Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Most Popular Road-side Junk


I don't have the opportunity to walk along the roadside very often but recently I was walking a couple of miles along a two lane road and I saw what most of the garbage along the road is made up of.

I suppose it would be very obvious that a lot of what people throw out from their cars would be. Probably the most likely items would be the wrappers from fast food restaurants.

There was a lot of that. I saw tons of wrappers and drink cups from every known fast food outlet known in the area. By far the most prevalent variety of garbage was the drink cups from all of the fast food outlets.

These were not the number one most popular item. It also was not coffee cups, which were the second most popular item. There were coffee cups from most every place that sells the stuff.

I saw tons of coffee cups from McDonald's, many from Starbucks, a bunch from the corner stores like 7-11 and the like.

The number one most popular trashed item I saw were cigarette packs. In fact there were hundreds and hundreds of cigarette packs all along the highway.

I saw the most popular brands and in all the various varieties. It seems like people addicted to smoking are also addicted to polluting the highways. Not only do they pollute their own body and the air, but they also have the strong urge to pollute our roads and highways with their disposed cigarette packs.

Along with the cigarette packs of course were tons and tons of used cigarette butts. Of course there are heavy taxes on every pack of cigarettes, so these smokers are paying for their addiction in many ways. I don't think that they are paying enough when they leave such a mess around on the roads.

I can see that the taxes are not being used to clean up the sides of the roads which are covered with cigarette packs. I think that maybe this is one thing that needs to be added to the price of a pack of cigarettes.

In fact the price of disposal of everything that is produced needs to be added to its price. Then those funds need to be used to actually clean up and properly dispose of each of these items after they are no longer in use.

What do you think? Do you have an addiction that leaves trash or other traces around?

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Natural Urges


I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss a bit about the reasons why so many people are overweight and obese. In a pure and natural world which is the one our body was developed in and developed for there are very few ways to get fat or obese.

There were no stores, bakeries, no offers from marketing companies, there were no shelves filled with inappropriate foods that do not belong in our bodies. In a natural world we would need to seek out the foods that we know are tasty and appropriate for our body.

This would entail a lot of walking and hiking up and down hills, through meadows and rain forests. We would probably need to even wade through some water or maybe even swim once in a while to get where we need to go.

There would be animals all around, some of which might be a threat to us. We would have to avoid them or run from them. This would help get exercise where today we just hop in the car and drive to the corner to get our food.

The foods of nature look very different from the ones people eat today. There are no cooked or processed foods in nature at all. Even fatty foods like nuts and seeds are difficult to get in large quantities in nature since they usually are in a shell that takes a lot of effort to open.

Avocados are also a fatty food but they do not ripen on the tree and we would need to pick them or take them from the ground and wait several days until they soften. The way nature has made it is that these trees would be quite sparse compared to the more easily accessible sweet fruits. They also are not very sweet so they wouldn't satisfy our sweet tooth.

During the time we would be seeking our nutrition it would usually be sunny or at least overcast and we would be getting all the sunshine we need. Sometimes it will be raining and those days will be much needed to avoid getting too much sunshine.

Our natural urges would be to gather as much high dense, high calorie foods that we can find. This would lead to a lot of sweet dense fruit in nature, such as bananas, mangoes, papayas, jackfruit, durian, and other sweet tropicals. Occasionally we would eat avocados or nuts but these are difficult to find and to get to the edible part so most of the time we will keep searching for the sweet fruit.

In the modern unnatural world we have way too many unnatural things to eat and choose from. We still have the same instinctive urges to get the highest most dense and calorie filled foods but now we have no jungle to find them in but we have restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, meat markets and our own homes.

Our instincts have not adjusted to this change. The environment is totally changed. It's a wonder that there are even any people who are not obese. I suppose there are some people who have experienced some serious illnesses and have learned to avoid the urges. Others are motivated by strong performance in their sport or they are just very interested in health and the natural way of life.

Next time you have the urge to fill yourself up with high density food like whipped cream covered cheesecake, think about why you have these urges and what they used to mean before the advent of our modern society.

Follow the urges but with natural foods like bananas and mangoes and you will be grateful. Your health will improve exponentially. Reach for the bag of bananas instead of the chocolate cake and ice cream.