86 replies to this topic

[alternativista]

Things they do to our supposedly fresh whole foods before they get around to processing them.
-Genetically modify them.
-Spray the crops with harmful pesticides and fertilizers.
-The various things they are allowed to coat fruit and vegetables with to preserve them as they ship them from thousands of miles away.
-Things they fumigate foods with.
-The reduction in diversity in our food supply due to Big Ag. We once ate a much bigger variety of foods. And in the Andes, where the potato originated, they grow hundreds of varieties. Not one or two. And growing just one or two is what led to the potato blight that caused famine in Ireland. Nowadays, of course, we just spray the blighted plants with chemicals...

Do something about it here: http://www.acne.org/...o-to-your-food/

[Phresh]

It sounds like we should all just live on a ranch together where everything is like a fairytale. Perfectly organic, natural, and acne-free!

[Tunnelvisionary]

Two of my friends got a cold, and they needed to get better fast, so they thought drinking green tea, taking multivitamins, and some Emergen-C would make them better. Honestly, I don't blame them for thinking that, but with the knowledge I know now, it's more of a testament to how far out our ideas of healthy are nowadays.

[dejaclairevoyant]

Oregano oil has helped me get over a cold fast. But funnily enough since I've been eating high raw and no grain I haven't been sick once.

[alternativista]

Oregano oil has helped me get over a cold fast. But funnily enough since I've been eating high raw and no grain I haven't been sick once.

Me neither. But I rarely got sick before either. I don't think anything can get through my sinuses/mucosa. I leave that part out though when talking about diet and how I never get sick. Like when people ask if I'm going to get a flu shot and I say no, I don't get the flu because I maintain my strong immune system.

Parents let their kids live on sugary cereal, mac n cheese, chicken tenders, PB&J sandwiches supplemented by frequent fast food meals.

This after giving them a terrible start in life with messed up gut flora, low omega 3s and gestational diabetes during pregnancy, then feeding them commercial baby foods.

[dejaclairevoyant]

It's so sad.

[alternativista]

It sounds like we should all just live on a ranch together where everything is like a fairytale. Perfectly organic, natural, and acne-free!

I'm up for that. Or what I'd rather do is to move to a small town that needs saving. I think I'd be really useful with the ideas. And if we can get people to think more like a community pulling together we can find ways to do things where everyone can get by on less money yet live better. Have you all heard of Braddock PA? Like that, but not so far north. If anyone here knows of such a town in somewhere more like Tennessee, let me know.

Edited by alternativista, 02 March 2012 - 01:28 PM.

[dejaclairevoyant]

Somewhere around Asheville, North Carolina would be good for that. In fact there are already a lot of communes and intentional living communities there. It's a pretty awakened area in a lot of ways.

[Phresh]

I don't know any areas specifically. What I do know is living on a farm and going by the healthiest recipes would be an awesome way to live. It's difficult to have the motivation to get creative with recipes on my own, I think.

[alternativista]

Somewhere around Asheville, North Carolina would be good for that. In fact there are already a lot of communes and intentional living communities there. It's a pretty awakened area in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I've spent some time browsing for one of those, but most of those are going to be too new-agey for me. Braddock, on the other hand, is a town that once had 50,000 people and now has like 5,000. It obviously needs to do a lot of adapting. It has tons of cheap real estate to repurpose. They are trying to attract artists to the cheap real estate and I have several ideas to cater to them.

One of the ideas I have is to buy one of those old town department stores and turn it into a marketplace for both food and arts and crafts. Because Braddock doesn't have a grocery store which I gather is getting to be a common problem in small towns. And I would have a resale shop with the usual housewares and clothes, but also with things I fixed up/made over. And with things artists might use in their mixed media work. There's a resale shop here in Houston that caters to artists, but I was disappointed in it. It was mostly garbage. I have cooler things in my garage, like some vintage wallpaper and upholstery and lamp parts. And they were making 'beach glass' in a rock polisher to sell for rather a lot of money, but they were using thin plate glass. I would collect thick jars and bottles for it.

And then I'd do special projects for the town to say enhance education, beautify the town, make it more walkable, a better gathering place etc. Because apparently I know one thing few people seem to know. How much better and more upscale and cared for places look with trees. I see so many shopping centers, parking lots, streets and whole towns that would look so much better and less rundown with trees. If it were up to me, everything ugly would have to have trees and other vegetation shielding it. and I would of course make most of those fruit, nut and wildlife supporting trees, shrubs and vines.

Ironically, the small town where my mother lives has an empty department store building for sale just like I had in mind, with second story space for loft apartments which I have ideas for as well. But it's a thriving town so the building isn't as cheap as I'd want. They have pretty much all they need, including a health food/coop. Plus it's way too far north. And there's a desperately rundown town here on the coast with a really cool town center with a big Mexican style plaza, pretty much all abandoned while restaurants and other businesses open up scattered on the various highways all around.

There is a website/blog I subscribe to about saving Rural America but they are based in Nebraska and are focused on the Midwest. I either want to go east or to California or maybe New Mexico. But that's what I'd like to do. We need to stop moving to mega cities and stay in smaller cities and towns where it's more possible to supply local quality food.

You know the show, the Fabulous Beakman Boys, or something like that? Apparently that's what they've been doing. They bought this big estate in some dying town and began finding ways to keep it alive. I don't know all that much about it and the show, like all reality shows, focuses on them being stupid. But apparently they raise goats and sell the milk to a local who makes goat milk soaps sold online/mail order and her business employs a couple people and keeps the post office going which employs a couple people and so on. I'd like to do something like that although I'd like the results to be more valuable then more goat milk soap in the world. I'd like them to mean better food, less pollution, less wasted energy, less garbage, etc.

Ooh. That reminds me of an example of what might be one of my 'special projects'. Half the small towns around where my mom lives are all on dammed rivers with hydro-electric power plants that they no longer use. Once the town got too big or the people got too used to wasting tons of electricity, they all started buying it from some big, probably coal-fired plant producer instead. But why? If we can put solar panels on our roof and plug into the grid and sell back excess energy produced, why can't the town plug their hydro-electric dam into the grid?

I also wouldn't mind doing this somewhere in Central America. Ironically, I used to be married to a Honduran and Honduras has a lot of potential as an underpopulated country. And now that we are divorced, my ex-husband is getting involved in things like this. But as someone who is pretty much only interested in technology, he isn't as useful at it as I would be.

Edited by alternativista, 02 March 2012 - 03:59 PM.

[mini7]

Since few people have any idea.

I'll start with the amount of sugar people eat now days.

Supposedly, the average American today consumes over 70 grams per day. And I think that's low considering how much is in a soda that people might drink multiple times per day, on top of what they eat.

Also, I've read that the USDA recommends people limit their sugar intake to 40 grams per day. The CDC recommends you limit it to 25 grams per day.

There's 39 grams of sugar from HFCS in one can of Coke.

If we got our sugar only from fruits and vegetables like we are meant to, we'd consume more like 15 grams per day.

And the USDA is not looking out for your health! They are a much bigger advocate for the sugar and corn growers than they are a protector of your health. And the CDC is a member of our medical 'we can treat everything with a drug' establishment.

And then there's the added problem of most of that added sugar coming from High Fructose Corn Syrup. The switch to HFCS in commercial products is where our health issues really took off. Note that HFCS has only been around 1 generation. A sickly one.

And then there's the complete lack of understanding about what consuming any high glycemic meal, drink or snack does to you. It's not just about the calories. It sets all kinds of badness in motion. It screws up your hormones and causes subclinical inflammation that is the root cause of most of the diseases this sickly culture suffers from. Including acne. And it ages you.

Hi Alternativista,
I am currently trying to control my hormonal cystic acne with a diet change of no gluten and low sugar intake. I have also eliminated all dairy from my diet. I noticed that you listed zinc and b complex vitamins as supplements that you are taking. Can you tell me what brands you use?

Thanks.

[vapor1]

CAFO meat definitely isn't as good compared to grass-fed, but that's hardly what is causing so many health problems. I'd say seed oils and grains are a way bigger factor.

[alternativista]

Hi Alternativista,
I am currently trying to control my hormonal cystic acne with a diet change of no gluten and low sugar intake. I have also eliminated all dairy from my diet. I noticed that you listed zinc and b complex vitamins as supplements that you are taking. Can you tell me what brands you use?

Thanks.

Those are supplements I took, years ago now, that were the first thing that I ever noticed helping my grotesquely oily skin and acne. But then diet changes cleared my skin. But it was in a 'stress' formula by naturemade or the Walgreens storebrand equivalent.

Edited by alternativista, 03 March 2012 - 09:27 AM.

[alternativista]

Preschoolers are filled with so many cavities, dentists have to anesthetize or give them anti-anxiety drugs to fill the half dozen or so.
http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all
http://www.cdc.gov/n...11/sr11_248.pdf
http://www.newser.co...eschoolers.html

[Tunnelvisionary]

Teeth are the first sign of health problems too. I thought the way I ate when I was young was bad, but I never had to have a root canal. I remember having an extremely deep cavity to the point where I needed a metal filling. Back then, I thought metal fillings were so cool looking. I knew a kid who had like 12. He looked like a robot when he smiled. When you're 6 years old, looking like a robot is pretty cool.

Seriously though, that really sucks to read. There is a shit ton of misinformation out there in the mainstream regarding food. Parents will think they're doing all they can, but things will most likely get worse if they don't get the right information.

[alternativista]

Article citing the various reasons we are deficient in magnesium from farming methods causing depleted soils, to harvesting, storing and preparation methods to other things we do to ourself like use/consume flouride and soft drinks.
http://www.westonapr...icent-magnesium

See also the thread on the various things they are doing to our food these days. http://www.acne.org/...do-to-our-food/

[alternativista]

This isn't just about how bad our food is, but how an important part of our food supply is doomed.

Oceans on Acid: Seawater Worst in 300 Million Years

There's fresh evidence that sea life is in danger. A new study finds the world's oceans are turning acidic faster than at any time in the past 300 million years -- a period that included four mass extinctions of species. That spells trouble for corals, crabs, urchins, oysters and others losing the ability to grow the protective armor they need to survive. The change affects other creatures up the food chain, including fish, sea otters and even people.

The research, published in the journal Science, says that while past spikes in carbon dioxide levels that have turned the ocean acidic were driven by volcanoes and other natural causes, the latest disastrous shift in water chemistry is because of human pollution. Every day, 22 million tons of the CO2 we spew into the air are absorbed into our oceans. "If industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace," one researcher says, "we may lose organisms we care about -- coral reefs, oysters, salmon."

Read about the study in The Christian Science Monitor and learn more about the Center for Biological Diversity's work to stop ocean acidification.

Also, just so you know, as happened during the other warming periods in the past that caused by geothermal events, trapped methane gas will be released into the atmospere. Methane traps far more heat than carbon dioxide. But then, it breaks down into carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and continues to heat up the earth for a really, really long time. But eventually it will get washed out of the atmosphere by acid rain that falls to the earth, further acidifying everything. And in the meantime, we let coal miners and petroleum companies, along with our landfills just vent methane into the atmosphere. If we captured and burned it for energy, it would burn fairly clean and be relatively harmless. What we call natural gas is mostly methane.

Edited by alternativista, 20 May 2012 - 09:50 AM.

[vapor1]

Article citing the various reasons we are deficient in magnesium from farming methods causing depleted soils, to harvesting, storing and preparation methods to other things we do to ourself like use/consume flouride and soft drinks.
http://www.westonapr...icent-magnesium

See also the thread on the various things they are doing to our food these days. http://www.acne.org/...do-to-our-food/

This is why I take a Mg supplement. Something like 60%+ of the US is deficient.

[alternativista]

Mercola article on arsenic in our food. cites studies saying American-grown rice is very high in arsenic for 2 reasons- 1) Rice is good at absorbing naturally occurring arsenic from the water and 2) In the U.S. rice is often grown in land where they formerly grew cotton which was sprayed with pesticides containing arsenic.

http://articles.merc...20122_SNL_Art_1

Edited by alternativista, 21 May 2012 - 04:33 PM.

[tim12]

"But it's too expensive!"

*Neglects cost of dining out often, buying soda/coffee, price of prescriptions for health problems that can be eliminated/controlled through diet & lifestyle*

Something I was thinking about speaking with one of my old professors, perhaps there's a bit of a biological basis as to why my generation is mostly bad with these kinds of choices. The frontol lobe doesn't finish developing until mid 20s ish, and it may play a pretty big role in rational decision making. I imagine neurotoxins in foods don't exactly help either.