start applying my knowledge of food and good health to my daily life

there are so many things i could go on and on about on this subject, but as for the goal i feel like i have actually kept up with it

ok so here is my take on milk. As a newborn your mothers milk has all the nutrients and vitamins you need to get a stong and healthy immune system. The sometime between 6months and a year (sometimes more but thats the general time frame) you are weaned from your mothers milk and thats it. your done.

So why do american’s consume so much milk? “It has calcium” they say “it good for you” they say “it prevents this this and this”, well if every mother would be willing to breast feed, or at least use a pump so that there babys could get all that super consentrated nutrition from the begining…

The nutritional value of milk in todays society is far less benficial than it was years ago when everyone owned there own cow and hand milked it daily. Today they feed cows hormones and all kinds of things to get them to grow bigger faster and produce more milk faster. Well what goes in has to come out, so you get a side of hormones with your milk. The level of hormones is probebly around or more than the level of calcium you get. Let me tell you a true story of a little girl, she is the daughter of my sisters best friend from highschool. when she was about a year and a half old her parents one day noticed that she had started to grow a few pubic hairs. I kid you not, i’m not sure if they switched to organic milk or if they switched to soy, but let me tell you they switched and they switched fast, and told everyone else they knew with kids and i’m pretty sure they switched too. This proves that the amount of hormones in milk that are being consumed by us and our children does have an effect. if it makes the cows grow bigger faster, whats going to do to our kids? make them grow bigger faster. why so you this the age for hitting puberty is early now. When i was that age the average was 12 or 13. i think i was infact 12. but i keep hearing about girls starting as early as 9 years old. and haveing fully developed breasts by 12. no wonder they are haveing sex so younge. you can’t control what manufacturers put in the food, but you don’t have to buy it… you can control what food goes in. I was raised on meats, on fresh and raw veggies, sure i have pastas and breads but i don’t have then to often and the breads i do eat are rye and sourdough and whole wheat or something like rosemary and olive bread. The only food i eat out of a box is the occasional bowl of cerial or grits. A box of either of those will last at least 3 weeks (longer for the grits).

So with world on this ‘health’ kick where it’s ‘do anything to wear the size i want’, 1%, 2%, skim, non fat milk are all water. seriously milk so watered down that the amount of fat is insignificant by FDA standards. I don’t remember how much for sure but any ingredient less than like .01% is not required to be listed on the label. think about that. Those boxes of highly processed foods with those long lists of words you can’t pronounce, there is probebly another list just as long that they aren’t required to list. Sure the amount per serving may be insignificant especially if you Follow the serving size and only have it once in a while… but after eating the whole box the amount of those ingredients multiplies by the number of serving you’ve consumed. and on average americans consume 2 to 3 servings more per meal. I mean if you treated those french fries like green beans you would only consume maybe half of a child size serving of them. When was the last time you had fresh green beans? and canned green beans are NOT “fresh”.

Gah all the chemicals in food… we should be eating meats, fruits, veggies (fresh, raw, cooked by us) and whole grains, real grains yeah that bread your old aunt makes in her bread maker that comes out looking grey and one slice feels like it weighs about half a pound that is real bread. it’s no wonder we consume so many chips and breads and other things thats what they do they pack it with fat and chemicals so it tastes good then you eat about a thousand because after a serving they were to weightless and full of air you don’t feel like you’ve eaten any.

but back to the original topic. if you go to asia you will see that they do not consume milk, milk is for babies, after that… thats it. they don’t even use it for cooking that i know of. and they are all healthy, probebly more healthy than we ever were. If as a nation we would stop being so freakin lazy and “i want it now” then maybe we would learn that good nutrition does not come in a box or a pill.

Food for thought:
We are the mammals that drink another mammals milk.

If you have to have milk for something use soy, the nutrition and protien in soy is better for you than milk is, and it’s really not as bad as you think. but i was never a milk drinker anyways i only use it on my cerial and when i make banana bread or pancakes for special occassions.

For someone who is well over the healthy weight for their age/height/gender this is a good and legitimate goal. BUT it shouldn’t always be for just the size on your pants or the number on your scale. it should be about the condition of your body. personally i think a woman with shapely hips and thighs is sexy, having wide hips is a trait that is uniquely feminine.
Just because someone ‘weighs’ more doesn’t make them over weight or unhealthy. Sumo wrestlers live in the place where they train, and they eat a very specific and controlled diet that is taught to them and most often cooked by the teacher/trainer/leader, to purposfully put on the pounds and keep them healthy. Yes they do train daily but if you notice some of there stomachs still jiggle when they walk. Years and years ago being heavier used to mark you for automatic respect because only wealthy people could afford that much food, it also said to someone who wanted to be your partner that you were healthy. I know that this doesn’t really apply now, especially the wealthy part because coinsidently(spelling?) the foods that are the most processed and worst for you are also the cheapest on the shelf.
I don’t think it should all be about just finally getting to some number on the scale, it should be about the condition of your body. people who are healthy have more energy and have more regular sleep patterns.
The best tip, shop the parameter of the store stay out of the isles and you will still have everything you need with minimum amounts of processed chemicals and empty calories.
I was raised in a house where we ate meat and potatoes, we didn’t get to hate sugar coated cerial for breakfast. every now and then i would get to pick a cerial like frosted flakes or maybe lucky charms other wise the sweetest cerial i could get was honey nut cherrios. but you know i am thankful for that, even kids that eat nothing but junk run out of energy fast.
Raw fruits and veggies (salads even), lean meats, whole grain breads. Alot of people hide behind their kids and say “oh i can’t cook like that they won’t eat it”. What the heck, they aren’t going to starve they will eat it eventually and their tastes will change. I can honestly say that even as a child i loved salad, i still do. I’m not a big sweet eater, I don’t really like ice cream, maybe once in very long while, but i just don’t care for it. I’m not big on chocolate either, but i do like the occassional brownie.
If you start on your kids from the begining they will aquire a taste for real food. I did, sure the over processed air and sugar puffed foods are tasty once in a while but there is no nutritional value to them, they shouldn’t be whats in your pantry on a regular basis. People need to stop looking for the easy way out and just do the work. I understand that more and more families have both parents working. If you need to save time do what my mom used to do, buy in bulk spend one afternoon cooking a weeks worth of meals and packing them up in ziplocks and throwing them in the freezer. The only real obsticle is the cooking of meats, everything else really just needs to be warmed, pasta doesn’t take more than 10 minutes to cook in boiling water. I mean come on, go ahead and chop all the lettuce and put it in a bowl or ziplock, buy presliced carrots, buy frozen veggies and steam them or add them right into the skillet with the already mostly cooked meat and let them heat together. meals don’t have to take longer than 15 or 20 minutes to make, get the kids invovled if you’ve got the salad stuff already chopped up have one put it in bowls, if you are having bread have one put a little butter and make sprinkle a little paresan cheese on them so you can put them in the oven.
Eating healthy is way easier than people think if you invest a little initial time into it. I think that a saturday or sunday afternoon in the kitchen is worth it compares to the emotional and physical price you will pay years from now if you don’t.

that i am expecting, some of you don’t… so here is an update. I am doing my best to eat and be healthy though some days i just don’t want to get out of bed and i am not sure why that is. other days i make a list and do everything on it. My mom is pushin for me to get a job for atleast a while and i would like to but i feel like whats the point when i will have to quite in like 3 months. and i know i can work right up until but maybe i don’t want to. Getting up up before 9am is not something i’m good at and i often am so tired in the afternoon i take a nap.

my dad is threatening to pay off a big part of my debt and my car and i just don’t know if i want all that and i think i am going to have the baby adopted and i just don’t know about anything. mom being the type a personality she is, she wants me to make the decisions right now, make the plan and do it… right now, not tomorrow, not next week but thats not how i work i hate feeling pushed and rushed or forced to make decisions and act on them when i am still not sure if i made the right decision. ahh

The best way to start is by making your home a place of the least ‘fight’ for your body. Meaning that when you do home your insides aren’t going to be assaulted by chemicals, in the air or any other way.
Get rid of all those counter top and plug in air fresheners even scented candles. all those scents are pure chemical all your doing is putting them in the air and breathing them for hours. If you have to have a scent use natural essential oils (try Earth Fare or www.lovingscents.com) i’m not talking about the “aromatherapy oils” you get at walmart. I’m talking about the real thing, pure plant extracts. all you need is a tiny bottle of scent and a oil defuser, a drop or two will last all day. (cindy loving of lovingscents does awesome aromatherapy classes, she has been studying and working with them for years, she is a well of knowledge)

Secondly whatch what you put in your body. you don’t have to completely switch your diet to natural and organic foods (even though that would be best) just don’t take in so much processed stuff like anything you can get in a vending machine or kraft, wishbone, hiddenvalley salad dressings… switch to a vinigarette and i mean the real kind, yeah the ones that seperate with all the herbs at the bottom. So you have to shake it before you use it, your arm won’t fall off i promise… are you really that lazy? or try just some oil and balsamic vinigar (it’s better than you think) fresh meats, yeah buy it raw and cook it. and raw veggies and fruits.

Have you ever compared side by side mcdonalds or wendies chicken nuggets with chick-fil-a ’s … chick-fil-a uses real chicken and you can tell by the way they pull apart like a piece of chicken breast does. I know what mcdonalds chicken nuggets used to be made of before they were made with “all white meat” and you don’t wanna know… but know this. if it doesn’t look like chicken (i mean the good parts you really wanna eat) is it really something you want to put in your body??

well i am health junkie, i am addicted to health magazines, studies, research, aromatherapy, organic products and foods.
I do believe that part of what has messed up our culture is the constant exposure and aiding with chemicals. your body doesn’t know how to process all these chemicals. and they are everywhere, in those over processed foods (especially the kid foods) and drinks, air fresheners, prescription after prescription after prescription. There will never be a cure for cancer and there will never be a cure for HIV/Aids because those two things combined would put 75% of the medical community out of business. Keeping us dependant on them and the chemicals they give us is the easiest way for them to make money.
I mean what kind of state does someone have to be in to need 3 different medicines just to help with the side effects of the one before?? If we could get our bodies back into a natural balance then we wouldn’t need all this.