Big title? Yep. Come with me for a moment on a little journey of "What ifs..."
What if...you could cure cancer? Even better, what if you could actually PREVENT it? That would be pretty huge, wouldn't it? Think about what that might mean for your life, the lives of your loved ones, and generations to come. Wow, it's pretty staggering to think about.
What if...I suggested, hinted or told you that you already have this ability? Would you think I'm crazy? Maybe. But, what if I'm not?
What if...each of us has the power to prevent cancer?
Those of you who have been following my blog know that I am quite passionate about a few things--especially when it comes to our health, well-being and taking steps to do better, feel better, be healthier, etc. I recently came across this video and I think that most of the latest books about food and how we eat are really making the point that "Food Matters." What we eat matters. It matters to animals, to the air we breathe, to the soil our food is grown in, and ultimately to our own health and the survival of our species. Throw in a bunch of cliches or sayings like "You are what you eat," or "Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food," and you get the point. Take 3 minutes and check out this trailer. I hope it gets you thinking.
There needs to be a great turning in our society-- a turning away from drugs and "magic pills" that artificially "fix" our health woes. We need to be turning toward the root cause-- how we got to this point of sickness and disease in the first place, and start taking steps to reverse it. We need to stop just accepting the poisons and toxins that come in brightly colored boxes on our supermarket shelves and start taking action to get better!
For more information, you can find many resources here.
On that note, I will be exploring this topic further--perhaps in a new blog (still deciding on that). And to reiterate one of my most favorite sayings:
“Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”-- Margaret Mead
That's a good question, and the answer is simple: Subsidies. But before I get into that, I must confess that I dined out at restaurants twice this past weekend. It was Mother's Day weekend, and I guess I felt a little "entitled" to a couple of meals out. A little beside the point of the title of this post, but still important because at least a portion of the conversation over both meals was about what's wrong with our nation's approach to food and why so many of us are literally addicted to fast food.
The experiment that TV chef and raconteur Jamie Oliver says "always works" to turn kids off processed food failed in Huntington, W.Va., where the obesity rate is above the national average.
When he showed children how chicken nuggets are made -- grinding up the least desirable parts of a bird, gloppily straining out the bones, and adding flavorings and fillers -- he expected them to refuse to eat them. Instead, after having cried "ewww!" and "gross!" they each asked for a patty, answering his bewilderment with: "We're hungry!"
While the stunt missed the mark on his Food Revolution TV show, it hit home for many kids and parents. One blog post on the topic , in which the author said her kids had watched and decided never to eat a chicken nugget again, was still the most popular post on the site days later.
People Are Talking
Oliver is getting people talking -- and changing habits. An informal poll of my Twitter followers found that about half were put off chicken nuggets for good, and the rest had previously rejected them. A friend who edits a parenting magazine said she had "told dozens of people" how the unappealing ingredients made her "queasy." Another friend decided to forgo her usual annual spring treat of McDonald's (MCD) chicken McNuggets, solely because she and her kids watched Oliver squish raw chicken through a strainer. A long screed from a San Diego writer told how her family was giving up chicken nuggets, too.
