Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Affordability of Whole, Organic Foods



In my family, we eat healthy, organic produce and groceries.....most of the time.....

We do enjoy occasionally going out to eat. Also, Saturday nights are junk food nights at our house. I had to install junk food night to get my guys to eat healthy the rest of the week. *WARNING* DO NOT COME TO MY HOUSE OR TRY TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM JUNK FOOD NIGHT ON SATURDAY!!!***
They are like rabid dogs, I kid you not! I have to drop junky food in front of them very quickly and then jump back so as not to lose a finger. or a hand. or an arm.

That being said, I decided a long time ago to implement a healthy eating program in my house. I want us all to live to be 130 years old. Honestly, you can't expect to do that if you eat Hamburger Helper and frozen pizzas from Wal-Mart. Nothing against Wal-Mart. Aside from the year I punished them by boycotting their store, I shop there regularly for dog food, toilet paper, and such. But, food-wise, beware. Its just not Wal-Mart either. All major grocery stores, and a lot of small town stores too (in Texas anyway. I don't know what those crazy liberals in California have in their stores. But, I bet its a heck of a lot healthier than the shelves upon shelves of different kinds of Ranch dressing that we have here for salad fare. But, again as usual, I digress) have the same basic, junky, hydrogenated, chemical laden food for your culinary pleasure.

Since I couldn't find a stupid taco shell without hydrogenated oils in the grocery store (Texas, remember?) I chose to drive an hour to the nearest health food store where I bought two bags of groceries and shot 3/4 of grocery budget wad! 'Oh My! What will we do?? We will all starve to death!!' I thought. I was about to have a major panic attack. Then, I calmed down and realized that no one was going to starve. They may be mildly unhappy with the lack of chips and cookies for awhile, but not starving. The reason they wouldn't starve, I reasoned, is because we're just trading chips and cookies for high quality, nutritient dense foods. So you know, no one really NEEDS chips and cookies. I know, I know! But, truly! Its true!!! You don't need them! And guess what? No one perished under my healthy regime! And then, everyone adapted. Yippee! I love it when no one is complaining about nothing to eat in the fridge.

Since then, I've told countless friends about our switch to organic eating. So many of them, say "I can't afford it" or "I'd love to feed my family that way, but we just can't afford it." or "I know Monavie is good for me, but I can't afford it". You know why you can't afford it? Because you THINK you can't afford it, so you don't even try. It's just like anything else you do in life. You just have to jump in and give it a shot! I'll tell you what will happen, because it always does. You WILL be able to afford it. Not only that, you'll probably have even more money. You'll spend less on medications. You'll be more productive at work because you'll feel good. You'll spend less time at the doctor's office. You won't be spending money going out to eat...as much.... You can still go out to eat. Just eat at home more. And your budget will adapt to the new addition.

I recently watched Food, Inc on dvd. You should definitely watch that if you haven't seen it. Food Matters too!!! But, on Food, Inc it shows a hispanic family going to Burger King because they can feed their whole family on $1 hamburgers. They would love to eat more produce and the mom feels guilty feeding her children fast food, but it's what they can afford. The children wanted to buy broccoli at the grocery store. (Can you imagine??? How much would you give if your child actually ASKED if you buy some broccoli? Honestly, I think I would think I'd just died. Lord? Is this heaven?? My child really wants broccoli? Thank you Jesus. Thank you!) But, anyway, the parents said, "Broccoli is $1.29/lb. We can't afford it." *sigh*

Sad, huh? The dad has to spend so much money on medication to control his diabetes that he can't afford good, healthy foods that would a) help control his diabetes without medication and b) prevent his children from suffering from the same fate. It's just an endless cycle that will never break until someone say "STOP! This is enough!!"

I guarantee that if they would just sit down together and create a family budget, see where they are spending the majority of their dollars, they would find that they CAN afford to eat good, quality foods.

Which means...........YOU can too!!!! Honestly. I didn't think we could either. But, we did. Also, and I know this is radical but instead of wondering where you can save to afford to eat better, why not see where you could make more money to eat better? That's what I do and a lot of other successful Americans are doing. The point is, if you just jump in and do it, you're budget will adjust itself to fit. I truly hope you give it a try. It's honestly the best thing you can do for your family. We want our children to live long, healthy, happy lives and we certainly want them to outlive us. That's precisely the reason I changed our diet. It was not because my husband has MS. Although, it was lucky that I had that process in place at that time. (As an aside, I think God puts things in front of us when we need it. We then either act on it or ignore it. I say ignore it at your peril. Act on it to your great benefit!!) The reason I changed our diet is because I read an article that this is the first generation of kids to not outlive their parents. Stop and think about that for just a minute.



Honestly, (and I don't say this lightly or smart-assy) Is your current budget and financial situation more important to you than your children? Because what I didn't tell you, is that those findings were all linked to diet. In fact, in a recent study of 14 year olds they found that they had arteries of 45 year olds. They are expected to have heart attacks in their 20s!!!!! As a mom, that scared the ever-loving crap out of me! Not only that in the 1960s the cancer rate was 1 in 300. Now, in 2010 its 1 in 2. That's reported by the CDC. Not only that, but all inflammatory diseases are on the rise. That includes MS, Parkinson's, Alzheimers, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Diabetes, etc. They are all linked to diet and its proven that eating 9-13 servings of fruits and vegetables can greatly prevent all these diseases. That's why we drink Monavie. 4 oz/day has the anti-oxidant equivalent to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables. We are also members of our local, organic co-op. You can also keep costs down by shopping at local farmer's markets and grow your own produce in a garden. But, even if you can't do all that, you should still bite the bullet and just go to the health food store and start buying the bulk of your groceries. It's for your health and that of your family. You CAN do it!!!!!!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Giveaway!

A friend of mine directed me to a giveaway for stainless steel bakeware. I find the blog itself interesting if you're a health food fan like me. You can enter to win at this link http://www.foodrenegade.com/giveaway-stainless-steel-bakeware/#comment-20554

Have fun and good luck on winning!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Tolerance

I don't know about ya'll but I'm getting really tired of people telling me that I need to be "tolerant".
What I want to know, at this point, is WHY??? And who the heck are these tolerant police tolerant of themselves anyway?

There's a big difference between being cautious and an intolerant, racist, bigot. I have no problem whatsoever with people from the middle east. I love the whole zen buddhist and hindu philosophies as a whole. They are very peaceful and loving religions and there is a lot of overlap with christian principles so I think there must be some truth in all these teachings. HOWEVER, islam is NOT a peaceful, loving religion. their teachings are based on intolerance, deceit, and hate. So, why on earth, are we being told to be tolerant of them.

The same people claiming that we need to be tolerant of the muslim faith and all their antics are also going around bashing Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, George W. Bush, and Fox News. I don't understand any of that. Truly. It occurs to me that people are offended by anyone with strong views that differ from their own. But, seriously, Dr Laura???? She espouses raising healthy kids, intact families, and having morals and values that your mother should have taught you anyway. What's so offensive about that???
Glenn Beck talks on his show about preserving our freedom. Why does that "scare the crap" out of people? We want the muslims to have the freedom to build a monument to their killing and destruction, but we shouldn't have the freedom to say we don't like it. Why is our freedom offensive but their freedom is not?
Fox News does have a little right wing slant. So. Big Deal. I know they are slanted to the right, but the mainstream network news are all slanted to left. So, why is Fox News offensive, but the liberal love fest is not?
And finally, George W. Bush. That one truly baffles me. My one complaint about him is that he was not conservative enough. When he campaigned for president, he said he wanted to reach across the aisle and govern with non-partisanship. Boy, did he ever do that. And the liberals absolutely HATED him. They also hate any of the Democrats that sometimes vote right.

So, back to the tolerance issue. Why are we expected to be tolerant of EVERYTHING these days? What if you had a friend that was being beaten by her husband. Should we be tolerant of his abuse and tell her she's just being hateful for wanting to take away his right to beat her. Or....would we be angry and offended and want to whip his ass? What if another friend had a kid that came to your house and ran amok, screaming and throwing tantrums, pulling your child's hair, breaking toys, etc. Should we be tolerant of that behavior? Or...would we ask our friend not to allow her child to do that in our home? I think you can see where this is going so I'll stop the scenarios right there.

I was reading Dr. Laura's blog the other day and this caught my eye.

Mohammad Mukhtar, a cleric and candidate for the Afghan parliament in the September 18th election, in reaction to the news reports of the September 11th Koran burning set to take place at a Florida church said:







“It is the duty of Muslims to react. When their holy book Quran gets burned in public, then there is nothing left. If this happens, I think the first and most important reaction will be that wherever Americans are seen, they will be killed. No matter where they will be in the world, they will be killed.”

It's my understanding that we still live in America. I don't agree with burning holy books, or any books for that matter. Nor do I agree with people burning our flag.  But, I absolutely respect the right that an American has to do those things. I would never want laws passed that keeps a person from expressing their views. I also don't want our nation to be so "tolerant" of others that we have to give up our own beliefs.
There is also a movement beginning to start that wants us as a nation to become sharia law compliant. If you don't know what that is, it's the law that governs muslims. You see, there is no separation of church and state in the muslim faith. So, basically, if we are to be tolerant of their religion then we must also be tolerant of their laws, sharia law. Under sharia law, a man can beat and kill his wife and children if he deems it necessary under his religion. According to that religion he is just in doing so. That sounds barbaric doesn't it? Well, it is. But, there are some judges in our own country who are pushing for sharia law compliance. In fact, one such case just happened where a man killed his wife and was aquitted because it fit into his religious beliefs. Luckily, that ruling was overturned. Again, we're still in America right? So, if we are to be tolerant of this man's religion, we have to give up our own beliefs. We have to turn our back on the Constitution of The United States. We don't allow people to kill in our country. We have a rule of law. We offer protection and freedom to those who come into our country legally (don't even get me started on that!).

So, basically what I'm seeing is that we're supposed to be tolerant of muslim men and no one else. We're supposed to be tolerant of those that want to take from us and give to others. We're supposed to lay down, be quiet and allow our Constitution to be trampled on or else, we're greedy, hateful, intolerant, racist, bigots.

Well, I'm tired of being "tolerant". I know what I believe in. I believe in freedom, family, morals, decency, and values. And I for one, will not be silenced by the people who wish to take those from me.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Who Are The Radical Muslims??

This may be offensive to some but I think we as a nation are too worried about offending people. If we have something that needs to be said, then just come out with it!

Unless, of course, you want to tell me I'm fat. Then keep it to yourself please!! :)

I was having a facebook debate with someone else's friend about politics earlier today and yesterday. BTW, it's important I think not to berate your friend's friends. It's just rude. Say what you want to say in a polite, concise manner. Not only is respectful to your friend, but people will listen to what you have to say.

One of the contentious points this lady was making was that we should not be biased against Muslims simply because they are Muslim. It would be equivalent to hating Christians because of what Timothy McVeigh did. Well, I contend that that is just flat out WRONG!!!

Timothy McVeigh wasn't acting in concert with a group of Christians to kill another religious group. He was a mentally disturbed guy who had a problem with his own government and decided to bomb a government building. It was a terrorist act in my opinion but not exactly the same thing and I'll tell you why.

The Muslim faith states that a good Muslim is to kill the infidels (Christians) and tolerate the Jews as naughty children. Well, we know that Muslim terrorists also kill Jews because we see it in the news everyday. I read the Koran in college and it stated that quite clearly. I'm not making this up!! It is naive to think that if only Christians and everyone else would be supportive and tolerant of the Muslims they won't want to kill us. It is all our fault!! That's just nuts!

Did you know that the president of our United States created some multi-religion outreach program. The interesting thing about this is that the only religion represented is Muslim. Muslim Imams go out and speak with other Imams. Hmmmmmm....that's doesn't really smack of diversity and tolerance. Where are the Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian leaders?

Does it not bother people that groups of Muslim terrorists are killing christians, jews, buddhists, and hindus all in the name of their faith? And we are supposed to "tolerate" that? Not only that, there is no separation of church and state in Muslim countries. So to be truly tolerant of Muslims we must allow them to follow their own laws while in our country. That may or may not sound crazy to you but there are actual public officials and judges that would like us to become Sharia Law compliant. That is a smack in the face to our constitution! Under Sharia Law a woman has no rights! So, immigrants can come here looking for a better life.......unless you're a woman....then you're screwed! A family can migrate here and if they are Muslim, the husband will be allowed to beat his wife and children if we deems it necessary and they would have no legal recourse. That is just barbaric and backwards! Why would we allow that? Why would we WANT to is what I want to know.

I submit that the radical muslims are NOT the ones killing in the name of Allah! I submit, because I READ IT IN THE KORAN, that the radicals are the ones not killing people!!!! Also, have you noticed that no "peace loving" Muslims are standing up denouncing the terrorist acts of other Muslims??? Suspicious, huh?

Also, have you noticed that there are no groups of Christians killing groups of people in the name of God? There are no groups of Buddhists, Hindus, or Jews forming sleeper cells in other countries so they can bomb other faiths? It seems that is limited to the Muslim faith, but we aren't supposed to say anything so as not to offend them. Why is that? I think it's because our country has gotten so soft, that we're scared of them!

I'm tired of people calling me a bigot, racist, or intolerant because I'm cautious of the Muslims and because I don't want a president apologizing for me for standing up in my beliefs!!! I think he should represent my beliefs because that is what he's hired to do!!!

On the upside, illegal immigration is down.

They look at our country and think "Ah, it's not so great anymore." 

That makes me sad.