By Dina Eliash Robinson
How appropriate that the sole writer (read: thinker) among the politicians competing for nomination of Democratic candidate for President in the 2020 presidential election was the only one who connected the high cost of medical care, as well as the struggle of finding a fair and affordable solutions to the nation’s fragmented health insurance system. She also connected them to the epidemic of chronic illnesses among Americans.
“We need to talk about why so many Americans have unnecessary chronic illnesses,” author Marianne Williamson said during the second debate among Democratic contenders, blaming the epidemic-proportion of diabetes, cancer and other chronic illnesses on our “chemical policies, environmental policies, and food policies.”
In fact, those of us accustomed to watching for and listening to the subtexts of written and spoken words, can easily discover that both the chemical and environmental policies she mentioned pertain directly to our food policies.
In other words, you are what you eat! Foods are depleted of nutrients and poisoned when sprayed, treated or processed with toxic chemicals or produced in polluted environments (i.e. soil, air and water), causing cancer and other chronic and often fatal illnesses that are expensive and painful to treat. Government-created food policies that make fast foods chockfull of harmful ingredients cheaper than nutritious organic plant food, for example, encourage unhealthy food choices among low-income and poor people—as well as
among those who are susceptible to appetizing-looking fast-food advertisements.
Our advice:
- Eat only when you start feeling hungry—i.e. to prevent over-eating when you get too hungry.
- Eat slowly.
- Stick with small portions and wait a few minutes when you finish to make sure whether you really need to go back for seconds.
- When choosing from restaurant menus or while shopping for foods to take home, always ask yourself “is this nutritious, safe and healthy for me—and/or my family?” Above all, never give in to the gremlin that whispers in your ear “but I like this.”
- Read labels and ask questions of restaurant and grocery store staff. Choose organic foods whenever possible and always choose foods that are free of trans-fats, high cholesterol fats, too much salt, too much or ‘bad’ sugar (i.e. above all, avoid high-fructose corn syrup), avoid foods that list additives and preservatives on their labels.
Tooting Our Horn: Use this FreeRangeClub.com site for reliable information about safe and nutritious foods. We save you time by spending oodles of ours doing in-depth, multi-source research and translating the results into easy to read, entertaining (and sometimes humorous) articles for your convenience.
While we would welcome revenue-producing paid advertisements for healthy products, you will notice that our content is so far advertising-free—so you may take advantage of our beautifully illustrated but ad-free articles.