These are the ingredients of my breakfast smoothie. When I began making this smoothie about 7 months ago now (wow, has it been that long?) I drank it maybe 2 times per week. Now I have this smoothie every morning. I love it! I know it probably seems like a strange way to start the day to most people, but drinking this smoothie gives me so much energy and makes me feel so good, that I am addicted.
We Westerners have become so trained to think of medicine as what comes in a pill or what happens in a doctor’s office or hospital, that we have largely forgotten that food and lifestyle are medicines just as much, if not more so, than any pill a doctor can give you.
You are what you eat. Literally. If you eat crap, you will be crap (speaking health-wise of course). Likewise, if you live a stressed lifestyle that doesn’t allow for time to exercise, time think, time to breathe, time to reflect, then your health will be sub-optimal.
I heard today that the rate of people getting diabetes has doubled since 1980. Type II, adult onset diabetes is entirely a food and lifestyle disease. We know this, and yet the number of people with diabetes continues to skyrocket. It is amazingly hard for people to stay healthy when surrounded by cheap junk food, cars to transport us everywhere - no walking required, 24/7 entertainment, and pervasive advertising of crap: food crap and plastic crap that we don’t need. No wonder we are sick. The planet is sick and the people on it are sick.
My view is that we need a complete and comprehensive change in the our food systems and transportation systems in order for both the planet and us to become healthy again. Instead of subsidizing large agribusinesses that grow GMO corn, wheat and soy covered in chemicals to make toxic processed food, and run factory farms to grow animals pumped full of antibiotics, eating chemical-laden food, and living miserable lives only to die miserable deaths and go on to become nuggets at your favorite fast food joint, we need to go back to small, family farms - organic farms - only better than the “old days” because we now have so much more information about how to grow food sustainably and organically thanks to the small but vital organic farmers who have stuck it out over the past 30 years during the agribusiness explosion.
Unfortunately, organic food is threatened because companies like Monsanto and their corporate stooges who have infiltrated our government (and have convinced even Obama that GMO is the only solution to the forth-coming worldwide food shortages) keep creating GMO (patented) seeds. These seeds are planted by large agribusiness companies. They are designed to withstand intensive application of chemicals, chemicals that have been shown to cause birth defects, cancer, neurological problems and more. These seeds grow into plants that spread seed on the wind to other farms, small farms, organic farms, and contaminate the organic crops, so they can no longer be called organic. And not only that, Monsanto thugs then go to these farmers, whose farms were unintentionally (or intentionally???) contaminated and tell them they have to pay Monsanto because these patented plants are growing in their fields or they will be sued. These farmers have no recourse against Monsanto; Monsanto is just too big and rich to fight. And so, gradually all the food grown here in the US and round the world becomes Monsanto patented GMO. And organic disappears. And more and more farmers and countries grow GMO corn, wheat and soy, and raise factory farmed animals because Monsanto and the US government are working hard to convince them that it’s the only way to grow enough food. And more and more people eat processed food diets made with all this corn, wheat and soy, and more and more people die of heart disease and diabetes and cancer.
Is this what we want our world to be?
You and I have the power to change this by choosing what we put on our plates and in our bodies. You can choose to support your local farmers, you can choose to buy organic food, you can choose not to buy Monsanto products. If enough of us make these choices, we can have better health and a better planet.
p.s. From Mother Nature Network:
Organic produce is grown without pesticides, which keeps chemicals from entering the water supply and helps prevent soil erosion. Organic farming also uses fewer resources than traditional farming. According to a study by The Rodale Institute, organic farming practices use 30 percent less energy and water than regular growing. In fact, a study by David Pimentel, a professor at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found that growingcorn and soybeans organicallyproduced the same yields as conventional farming and used 33 percent less fuel.
