Apples

I'm kind of a pain when it comes to them. I really want people to eat apples. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of their taste. I used to hate it as a kid when my mom sent me a lunch with a red apple for "dessert" ek! "Unacceptable," I thought. Truth is they do have a bit of sugar in them, but their taste would not compared to the Swiss cake rolls I really wanted.

My relationship(and appreciation) changed when I discovered that I had acquired an unwanted mental, physical, and emotional reaction to coffee. I have an intolerance or allergic reaction that makes me anxious, depressed, and obsessive several hours after I drink coffee or colas. Once I realized this was happening I quit caffeine immediately. It was definitely not worth the buzz, and I never looked back. What was nice is eventually I stopped yo-yoing with the caffeine buzz and crash and I slept better.

I still did have a problem to solve. My diet was still just the usual American fare so I needed a boost for my 4am shifts at work and supplement other times if I didn't get enough sleep. I forget if I was told or I just accidentally just ate one, but I started to notice that eating the previously unacceptable food did me a lot of good. It became my "cup of coffee" whenever I was feeling low energy.

The list of the good things that are in apples is amazing. Patrick Quillian's book that features apples cider vinegar lists all the nutrients(that scientist know of) in whole apples and I counted somewhere in the field of 400 nutrients. Things like furmeric acid, which can help with psoriasis. That's 1 of 400ish that I picked at random. So apples have a ton of good stuff in them and I can feel them working when I chow down. Caffeine usually messes with people. Often there is a wired distracted feeling until it's out of your system and then you crash. This doesn't happen with apples. It's not the same kind of high. The boost isn't as big but it certainly is a huge help. Your brain is actually helped by the food instead of only keeping you awake and because of the carbs your body is just not going to crash like that.

Since this discovery I'm a pretty heavy apple pusher. People that spend the most time around me know if they mention they are sluggish or over tired I will suggest or command that they eat a nice Red Delicious or Fuji(in my experience the redder the better). And if they are smart enough to listen they are happy with the results. Again, I don't really like the taste and maybe you don't, but it's still worth a try...

A Note On Healthcare.

An excerpt from "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell, PhD

By any number of measure, America's health is failing. We spend far more, per capita, on healthcare than any other society in the world, and yet two thirds of Americans are overweight, and over 15 million Americans have diabetes, a number that has been rising rapidly. We fall prey to heart disease as often as we did thirty years ago, and the War on Cancer, launched in the 1970s has been a miserable failure. Half of Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and over 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.

To make matters worse we are leading our youth down a path of disease earlier and earlier in their lives. One third of young people in this country are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. Increasingly, they are falling prey to a form of diabetes that used to be seen only in adults, and these young people now take more prescription drugs then ever before.

These issues come down to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

This is a problem with our heath care system that needs to addressed much more than all other problems with access. I completely understand that there are very useful technologies and procedures of Allopathic healthcare, a large one being emergency care. For example, if I am hit by a car and break bones, no amount of kale will heal me. I would like my bones reset quickly, which would involve action from a team of doctors, possibly even surgery. While other facets of our current, traditional health care sometimes can help people at the last minute by exposing their bodies to various chemicals, inevitably it can do a myriad of harmful things that may be permanent. And this traditional way of approaching sickness almost never makes determined efforts to change the underlying problem.

I usually want to laugh when I hear about another new whole food that "can help in the fight against cancer." Why? Because ALL plant-based whole foods from the ground do that. Eating the regular diet of white breads, deli meats, a selected few types of veggies sometimes adding acai berries or pomegranate to your diet will not keep you safe from the possibility or cancer. What we need to know is that these fresh whole foods are the primary foods we should be eating. Then, if we choose, we can supplement with convenience foods. Our country's current thought on food and health is backwards. Right now, the idea is to consume whatever is tasty and easy and then go to the doctor when you get to your 40s and fight cancer. Instead, we should educate ourselves on what is right for us and learn to love the foods that have been feeding our species for thousands(or millions) of years now. If we do, we will lead an extremely more vibrant and healthy life while avoiding long stays in the hospital.

I may not know or understand the details of what is happening in Washington right now, but I have a pretty good clue what is going on in people's kitchens, as well as the quality and perspective on health in the doctors office. That's what needs reform. If not I believe that we will be giving a nice hand to nice people for more rat race type drugs, and doing almost nothing to really stop a bad cycle of sickness.