Organically Grown?

It seems like the term organically grown is a new trend. I get advertisements every Tuesday from the mailman in my mailbox. Usually they go directly into the recycle bin but once in a while I flip through them. Recently I see a new trend.

Many stores and restaurants are using the word organic in their advertising. I see some businesses advertising foods that are organically grown. These foods are not necessarily fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts or seeds but most often they are processed foods such as pancake mixes, slices of animal flesh, or processed dairy and or egg products.

First of all, the term organic is a relatively recent invention. It was coined in the late 1930s when the world of agriculture had turned to using the leftover products from the war for crop production. Prior to that time most every crop was already organic.

Organic really implies that the food was raised without artificial pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers and other products that have a direct affect on the food. This doesn't mean that the crop is totally raised naturally but that the 'cides that are used on the crop are of an organic nature.

I saw an ad in a magazine that was advertising wine. The top of the ad said that prior to 1945 everything was organic. Wine is not a food or a drink that is really important to the nutritional state of humans so it's not really important if wine is organic or not since it is already a poison. It doesn't matter if a poison was created in a less poison environment because it can't really get less poison than poisonous.

The other foods certainly do make a difference. Unfortunately when dealing with processed foods or animal foods, organics really loses most of it's meaning. The idea behind organics is to have food that is as close to the way nature would have created it in the first place.

Processed food and animal products are already foods(?) that have been modified from what nature provides for humans and therefore using the term organic to describe them is not really in the spirit of the intention of the term. In these cases it is more being used as a marketing term and not a term to describe how close the food comes to being grown in nature.

In general when I select foods to consume I will opt for the organic version as often as is practical. When the price is totally outrageous for the organic variety for example of blueberries I will either pass on them or occasionally I will opt for the conventional variety. A good compromise is buying from the farmers at the local farmer's markets who assure me that they do not use any pesticides on their produce.

These methods are acceptable to me since I feel the pesticides used on the plant are more likely to cause problems with my health than the fertilizers, which the plant can 'choose' which part of them it needs and which it doesn't need. Plants will naturally grow roots towards the minerals and organic products it needs in the ground and away from the products it doesn't need or which can be harmful to the plant.

The most important point I wish to make in this post is that we actually need to seek out and pay extra for organic foods these days while from the beginning of time until about 1939 or so there was nothing but organics available for our consumption. Does this make any sense? Why isn't it the other way around and we grow everything organic and take a small percentage of the food and grow it in a 'conventional' way and charge extra for that? Doesn't that make more sense? If people take a liking to toxins in their food grown in an extremely unsustainable way they should be able to choose these but to force this on the entire population is outrageous.

Isn't it Funny How People Are?

I find it very amusing how people behave, especially when it comes to diet. People who eat a certain diet, which of course is always the best diet in the world, will recommend to others to eat the same way that they do.

Why is this so? I suppose it is because people are so insecure that they need to see others doing the same as them in order for them to feel like what they are doing is okay. If they can convince others to do as they are doing it must be right.

I see so many people who are 'experts' in one diet or another who recommend the diet that they eat. What made them experts in the first place is that they started to eat that diet. It's like a young child strapping on a pair of ice skates and they fumble around the skating rink, sort of just walking with the skates and after one week he or she is an expert in skating.

The majority of these experts are really just that, someone who tried a diet for a period of time and after a week, a month or in some cases maybe a year or so they are now the world's expert on diet and everything ever known about diet and nutrition is second nature to them.

They have such a huge ego that they 'know' their trial of a diet is the best and only valuable diet for any human on the planet. If they felt a bit sick or something just wasn't right at the beginning they would make a slight change, such as adding in some goat milk or raw meat and suddenly everything is back to 100%, eventhough it takes decades or even a lifetime of consuming a diet before one can have any idea of it's real value.

Why do people behave this way? Why can't they just study nutrition, observe humans on different diets, look in the world of nature and see what other similar species to humans are eating and absorb objective information before they start rambling on about how their diet is the best in the world, when it is really their ego that is the biggest in the world.

Most people in the western world were raised on a similar diet that includes meat, dairy, grains and lots of processed junk food. Most of these diet experts were successful in reducing some of the really health destroying food groups but were still addicted to some of the others. This of course allows them to make the claim that they are consuming the best diet in the world, when they know full well that they still consume a lot of very bad foods.

Let's analyze these clowns and understand that they are not making diet recommendations based on true health but based on their own addictions. If they say that they 'reduced' the meat or dairy in their diet read that as they are still addicted to meat and dairy. Eliminating meat and dairy is one huge step beyond where they dared to go.

If they say that eating 75% raw is all that is needed, this can be interpreted as them saying that they are still addicted to cooked foods and eating 100% raw is way better than eating 75%. If they say that some condiment is okay to consume but in a small amount, such as sodium, garlic, onions, etc. take that as meaning the best diet has zero condiments but they themselves are still addicted to these condiments.

Diet Dogma

One of the most amazing things about humans and human cultures is that a person's diet is extremely sacred to them. In fact many more people will change nearly anything in their life before they will change their diet. You can refer to my post about more people changing sex than diet for more references.

What a person eats is like their persona. It is part of their life. It is similar to the features of their face and body. Over the course of their life they developed a certain style of eating and they know that it is the only one that works for them.

I watch people who put condiments on their food even before they taste it to see if it needs any condiments. I watch people who eat a certain food every day and after eating it they complain how sick it makes them, but then they will repeat the same behavior the very next day.

It's almost as if the food causes a memory lapse. Then there are the adventurous eaters who are willing and ready to try almost anything anytime. If they see the menu lists something that they never tried before it will certainly be on the top of their order.

Some of the least suitable foods and most dangerous to the human body are the most popular. Often these foods are full of addictive substances such as opioids. This leaves one to wonder if these eaters are really enjoying the food or are they just addicted to the substances.

Added to all this are the various cultures of the world. Every culture, religion, ethnicity, nationality, province, state, city, county, region, area, creed, family, etc. have their own dietary guidelines that must be observed. Obviously these are the best dietary guidelines in the world and there is no reason to stray from them.

Even those people who obviously are seriously hurting themselves with their diet such as the severly obese and overweight, those with reversible diseases such as type II diabetes, elevated cholesterol readings, heart problems, digestive tract problems, arthritis, and many others will not ever consider that they have caused their own illnesses and could reverse them just by changing their diet.

In fact many more people are open to new concepts in many aspects of their life such as trying a new career out, moving to a new city, state or even country, even accepting a new religion but most will not ever consider a change in diet except possibly for a very short time as in a 30 day period.

Food is much more important to us than it should ever be. It is how we sustain our lives but it should not be part of the very fabric of ourselves. It is playing so many parts in our lives.

Food is our entertainment, it is used to control us, it is used to divide the rich from the poor, it is used as a sport, it is used in countless traditions and ceremonies, it is used as medicine, it is used as a mood adjuster, it is used for communicating with others, it is used for too many things beyond what it is really meant for, which is the daily caloric and nutritional supplement to sustain life.

If food was a scarce commodity like it is for most of the animals that live in nature, we would appreciate it much more for the value it brings to us. We certainly would not be bored of the every day food we eat and we would not be searching for newer and more exotic foods and combinations of foods.

If we needed to actually search for our food and we could only eat when we find it, then all the unnecessary uses of food will instantly go away and humans will again return to the health they once knew.

The World is Obsessed with Death

It's everywhere. You can't seem to go very far or do very much in this world without seeing or hearing about death. Death seems to be a popular subject throughout the world.

For example if you walk into a grocery store the first thing you see is a refrigerator or freezer filled with death. There are dead fish piled up high, dead shrimp, dead clams, dead crabs. In another section of the same store there are parts of muscles of dead animals. Pieces of animals' legs, chests, rumps, thighs, and even some entire bodies or heads of animals that are dead.

If you go to the cleaning products aisle there are products that that say that they kill 99.9% of germs. There are products that say they kill viruses, they kill pests like rats, mice, insects and the like.

There are stores totally devoted to killing that sell 'sporting' goods to kill anything and everything in any size. There are handguns, shotguns, bows and arrows, electical guns, poisons, traps, and other assorted killing equipment.

Most people will sit down to 'enjoy' a plate full of death. There are dead animals in most of their dishes as well as other assorted dead foods that have had their life forces destroyed by heat from cooking.

Everything that has been cooked or heated is dead and has very little value to the human body in that state. Few if any life forms will consume these dead products. Most carnivores will only eat a dead prey animal after it has recently been killed. They rarely will eat an animal that was already dead except in a situation where they are nearly starving to death themselves.

Of course there are a few exceptions such as vultures which survive off of the scraps of already dead animals but few species behave this way.

Why then are humans so obsessed with death? We have death sports like hunting and fishing where the primary objective is to kill another being for the purpose of sport and entertainment.

Most humans however do not and will not participate in the killing of their food. They prefer to have someone else do the dirty work and kill by proxy. They allow the butchers and slaughterhouse employees to do the killing for them. This is still killing but most people will never admit to being a killer.

Besides all of this there are dog fights that usually end in one or more of the dogs dying. Hundreds of people will pour into a basement or an outdoor ring to watch these dog fights and see violence and death.

Besides the dog fights are the chicken fights. People actually train chickens to peck each other to death when they meet another fight chicken. Eventhough these are illegal in most of the USA still there are many illegal chicken fights still in operation in most of the country.

In cultures such as the hispanic culture there are bullfights. These 'fights' are not really fights but an unecessary slaughter of a helpless bull. The bull fighter is equipped with swords and other lethal weapons but the bull is only equipped with it's natural defenses which are it's strength and it's horns. There is practically no chance of one of these bulls ever 'winning' one of these competitions. Still thousands or even millions of people attend these bloody events in the name of entertainment.

On the streets of Asia you can see the sales of sometimes live and often dead animals to be used for food or other possibly religious ceremonies.

Nearly every Hollywood movie is chock full of violence and death. There are vehicles blowing up, people being shot, stabbed, burned, hung, run over and killed in every new creative way possible.

When a convict is killed everyone wants to see the procedures in countries and states where the death penalty is still legal. The obituary pages of the newspapers of the world are some of the most popular pages of the newspaper. In fact my parents look at that section before they look at even the first page of the newspaper.

What is so exciting about death? Why don't we have a world that is obsessed with life? Why can't we all agree that life is the way to go and eliminate all of the death? Of course death is totally natural and is the end of life but we don't need to be so obsessed with it. In order to actually have a healthy and happy life, no death is ever needed, we can eat healthy and tasty food that totally comes from plants in their natural state. We can enjoy many sports that do not require another being to suffer or die. There is no need to present death as a glamorous way to entertain ourselves.

Death is not something to sensationalize, it is something we need to recognize but then move on and concentrate on life and the living. Does anyone disagree with this?

How Much Water Should One Drink?

I already addressed this topic on my original blog, but unfortunately the URL has been taken down and is no longer accessible. I decided to post a new posting on water because most people do not understand how much water we need or do not need.

If you follow the mainstream they will always recommend that we drink at least 8 glasses (8 US ounces) of water a day. This amounts to about 2 liters of water a day. This recommendation of course is based on the typical American diet, which is a very highly concentrated diet of processed foods with tons of added salt, spices, additives and condiments.

In fact this recommended amount of water is probably way too low for the average American dieter. In order to clean out all of the toxins that they consume a lot more water than that is necessary. Almost all cooked food (except for boiled or steamed vegetables and possibly rice) is extremely dehydrated. For each ounce of cooked food at least 2 to 3 ounces of water are needed just to rehydrate the food.

More water than that is needed to help the body eliminate the toxins and the resultant toxins from our metabolism of these foods. In fact the recommendation is off by about 100%, at least 16 glasses (8 US ounces) should be consumed a day when eating a cooked diet.

If you are not on a cooked food diet or a dehydrated food diet (as the gourmet raw diet) and you consume only fresh, ripe, raw whole foods like fruits and vegetables then your need for water drops. Most fruits are full of water as are most vegetables.

If you live in a cooler or moderate climate and you do not do a lot of extremely difficult work or exercise then your recommended consumption of water would not be very high. This also depends on what kinds of fruits you are eating that day.

If your diet consists of a lot of low water fruits like dates and bananas then you will need to drink water to make sure you are hydrated well. If on the other hand you consume only very high water content fruits like citrus, mangoes, papaya, etc. then your need for water goes way down.

In fact if we still consumed the 8 or 16 glasses of water a day with a diet of high water content fruits you would actually be hurting yourself and not helping by over taxing your kidneys.

If your urine is clear and you go urinate at least 8 to 14 times a day then there would be no need to drink more water. That would only cause your elimination organs to unecessarily work harder than they should. Every organ of the body except the heart and lungs needs to have a rest, forcing the kidneys to work all day long is preventing them from getting sufficient rest.

Judge for yourself. If you are seeing clear urine and you urinate between 8 and 14 times a day then you do not need to drink more water. Waking up once or twice a night to urinate is also normal and not a sign of something wrong.

Do not just go out and drink more water just because somebody is telling you to, make sure that you are hydrated well by checking the color of your urine and how often you urinate. Depending on your level of activity and the climate where you live the amount can range from less than half of a liter to as much as 3 or 4 liters a day.

Why Are So Many People Sick, Overweight and Obese?

When I speak of the typical diet in this post I am speaking of the typical diet of most Americans or even most North Americans, which includes Canada and Mexico. Although Mexicans consume a very different diet from Americans and Canadians, they do not consume a diet that is compatible with a human digestive system.

I live in the southwestern part of the United States now. This area is close to the state of Texas. Most people know Texas as the state which includes lots of cowboys. There are ranches and cattle farms everywhere in Texas.

One of the typical restaurants in Texas is known as Rudy's. Their web site is www.rudys.com There are branches of this restaurant in other states such as Colorado, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

They have their menu available on the web site. Most of the items available are heavy on the animal flesh. In fact most of the dishes are predominantly meat from a cow. They have a couple of chicken, turkey and pork dishes listed on the menu but most of their specialty is the good old cowboy favorite, beef.

Most of the items on the menu are listed as 1/2 pound of meat.

I decided to check their nutritional information to see what the average customer of this restaurant is getting when they eat one of the meals there. I am really only interested in the percentage of fat. Fat is probably the most important nutrient for human health. Once a human's diet includes more than 10% of it's calories from fat the person will start seeing predictable declines in health.

Here is a breakdown of the items on the menu:

Brisket, moist (1/2 pound) 641.4 calories 454.95 from fat: 70.93% calories from fat

Brisket, lean (1/2 pound) 614.16 calories 431.01 from fat: 70.18% calories from fat (really lean!)

Turkey breast (1/2 pound) 212.83 calories 22.59 from fat: 10.61% calories from fat (almost 80/10/10)

Pork loin (1/2 pound) 465.9 calories 289.17 from fat: 62.07% calories from fat

Chopped beef (1/2 pound) 617.13 calories 416.43 from fat: 67.48% calories from fat

Pork spare ribs (1/2 pound) 458.03 calories 329.49 from fat: 71.94% calories from fat

Baby back ribs (1/2 pound) 383.37 calories 329.49 from fat: 85.95% calories from fat

Half chicken (1/2 chicken) 730.31 calories 454.95 from fat: 62.29% calories from fat

Regular sausage (whole link) 640.00 calories 468.09 from fat: 73.14% calories from fat

Only the turkey breast is anywhere near the 10% or less of calories from fat which is necessary to stay healthy. Of course the overall diet should have less than 10% of it's calories from fat and not just one meal so if one eats a meal like this only once in a long while and all of the rest of their meals are extremely low in fat then they would still be living a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately this is rarely the case and most people eat a diet that averages way higher than 10% of it's calories from fat.

Even the lean brisket is only .75% less fat than the regular brisket. Not much of a savings in fat there at all.

Besides all of the other negative health consequences of eating foods like these such as hormones in the meat, antibiotics, diseases, possibility of food borne contaminations like e-coli and salmonella, low vitamin and mineral and other micronutrient values, the percentages of fat by calories are as much as 9 times the recommended values.

If you or someone you know still desires to eat foods like these, please educate yourself and understand the consequences. Being healthy and consuming foods like these are mutually exclusive.

What is too Extreme?

I thought it was about time to say something about this as it has been on my mind for more than 3 years now. Just to give a history of where this is all coming from, I read the book "The 80/10/10 Diet" by Douglas Graham in 2006.

I found the information so astounding and realistic that I almost immediately stopped what I was doing at the time and converted to a whole foods raw and low fat diet.

Actually my diet at the time was quite different from the mainstream. I was eating a nearly 100% raw diet with big salads covered in olive oil and lots of almond and other nut butters smothered on raw seed crisps for lunch.

The diet I was on was giving me about 35% of my calories from fat. This was far from the ridiculous 65% plus derived from most raw gourmet diets but still way above the target of under 10%.

The information was not extreme at all. It was not radical. It made total sense. If anything was extreme or radical it was everyone else's diet. It's no wonder the world is so sick, everyone is overweight, obese, complaining of so many illnesses.

Even people who I thought were doing fine, I later found out were really quite sick. For example one of my coworkers who I recently met as I started the new job seemed like he was quite healthy. I don't see too many people eating the standard North American diet who are slim, fit and healthy.

I thought I found one example of this. This person is about 50 years old and works in the information technology area. They seem to adhere to the usual diet of most Americans. Burgers, fries, soda, some home made cooking, a few salads covered in oils and vinegars, etc. are what I usually see this person eat.

After a few weeks there was a discussion in our office and the truth came out. This person is suffering from gout. They limit their intake of red meat and other foods that cause a relapse. Even the one person I felt was an example of how someone can eat poorly and still be healthy turned out not to be so healthy afterall.

It really seems to me that if the usual diet of most Americans was the right diet for people then they can eat all of the things they like in any quantity and still not have any problems or consequences. Obviously this is not the case as even one of the only healthy looking people I know is suffering from gout and must limit certain foods in their diet.

Now back to the book I read in 2006. The book was so meaningful to me that I wanted to reach out to others and make sure they read it. I lent the book to my mom. I then lent it to a friend.

I believe that my mom read most of the book and my friend read a little of the book. He said that he skimmed through it. Both had the same comment, they felt that the diet described in the book was too extreme.

If it is too extreme then nobody can do it, or at least only certain chosen people would be able to do it. It's kind of like someone who is an amateur runner but never ran a marathon saying that running is great but running a marathon is too extreme.

Certainly a marathon is not too extreme for the thousands of marathoners who participate in them regularly. In effect it is not really too extreme but it is too extreme for them personally.

The same goes for the diet, it is far far from an extreme diet. In fact it is the only diet that is not extreme. Anyone who says that it is extreme is just saying that they themselves find it too extreme and that they rather stick with their poor addictive diet and use the "too extreme" excuse to not even bother to try it.

Is anyone in agreement?