Killing Ourselves and Others in the Name of Convenience

America is now experiencing the aftermath of one of the most devastating weeks in American history. The Virginia Tech massacre, in my opinion, is just another symptom added to an already long list of symptoms that is crying for us to Wake-Up. One of the most important aspects of natural medicine is that we do not treat symptoms, but instead, try to get to the root cause of these symptoms. This is exactly what needs to happen, quickly, in the US if we want to continue the access to the freedoms that most of us take for granted.

While I am not a huge conspiracy theorist, it is very difficult not to wonder why we are being bombarded, from within, by so many terrible happenings. Every time a crisis occurs we have freedoms that are taken away in the name of safety and we all nod our heads in agreement because, afterall, who doesn't want to be safe? But I submit to you that this is only dealing with symtoms, not the cause.

Dealing with health concerns on a daily basis, I understand the importance of good health and well being, possibly even more than most because I am also a cancer survivor. We are now in the midst of a huge bombardment against clean food, clean water, clean air, clean personal care products and clean supplements. Just as we are losing freedoms in the name of being safe, so are we losing health freedoms in the name of convenience. Let me explain my thoughts about this.

Clean Food

Right now, this very minute, Big Food, is trying very hard to make it to where we cannot know what is in our food or how it has been processed. Never mind that all pre-packaged food has only a small amount of useable nutrients and is filled with chemical preservatives, but now the FDA allows labelling foods as 75 percent organic knowing that the public will hone-in on the word organic. I would love to know exactly what 75 percent organic means--wouldn't the 25 percent that is NOT organic negate anything that is organic? Think about it. They also want to remove labeling requirements for irradiated foods and allow raw almonds to be pasteurized, which technically means they will no longer be raw but will still be labeled in that manner, while continuing to label them as raw. On top of this they have decided that we do not need to know if we are eating cloned meat or if the vegetables that are offered in grocery stores have been genetically modified. Why is there such a push to audulterize our food supply? Could it be to control a population by keeping them in bad health?

Big Food realizes that most consumers do not have the time or means to grow their own vegetables, another concern as now they are even messing with the seeds, chop their own vegetables, find local farms to buy dairy and meat from, etc. We do not even have time to daily sit down for one family meal. Why? Too much to do and too many places to go. Just so much easier to drive into the local fast food joint, pick up some burgers, fries and drinks and be on our way. We eat fast food or prepackaged foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night snacks and never consider the ingredients. In doing this the average American consumes 160 pounds of sugar each year. Found in over 42,000 food products, the average American consumes close to five grams of Trans Fat a day, while evidence suggests even one gram is too much for a healthy diet.

Common sense tells most of us that messing with food and/or trying to improve on Gods creation may not be the smartest thing to do. And we would do well to listen to this common sense.

Clean Water

Who would have ever thought we would see the day when we would have to pay for clean, pure water? Well, we have arrived. We have polluted our water to where more and more chemicals must be added to make sure it is safe. Of course safe means different things to different people. Huge amounts of fish and frogs are being contaminated and dying because of chemicals and pharmaceuticals flowing into our waterways and ground water. Most fish are not even safe to eat because of mercury contamination. Even our bottled water, packaged in the ever convenient plastic bottle, is compromised by the plastic leeching into the water. Of course all the big plastic companies have promised that this should be of no real concern.

We now have bottled water companies that are conveniently adding fluoride to the water so that our childrens bodies will now have more of this carcinogenic chemical to ensure health concerns at some point in their life. Most city water municipalities fluoridate the water, conveniently, so that we will have strong and health teeth. If this were actually helping our teeth why is there still a need for dentists?

Clean Air

I have lived on the Gulf Coast of Texas all my life. I was diagnosed with cancer while living in one of the most air polluted counties in Texas. In the name of convenience we are now walking through a maze of polluted air that mostly affects the endocrine system. Asthma and allergies are at all time highs. We now must have home air purification in order to take care of all the out gasing from appliances, wood, paint, flooring, etc. and because homes are made so air tight that that the air becomes unhealthy. If we open the windows we are exposed to all the polluted air from industry. We have been told that ozone is hazardous, do your research about ozone, to our health and for our convenience we now have ozone alerts when actually they should be named chemical alerts. Supposedly industry must follow strict air quality standards but the fact is they ignore these standards and should they have a chemical or gas release they are fined a very minute amount compared to what their yearly profits amount to, basically just a slap on the hand.

Clean Personal Care Products

We must realize that the skin is the larges organ of the body and that whatever goes on the skin will usually go into the body in some form or fashion. I encourage you to, right now, get up and go get your shampoo, deodorant, make-up, toothpaste and perfume and cologne and magnifying glass and then begin to read the ingredients. How many can you pronounce? How many ingredients do you actually know what they are? Can you even read the ingredients? Most are in tiny fonts so that you will need a magnifying glass. These are products that you use on your skin and in your mouth on a daily basis, sometimes more than one time per day. Now add these chemicals to all the chemicals you ingest from your prepackaged foods. And we are constantly told that these chemicals will not harm the body. Please read my ebook Chemical Soup Your Health Under Siege

Clean Vitamins & Supplements

We are now to the point to where we must supplement our body with vitamins because our soils have been so compromised that we no longer get the vitamins and minerals that our body must have in order to maintain health and well being. We have companies that are marketing synthetic vitamins and doctors that are promoting them. They are inexpensive because they are synthetically derived and convenient since all the corner drug stores carry them. We even have some companies in the natural health industry that continue to put harmful excipients into their supplements along with misguiding customers as to how much product is really contained in each tablet or capsule.

So What are the Solutions?

At OAW we are all about answers and solutions. There is always hope and always answers. After reading all of the above it can make one want to throw up their hands in defeat. I am constantly asked What can we do to stop killing ourselves in the name of convenience?

My first recommendation is that we must realize that convenience does not equal no consequence especially when it comes to health and well being. We must take time for ourselve, time to nourish the mind, the body and the spirit. This cannot be done by driving up to a window and asking for a serving of each. It takes desire, discipline and determination and it is usually NOT convenient as it takes WORK.

The second thing is to continually research and educate yourself. I would suggest signing up for the FREE OAW monthly newsletter Advanced Health and Wellness where we offer up to date and cutting edge articles about natural medicine and getting healthy and staying healthy. There are other great natural health newsletters and information sites on the Internet.

The third recommendation would be to change your diet. I am convinced that IF people would change their diet to a healthy one, we would probably see at least three fourths of all disease diminish and or go away. Why do I say this? Because I have seen many clients get well by just changing their diet. A healthy diet does NOT include the following: white sugar, white flour, hydrogenated oils, grocery store dairy and meats, foods that are pre-packaged in cans, bags, etc., sugar drinks, tap water, GMO vegetables and fruit, baking powder with aluminum, table salt, irradiated or nitrate-containing meats and farmed seafood. If you want to get healthy, lose weight and stay healthy then I recommend our e-book Optimum Health Strategies Doing What Works at http://www.oasisadvancedwellness.com/products/optimum-ebook.html

If you are not healthy then, obviously, what you have been doing as far as life-style is concerned has not worked. The next recommendations would be exercising (walking) for 30 minutes every day, 30 minutes of sunshine on as much of the body as is legal, drinking half of your body weight in ounces of clean, pure water every day, making sure that your personal care products are all-natural and do not contain chemicals, organic excipient-free supplementation, alleviating stress and negative emotions and getting eight to ten hours of sleep every night.

The last recommendation I would make is to get off as many pharmaceutical drugs as you can. This is something that you will need the help of your doctor in accomplishing. However, the healthier that you get, the more likely you will not need pharmaceutical drugs. I am always amazed at the fact that when the body becomes healthy, the emotions also become healthy. When the body is not being controlled by chemical drugs, the emotions become healthy. The body does not get sick from a lack of pharmaceutical drugs which are toxic chemicals that only mask symptoms but NEVER get to the cause of the health concern.

Your mind and emotions are crucial to good health and well-being. If you are altering your mind with chemicals, of any kind, then the whole body suffers. Mind and mood altering drugs are not the answer for depression and anxiety. The answer lies in bringing the body into good health and well being and keeping it in this state. The answer lies in learning skills of how to address anger, depression, stress, anxiety and the issues of life.

We must learn to take responsibility for our own health and emotions. God has put within our body certain healing mechanisms; mechanisms that do not work well when chemicals are added. We must learn to be inconvenienced in order to put healing foods and water into our body. We must be willing to take the time necessary for ourselves; time to nourish our soul, time to physically nourish our body. Health matters! Just ask someone who has recently been diagnosed with a life threatening disease or illness.

We have witnessed a mass killing of innocent young people by a person who exhibited signs of needing help. Instead of being helped he was given a quick fix of mind-altering and personality altering drugs. This is also what happened at Columbine. This is almost always the case when a parent takes the lives of their children. Conventional medicine says the answer lies in a few pills, very convenient and no work involved. Just pop a pill and everything will be ok. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is NOT working. Until we decide to confront the REAL issues of getting harmful and addictive chemicals out of our lives, then we will continue to see the VA Tech episode repeated. It is time to take back our health from Big Pharma, Big Food and conventional medicine and to become responsible for our own health. We MUST do this if we are to continue to remember what good health and well-being consist of. The powers that be would love for us to forget. And many people have done just that.