up throwing them all out. I was in shock. How could such a heavenly fruit have no taste? They looked like they came straight from the table of the gods themselves on top of it. Something was not right! I know what the real fruit is like. It may not look as appealing, but believe me when I tell you that you need to experience the true, un-adulterated mango, straight from the tree (if you can fight off the monkeys for it). There is something about Hybridized foods that does not sit right with me. God says to eat every seed-bearing plant after its own kind. Hybridized, seedless watermelons or grapes cannot reproduce, and it stands to reason that they are not the healthy food sources we think they are. Sterility has never been a desired quality, but we would rather eat grapes in that condition than to spit out a few seeds. Is laziness another by-product from years of being fed this garbage?
I have come to the conclusion that most consumable items that are in any type of packaging with printing on it, is nutrition-less, life-less, poison, and should be avoided at all costs. It is no surprise to me that we now hear about how bad the preservative filled, trans-fat, mono-sodium, poly-unsaturated, re-constituted, de-hydrated, re-hydrated, hormone induced, steroid laden, fake sweetened food and consumables we use on a daily basis are causing obesity, heart disease, cancer, A.D.D., diabetes, sexual dysfunction, depression, just to name a few. (Please excuse the mis-spellings)
Funny how I notice that law-suit commercials are now becoming pretty common, along with the drug and food product commercials on TV. (not to mention all of the sexual dysfunction products being advertised!)
How do we actually define poison? It must be solely in how fast it kills. Trans-fat is so deadly that the FDA has not been able to come up with an acceptable human dose. Why is it not considered poison, just as DDT, arsenic, cyanide, dioxin, etc? it can only be in the time it takes to kill. FDA approved chemicals in our diet kill over a life time, while cyanide kills in minutes. Dead is dead though. In fact, maybe a quick death is preferable to 10 or 15 years of fighting cancer first, and then dying. Sodium nitrites combined with aspartame (artificial sweetener marketed as NutraSweet or Equal) has been found to be the most prolific cancerous tumor producing chemical mixes in labs. Sodium nitrite is one of the chief ingredients in luncheon meats (yes, even in turkey dogs). Yet we think nothing of feeding our children hot dogs and sodas. God says in His word that His people are destroyed though a lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4:6) It can only be a lack of knowledge that would make us feed our children the most powerful cancer causing chemical combination known to man.
So, I ask myself what is it I can do? I live here in the midst of this. I do not live on a farm. How do I avoid it all and live healthy? Well, the answer is that you can't avoid it completely. You can, however, do something about it. First of all I have trained myself to like better snacks by not having junk in the house, and shopping for fruits and nuts instead. I found natural and organic stores and use them instead of the supermarkets as much as possible. I have located the local farm stands as well. I believe that local is best. Organic is becoming the next big money maker today, and once again when people start making big profits, we will suffer. Labels can be manipulated to make us believe it is healthy. Organic packaged produce still has to travel and have shelf life. I buy grass-fed beef in bulk at a local farm and put it in our freezer. I am amazed at how different the color is from the supermarket butcher's meat. It is a dark purple/grey, not bright red. A roast goes into the oven one size, and comes out the same. I used to think it normal when the roast would shrink up and there be lots of water left over in the pan. My mother-in-law's late husband used to deliver meat to the very butcher I used to buy from. He told me one day, that he would deliver an 80 pound package of chopped beef, for instance, and the butcher would end up selling about 120 pounds. The extra weight was pure profit. Suet and other suspect fillers get added. It is the same thing with roasts and steaks. Water injection to plump them up and add weight, red dye make them look attractive, and shrink-wrap put their best side up. I pay a friend of ours, who has enough land, to raise 20 free range naturally fed chickens each year. The chicken may not be as tender, but I actually find it to be more tasty than the bulk chicken available in the supermarkets. I also avoid all farm raised fish, and go with wild caught only.
I have learned to make my own pasta sauce for instance (and I am no cook) by buying organic tomatoes and herbs, chop them up and let them simmer on the stove for a few hours. Make enough to can some, which I do using canning jars and hot water. You don't have to have sophisticated equipment. Tastes better than any canned sauce on the market, and there are no preservatives.
I watched an interesting news article the other day on the news channel, about the fastest growing child obesity rate. It was Asian children living in America. Asian food takes time to prepare, and both parents are out working, so the kids normal diet has been replaced with pizza and burgers and chips. They are ballooning up accordingly.
No, you can't avoid everything, but it is possible to drastically reduce your poison intake, and replace it with God-given healthy food. I do not believe in vegetarianism, but I do believe we can cut our meat intake down a lot, and definitely replace the supermarket butcherıs beef, pork, chicken, and fish, with local grass-fed livestock or wild caught fish. I am not paranoid, nor obsessive. That is no way to live. I just do not believe in putting poison in mine nor my families bodies for the sake of convenience. Taking an active roll in your own health, and the health of your family, is just as important as your spiritual and financial responsibilities. At least in my humble opinion. We all die, true, but we should not be living with diabetes, heart disease, or cancer in our later days.
About
'Withstanding The Storm,' "Author Nathan Lambshead reaches out to those
who are not being reached in church, using his own experiences and shortcomings
to convey the story of God’s grace and mercy. Rather than preaching at the
reader, Nathan presents his faith in a testimonial form. Written in a simple,
easy-to-read style, Withstanding the Storm will challenge and encourage you to
grow and make a consistent commitment to the Lord." You can find the book on
The Tate Publishing Site or from
Good News
Graphics.
Be sure to also check out earlier articles written by Mr. Lambshead. You can also contact him by e-mail.
