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Mainly dietary choices, but also other lifestyle choices, are a huge cause of chronic disease in the USA. Our parabolic rising health care costs reflect this fact. Check out some of the recent documentaries about epidemic US obesity, diabetes, kidney failures, soaring heart disease, alzheimers, asthma, cancer, fatty liver disease, just to name a few.
I’m peeved with our medical/pharma/research/govt. industrial complex. THEY KNOW what is wrong. Yet, they don’t move on the information available.
We are addicted to the “food industry’s processed crap. It’s almost impossible to avoid it. And it’s ADDICTive. Kids are addicted, so are their parents and the communities around them.
In my church’s social hour, after the Sunday service (don’t worry, it’s a liberal WS church), they offer a table of refined and processed “yummy” stuff like cake, donuts, crackers, cookies. A small token tray of carrots, too. Do you think the kids are swarming to the carrots?
I have a message inside me, about this. 18 months ago, hubby and I decided enough is enough. He, with terrible asthma all his life, on multiple drugs just to breathe. He, with BP meds ,increasing doses and barely controlling his BP with TONS of exercise for over a decade. He, with low thyroid function, hair falling out and increasing dose of Levoxyl. We got the flu and colds each year, sinus conditions and allergies during the seasonal times. I had headaches, migranes mostly, since I was 15 years old. I had chronic joint pain and inflammation for a couple decades and it was slowly getting worse. I had horrible back pain, which flared up often. I had reflux that had gotten worse since the 1990s, even though I did the therapy MD ordered. I had PCOS.
I know it’s just a testimonial here. But 18 months ago, we decided to toss out of our lives everything processed and refined, and just eat nutrient-dense food, without any additives. I was moderately overweight, he was normal weight, but we wanted to take control of our medical situation. Yes, we had to prepare our food, from scratch. Yes, we eat a lot of fresh food, and we wash a lot of dishes. Yes, we allow ourselves to eat lots of saturated fats like butter, but we don’t eat any refined white flour or sweeteners. (Yes, I still LONG for something sweet, now and then – I am addicted.) BUT… Because of this change, hubby has lost his asthma (he had it since age 3), he was taken off BP meds, his thyroid med has been decreased 3Xs so far, and no more anti-depressants and his ADD/forgetfulness and foggy thinking is gone. I haven’t had headaches in months, no more RA, joint or back pain, no IBS, I have huge energy, great sleep, libido, and we both rapidly slimmed down without any effort. The pounds just melted off. I finally felt like exercising, after I lost the weight.
I’m just saying this because I feel we could take care of the entire population’s health if we focused on prevention of chronic conditions. REAL prevention. Not tests, not drugs, but lifestyle changes. And we, as a country, need to SUPPORT people who make those changes — and not treat them like strange freaks not eating the-yummy-easy “foods”. Just like the ol’ days when smoking went from trendy, to “Not cool, not healthy, not good for your body.” After we address diet and lifestyle, healthcare can concentrate on “out of our control” stuff like accidents and infections. And *that* healthcare can be cost-effective.
There, I’m done. Did I say too much or step on toes?