Serious Health Costs

I've heard people time after time speak of it just being too much trouble to cook for one, or they are too tired to go home from work and cook.  So they eat out frequently or purchase deli food, which is filled with nitrites and preservatives.  Eating out is becoming a health hazard unto itself.

Our food supply, even to prepare food at home, is not optimum, as we've reported; but ketchup, pickle slices, and onion bits on a double cheese burger do not count as vegetable servings.  French fries are not a vegetable, and most beverages we refer to as juice are only fruit flavored.  Flavoring is not the same as a portion of whatever it's flavored like.

I noticed on a ketchup bottle, just today, that it contains no high fructose corn syrup.  That's wonderful, but tomatoes were the first of our produce, to be genetically engineered.

Many Americans now eat like teen-agers on a date, most days of the week.  Few people take a lunch to work, as the Dollar menus really do make it so much cheaper and more convenient . . . but that doesn't really address the long term cost.  Our health is diminished and our health costs have skyrocketed for two reasons.  One, our diet is ridiculous. Second, we don't have to actually pay for our health problems out of our own pocket.  Between fast food and convenience stores, many are living on Elvis food, but . . . the difference is, with health care provided, the personal cost doesn't have to be considered.  Now you may say, but the cost to our health is personal.  Yes it is, but few, very few do anything personally about that.  The pharmaceutical profit margin proves that.

Most Americans will say they hardly go to the doctor, don't like to take medicine, and know they have unhealthy eating habits; but when it boils down to reality, they will schedule an appointment, even a surgery and take a prescription before they truly consider changing their lifestyle or diet.

Medicare requires more funding because senior citizens eat out much of the time, and often on their way home from yet another doctor appointment.  Medicaid cannot cover the demand of the younger generation who live on fast food, have babies without spouses, and have been taught their eating habits by the folks who stop and get something on the way home from work, so they don't have to cook.  The majority of the boomers have moved beyond a medicaid dependent household and not yet reached the medicare benefits, but when that happens, we will have an entire country doing what they want, eating what they want, while looking for a doctor to fix how they feel, and expect the bill to be covered by a program.  I'm not for Obama's Health Care Bill, but I can see that something had to be done.

If the majority from toddlers to seniors are going to eat like teen-agers, somebody's got to make the grown up decision that pays for all this!

Chickening Out

I feel like I'm doing some sort of balancing act between sounding a warning and fearmongering.  I see a horrible vicious cycle between a tainted food supply and increased health problems.  This is where I will stand by the mantra of the Goshen Gazette and simply serve up links:

 We don't tell you what to think

or how to think, 

we just present information 

you might want to think about.

http://seriouslyepicstuff.com/usda-gives-china-green-light-to-sell-unlabeled-meat-in-usa/

http://www.realfarmacy.com/plastic-chicken-pumped-full-of-chemicals-water-and-pig-skin/

http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/2013/09/chicken-to-be-exported-to-china.html

Comparative Pricing

Even before I was homesteading, I made it a rule to not purchase meat in discount chains.  I worked in a family meat market years ago, and I knew the prices, quality, and seasonal fluctuation of the meat industry.  That's not to say, I'm an expert, by any means, but I do know enough to realize prepackaged discount meat just never seemed to be a bargain, but more of a potential mystery.

Local grocery stores and meat markets on the other hand, and I realize they are a sparce presence in most communities, but these individual retailers do have rhyme and reason for their prices and their bargains.  Some of the few of these that are left still get their beef in by the side, and break it down in the cutting room, so it's fresh, it's got a USDA quality stamp on it somewhere, and it goes on sale, when it needs to get moved out of the case.  The best example I can give is preparing for a holiday.  Usually quality steaks are in order for Father's Day, so the ground beef will be on sale, because customers wanted steaks that week-end, or steaks will be on sale after Memorial or Labor day, because burgers were the big purchase item that week-end.  For those meat markets and stores that actually cut meat, the entire side needs to go in roughly the same amount of time.  Then, there is also the seasonal cycle of availability in which the wholesale price fluctuates.  Ranchers maintain breeding seasons, feed plans, and market cycles.

Now, back to the places that advertise "always low prices" in their meat department.  Included is a link in which the blame is cast, the buck is past, and chances are six months after the date in question, most of it has already been consumed.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/feb/09/aldi-100-percent-horsemeat-beef-products

Even though I do raise my own meat, I watch for the sales in the meat case, I know is supplied locally, after a big event or holiday week-end.  I had the opportunity to chat with a young woman with small children, who made mention of the big box chain having better prices.  We chatted for a moment about the very possibility that boxed meat and prepackaged products can be mislabeled.  Even unintentionally, the damage is done, long before the error is caught.

Of course, in America, with all the redefining, perhaps some day in the future, horsemeat will be the new "beef."  Gay used to mean happy!

Talkin' Treif

Treif is the Yiddish word for unclean, or not kosher.  As the debate rages amongst Christians and Torah Observant believers as to the interpretation that Messiah died to cleanse pigs, catfish, and shrimp, I thought you might want to consider this perspective of clean and unclean . . .

This article says more and says it better than I could ever convey.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-11/asian-seafood-raised-on-pig-feces-approved-for-u-dot-s-dot-consumers

And the swine, because it divides the hoof, yet chews not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass   These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat:  And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.  Deuteronomy 14:8-10

It is acknowledged in most religious circles that if Messiah lived or taught against the Word, He would have been a false Messiah.